Super Mario Party at the test

Super Mario Party 2018 is another series of important Nintendo games on the switch. And this turns out to be a little dilemma: On the one hand, the game convinces with a fun, casual and varied gameplay. The scope and the technical implementation speak for themselves. Everything indicates that Super Mario Party is an excellent game and deserves a very good score. If there was not one …

Clbadic dice game

But let's start from the top. Super Mario Party offers a dense program: there are eight game modes, 80 mini-games of six categories, 20 characters, stickers to collect and even an online mode. Despite the extensive offer, everything revolves around the legendary party mode. In Mario Party, players fight on a game board to win. At first you have the choice between three different platters ("Wummp-Domino-ruin", "King Bob-ombs powder-mines" and "gigantic fruit paradise"). You must first get rid of a fourth. Before the game begins, you must decide how many rounds to play. You can choose from ten, fifteen or twenty rounds. Part lasts at least an hour. The goal is to collect as many stars as possible, which can be purchased at Toadette for ten pieces collected. You must roll the dice at the beginning of your turn. You can use the standard or special cube. Each character has their own cube with their own number pattern. After each round, a mini-game is played in which he must sometimes exist with, sometimes against his teammates. Prices are coins that can be used to buy new stars. The playground is also full of special fields where you can, for example, receive valuables.

Partner Party

In "Partner" mode, you do not fight alone in the table, but always with a duo teammate. The points obtained are added and each player is allowed to move his piece on the field. This is not linear as in the clbadic mode, but divided into squares – so you can move in all four directions. In addition to the result, you also share parts, objects, and stars. The goal and the gameplay are similar to those of the clbadic mode.

The crucial point with the allies

On some of the special boxes on the board, you can unlock allies who join your team and support you with one more die. It does not seem bad at first, but a closer inspection destroys any tactical action. It is even less possible to predict where to land after rolling the dice. A superior dice result is not always the same as a best dice result. The game is unfortunately still arbitrary. To make matters worse, there are sometimes bonus stars at the end of the game, for whoever (by chance!) Had the right ally. And that brings me to the next point.

Too much coincidence

A certain amount of luck definitely belongs to Mario Party – not just to Mario Party, but in general to many games. But what you sometimes live at Super Mario Party borders on mockery. You play well 19 rounds, use the objects with care and try to survive in the mini-games, play the role of leader in the last round, and here is what happens: we lose a star to the benefit of an opponent who finds another star at the same time in a normal field (because, just like that) and then he comes to the end of the game at all excess too a bonus pen because he happened to have the right ally. And zack, the controller is flying.

Mini games on the top

Not only the selection of mini-games, but also their quality can absolutely convince. Another advantage: he does not win the one who has the most luck. Competence and competence are indeed rewarded. This greatly increases the pleasure and motivation. Individual tasks are easy to learn and difficult to master. Before you begin, you have the opportunity to practice a tutorial. The game only starts when everyone is ready. The motion control of the JoyCon is very well used.

Here is how the online mode works

For the first time, there is an online mode in a Mario party. It is played against random friends or opponents of the net in what are called cups. These are fixed, change after fixed time intervals and consist of a total of five mini-games. Of these, four are fixed and one random. Opponents are usually quite fast, but there are problems with the quality of the connection. Unfortunately, it often happened that the game was jerky and that the inscriptions were delayed. This could be due to the fact that Nintendo renounces the dedicated servers and directly connects the players. Too bad also that the clbadic mode can not be played.