Has Mario Party ever made you so violently angry you just had to scream? Great news! The Nintendo Switch 2 has an answer to your prayers. In Super Mario Party Jamboree: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition & Jamboree TV, you can use your vocal cords as a cathartic instrument when someone steals your stars.
With integration of the Switch 2’s mic and camera, it gave me a chance to test out one of the new console’s peripheral oddities – since this was a large-scale in person event, we couldn’t try out the online chatting systems, so this was the best way to see it in action. Having also played the enhanced Switch 2 version with mouse functionality, Super Mario Party Jamboree might be a better example of the broad potential of the Switch 2 than the more graphically intense showcases it has to offer.
Jamboree TV Reinvents Mario Party
If you already own Super Mario Party Jamboree, it might be best to think of Jamboree TV as DLC in the same fashion as Kirby and the Forgotten Lands’ upcoming expansion Star-Crossed Worlds. However, for those buying it for the first time, it comes packed in with Jamboree, and is basically considered part of the core experience.
Scanning you with a camera and isolating you from your background in the same style as those annoying TikToks where a content creator points irritatingly at a caption from someone else’s video, Jamboree TV puts you in the game directly. Stylised as a game show where you’re the contestant, it’s a good way to change up how Mario Party plays while keeping how it feels. It’s not for the self-conscious though, which means it won’t work for all players of all ages in the way Mario Party usually does.
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We’ve played countless games on the Nintendo Switch 2 and it feels like a monumental step forward.
One of the best examples of this was the minigame that relied on the raw, unfettered power of screaming. Obviously, it’s a fun idea in concept, but you’re probably not going to see every friend group rushing to try this one, if they even can, depending on where they live. As a technical bicep flex though, it is impressive.
This happened in a crowded event hall that naturally had a lot of background noise, and the Switch 2’s mic did a great job of blocking out everything but the sounds of our voices. Obviously, the screaming was significantly louder than this noise, as I found out while playing the nearby Donkey Kong Bananza to what sounded like someone being fitted for a pear of anguish, so it’s hard to qualify if it really will block out a kettle for speaking volume as shown in the Direct.
Super Mario Party Jamboree Is Surprisingly Suited To A Mouse
As for the mouse games, there are a total of six being added to Jamboree. Since we were in a party, we played four, each choosing one. However, since we didn’t play the letter-sorting minigame that featured heavily in the Switch 2 Direct, I feel like I’ve got a decent handle on most things Jamboree can do with a mouse.
The first game saw the mouse turn into a wind-up car, where the Joy-Con is dragged backwards to generate speed in much the same style as Drag x Drive. It’s a good use of the mouse as something other than a mouse, and the fact you can bash your opponent off adds some decent flavour. The next game was standard fare – stack these oddly shaped blocks as a team by grabbing them with the mouse.
Every mouse game on offer was a 2 vs 2 game. I’m not sure if these are the only types available, or we were just given these for the demo.
The third game is where you start to see a bit more Mario Party spirit. Essentially two on two air hockey, my teammate and I came up with the strategy of him keeping goal and me on the attack. The only issue is he would often save it, the puck (a shell, for Mario flavour) would bounce off me, and would rebound into our goal. As two strangers, he just smiled and shrugged as if to say ‘ah, never mind amigo’. I suspect if we were friends, he would have been reaching for the screaming minigame.
And the fourth game, with a nice dose of nostalgia, felt like something from the Wii era. You control a spray can with your mouse, needing to turn a Bob-omb either blue or pink. But when your cam runs out, you need to hold the Joy-Con aloft and rattle it around in a very tactile use of the motion controls. While the letter sorting seems based on the same basic movements as the stacking, it does feel as though a lot of thought has gone into ‘what can we do with a mouse?’ instead of ‘what games can we make with a point and click mouse?’, and that in turn makes them more enjoyable.
Jamboree TV and the mouse functionality add to Super Mario Party Jamboree rather than transforming it, which remains a solid if unspectacular entry in the Mario Party canon. But together, the improvements show that there is a breadth to the Switch 2’s potential, not just a depth. And if the ever-rising price of video games gets you down, don’t worry – you can always scream about it.
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OpenCritic
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Top Critic Rating:
81/100
Critics Recommend:
88%
- Released
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October 17, 2024
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo