is a 2024

party video game A party video game is a genre of video game that stems from in-person party games, involving player-to-player interaction as the central gameplay element. These games are often defined by simple controls which can be easily picked up and understoo ...

developed by

Nintendo Cube formerly known as Nd Cube and later NDcube, is a Japanese video game developer and a subsidiary of Nintendo headquartered in Tokyo with an additional office in Sapporo. They are best known as the developers of the ''Mario Party'' series since ...

and published by

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

for the

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

. It is the thirteenth

home console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few game ...

installment in the ''

Mario Party is a series of party video games created by Hudson Soft and owned by Nintendo. It features List of Mario franchise characters, characters from the Mario (franchise), ''Mario'' franchise in which up to four local players or Artificial inte ...

'' series, and the third on the Nintendo Switch, following '' Super Mario Party,'' and '' Mario Party Superstars''. Like most installments in the ''Mario Party'' series, the main gameplay loop features players, either human or computer-controlled, using characters from the ''Mario'' franchise to compete in a

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

with

minigame A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements and is often smaller or more simplistic than th ...

s after each turn. The game features a

single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in add ...

mission mode as well as several other

game modes In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics define how a game works for players. Game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide player actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, wh ...

, some of which require the use of

motion controls In computing, a motion controller is a type of input device that uses accelerometers, gyroscopes, cameras, or other sensors to track motion. Motion controllers see use as game controllers, for virtual reality and other simulation purposes, and ...

. Typically up to four human players can compete at a time, but depending on the game mode, up to twenty human players can compete via online matchmaking. ''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' received positive reviews, with general praise for its

game board A game board (or gameboard; sometimes, playing board or game map) is the surface on which one plays a board game. The oldest known game boards may date to Neolithic times; however, some scholars argue these may not have been game boards at all. ...

selection,

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

functionality, and general polish, but criticism for some of its game modes. Some have considered it to be one of the best ''Mario Party'' games to date. An upgraded

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

for the

Nintendo Switch 2 The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo, released in most regions on June5, 2025. Like the original Nintendo Switch, Switch, it can be used as a Handheld game console, handheld, as a Tablet computer, tablet, or connected via ...

, featuring new modes and minigames, is scheduled for release on July 24, 2025.

Gameplay

''Super Mario Party Jamboree''s gameplay is split between numerous different modes, most of which require the usage of

Joy-Con Joy-Con are the primary game controllers for the Nintendo Switch, a hybrid video game console. A set of Joy-Con consists of two individual units, each containing an analog stick and an array of buttons. They can be used while attached to the mai ...

controllers and all of which can be accessed in the game's hub area called the "Party Plaza". In the hub, the player can access their game data and settings, listen to the game's selection of music, customize different aspects of the hub, and change their

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional Character (arts), character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters tha ...

. The game boasts 22 playable characters (

Mario Mario (; ) is a Character (arts), character created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the star of the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise, a recurring character in the ''Donkey Kong'' franchise, and the mascot of the Ja ...

Luigi Luigi (; ) is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Part of Nintendo's ''Mario'' franchise, he is a kind-hearted, cowardly Italian plumber, and the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario. Like ...

Peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and Agriculture, cultivated in China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties called necta ...

, Daisy,

Wario is a character in Nintendo's Mario (franchise), ''Mario'' franchise that was designed as an Archenemy, archnemesis to Mario. Wario first appeared as the main antagonist and final Boss (video games), boss in the 1992 Game Boy game ''Super Mar ...

Waluigi is a character in the Mario (franchise), ''Mario'' franchise. He plays the role of Luigi's arch-rival and accompanies Wario in spin-off (media), spin-offs from the Super Mario (series), main ''Mario'' series, often for the sake of causing mis ...

Yoshi Yoshi is a fictional dinosaur who appears in video games published by Nintendo. Yoshi debuted in '' Super Mario World'' (1990) on the SNES as Mario and Luigi's sidekick. Throughout the mainline '' Super Mario'' series, Yoshi typically serves ...

Toadette The ''Mario'' franchise is a media franchise created by Nintendo. Nintendo is usually the developer and publisher of the franchise's games, but various games are developed by third-party companies such as Intelligent Systems and Nintendo Cu ...

Toad Toad (also known as a hoptoad) is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. In popular culture (folk taxonomy ...

, Rosalina,

Donkey Kong is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong, a large, powerful gorilla, and other members of the List of Don ...

Birdo Birdo, known in Japanese as is a character in Nintendo's ''Mario'' franchise. Her first appearance was as a boss character in ''Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic'' (1987), which was localized for English-language audiences as '' Super Mario Bros ...

Bowser , also known as King Bowser or King Koopa, is a Character (arts), fictional character and the Antagonist, main antagonist of Nintendo's ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise."The Top 100 Videogame Villains". IGN. Retrieved October 8, 2010. ...

Goomba Goombas (), known in Japan as and originally Little Goomba, are a fictional species from Nintendo's ''Mario'' franchise. They first appeared in the NES video game ''Super Mario Bros.'' as the first enemy players encounter, part of Bowser's ...

, Shy Guy,

Koopa Troopa are a fictional turtle-like race of characters from the ''Mario'' media franchise. They are commonly referred to as Koopas, a more broad classification of creatures that includes Bowser, his Koopalings, and Lakitu. Predecessors to Koopa T ...

Monty Mole ''Wanted: Monty Mole'' is a Platform game, platform video game published in July 1984 for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 home computers. It is the first game released by Gremlin Graphics and the first game in the ''Monty Mole'' series. Monty ...

Bowser Jr. The ''Mario'' franchise is a media franchise created by Nintendo. Nintendo is usually the developer and publisher of the franchise's games, but various games are developed by third-party companies such as Intelligent Systems and Nintendo Cu ...

, Boo,

Spike Spike, spikes, or spiking may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Books * ''The Spike'' (novel), a novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave * ''The Spike'' (Broderick book), a nonfiction book by Damien Broderick * ''The Spike'', a starship in Peter ...

, and newcomers Pauline and

Ninji , also called Jinji, was a after ''En'ō'' and before ''Kangen.'' This period spanned the years from August 1240 to January 1243. The reigning emperors were and . Change of era * 1240 : The era name was changed to mark an event or a number o ...

) which makes for the current largest roster of playable characters in the ''

'' series. These characters can be controlled by human players as well as

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI). Much like other games in the ''

'' series, ''Super Mario Party Jamboree's'' main mode, dubbed simply "Mario Party", is an interactive board game that allows up to four players, human or computer-controlled, to compete to collect the most stars by the end of a set number of turns (ten through thirty), with different items and board mechanics that either help or harm the player's chances of success. After each turn has ended the players play a minigame. A majority of minigames use

, though it is possible to turn off the motion-controlled minigames to allow for minigames only using button controls. The board mechanic of allies from '' Super Mario Party'' makes a revamped return in the form of "Jamboree Buddies". Modeled after ten of the available player characters, Jamboree Buddies appear on the board after a certain amount of turns and, when passed, will trigger a minigame to see which player will obtain them. Jamboree Buddies last for up to three turns, activate a board space effect twice, and grant players different abilities that vary depending on the one obtained, such as Waluigi, who steals coins from opponents that he passes. Alongside the traditional set of rules, a more competitive ruleset called "Pro Rules" is available to select which is designed to remove most luck-based aspects found in traditional play. ''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' contains a single-player mission mode called the "Party Planner Trek", in which players help various NPC's by either talking to them, fetching an item, or playing a minigame in exchange for Mini-Stars which are then used to further progress in the mode and unlock hub customization options. After collecting a certain number of Mini-Stars in an area, the player must complete a boss minigame in order to progress to the next area. In Boss Minigames, the player's goal is to deplete a large enemy's health bar in a similar style to traditional video game

boss fight In video games, a boss is a significantly powerful non-player character and computer-controlled enemy created as an opponent to players. A fight with a boss character is referred to as a boss battle or boss fight. Bosses are generally far stro ...

s. In the "Minigame Bay" mode, players can freely play any of the minigames or play a set number of minigames that are pre-selected based on their specific type or theme, such as 1 vs 3. A Boss Rush sub-mode, which is unlocked after earning thirty in-game achievements, makes players compete in every boss minigame with the final goal of having the highest score by the end. Three motion-controlled modes are present and require the usage of singular

controllers to function. "Rhythm Kitchen" lets players work together in

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

-based minigames themed around

cooking Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...

. "Toad's Item Factory" is a ball physics-based puzzler that tasks players to work together in moving different contraptions to get a ball to a goal to create thirty items. "Paratroopa Flight School" requires players to use two singular Joy-Con controllers in order to mimic flapping wings and flight. Paratroopa Flight School has three sub-modes that allow players to compete in time-based collection matches, cooperate in carrying characters to destinations or freely fly around a map without any predetermined objective. Two multiplayer-focused modes are present. "Bowser Kaboom Squad" is a cooperative mode where eight players race to defeat Impostor Bowser by collecting bombs, occasionally playing a minigame to obtain items that help the players defeat him quicker. "Koopathlon" is a race where twenty different players compete to complete a set number of laps around a board via collecting coins in minigames. After three minigames, a themed Bowser minigame will be played where if a player loses, they will be sent backward a different number of spaces, the number of spaces being determined on their current position. The game supports both

local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

and

online multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

, with most modes being able to support the former or the latter in some capacity. Players can set up private online lobbies protected by a passcode in order to play with friends. The game also contains an online leaderboard where minigame high scores are logged.

Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

On April 2, 2025, during a

Nintendo Direct Nintendo Direct is a series of online presentations or live shows produced by Nintendo, where information regarding the company's upcoming content or franchises is presented, such as information about games and consoles. The presentations began ...

, ''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' was announced to have an upgraded port on the

. The port includes enhanced graphics and frame rate and new modes that utilize mouse controls, full-body movement recognition through the Nintendo Switch 2 Camera and the microphone built into the console itself. It is scheduled for release on July 24, 2025.

Development

''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' was first announced on June 18, 2024, during a

; it was the first game to be released by Nintendo Cube after their rebranding from NDcube. Described to be "the biggest Mario Party to date", the presentation announced 112 minigames, seven boards (including Mario's Rainbow Castle and Western Land, which previously appeared in ''

'' and ''

Mario Party 2 is a 1999 party video game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. The second game in the ''Mario Party'' series, it was released in Japan in December 1999 and worldwide in 2000. The game received mostly positive ...

'', respectively), and thirty-seven

item Item may refer to: Organizations * '' Instituto del Tercer Mundo'' (ITeM), the Third World Institute * ITEM club, an economic forecasting group based in the United Kingdom Newspapers * '' The Item'', an American independent, morning newspap ...

s. Also announced during the presentation was the online twenty-player "Koopathlon" mode. An overview trailer, released on September 24, 2024, showed off all the motion-based modes (Paratroopa Flight School, Toad's Item Factory, and Rhythm Kitchen) and the online eight-player "Bowser Kaboom Squad" mode. This is the first time that

Kevin Afghani Kevin Zachary Afghani (born November 9, 1996) is an American voice actor. He is best known for succeeding Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario and other characters in the ''Mario'' franchise in 2023, beginning with the Nintendo Switch games ...

voices

, as

Charles Martinet Charles Andre Martinet (born September 17, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for voicing Mario in the ''Super Mario'' franchise, portraying him from 1991 to 2023. He also voiced other characters in the series such as Luigi, Wario, W ...

had stepped down from voicing the character, along with Mario, Luigi and Wario.

Reception

''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, and is currently the highest-rated ''Mario Party'' game on the website. In Japan, four critics from ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' gave the game a total score of 36 out of 40, with each critic awarding the game a 9 out of 10. ''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

''s Logan Plant lauded the game as "an amazing follow-up to ''Mario Party Superstars'' and easily one of the best games in the series". ''

Nintendo Life Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

''s PJ O'Reilly likewise praised ''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' as "the best ''Mario Party'' to date". Ozzie Mejia of ''

Shacknews ''Shacknews'' is an American video game journalism website founded in 1996. It that publishes news articles, reviews, and cheat codes. History ''Shacknews'' was founded in 1996 by Steve Gibson. The website, originally named 'Quakeholio', was ...

'' agreed that the game is "one of the most polished entries in the series yet". Writing for ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'', Dan Ryckert complimented the game boards, though criticized some of the game modes and minigames. In a more critical review, ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

''s Katharine Castle wrote that ''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' "has the misfortune of not being very fun, and mistakes the volatility of chance and happenstance for being the same thing as competitive satisfaction that comes from playing a good game well".

Sales

The game performed well commercially, debuting atop the charts in Japan with retail sales of 227,569 copies. It also debuted atop the charts in the UK, enjoying opening week sales that were 35 percent higher than that of ''Mario Party Superstars''. On January 16, 2025, it was reported that the game had sold over one million copies in Japan.

Awards

''Super Mario Party Jamboree'' was nominated for "Best Family Game" and "Best Multiplayer" at

The Game Awards 2024 The Game Awards 2024 was an award show to honor the best video games of 2024. It was the eleventh show hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of the Game Awards, and held with a live audience at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Dece ...

, as well as " Family Game of the Year" at the

28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards The ''28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards'' was the 28th edition of the D.I.C.E. Awards ("Design Innovate Communicate Entertain"), an annual awards event that honored the best games in the video game industry during 2024 in video games, 2024. The awards ...

Notes

References

{{Portal bar, Video games, 2020s 2024 video games Casual games Cooperative video games Mario Party Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Cube games Nintendo Switch games Nintendo Switch 2 games Party video games Video game sequels Video games developed in Japan