I picked this up because there seemed to be a consensus that this was the best Mario Party in ages, going back to basics after Mario Party 10 and Super Mario Party. I definitely agree that Superstars is better than having all players move around in a single car together, but to me, this doesn't feel like a Mario Party worth getting excited for. Having recently played each of these boards in their original titles via the NSO, I don't really see the appeal of Superstars, as it takes some of the simplest and least-engaging boards in the franchise, and eliminates their charming N64 aesthetic in favor of that standard "Generic Mario" visual style. The minigame collection is solid, but these boards really don't do it for me.

I've played this, Super Mario Party, and 1-7 with my kids over the past few years. This feels really weird to say, but... I feel like I need to get Mario Party 8. Maybe that was secretly the best one all along. At least it had interesting boards!

The return to form we've been waiting for. This is a MASSIVE upgrade over Super.

Potentially the most important thing is that you can play this game with a Pro controller. It was absolute hell playing Super with just a single joycon. Your joycon could drift, be uncomfortable as hell, only two people can play unless you buy more of that 70 dollar scam. Seriously I really appreciate the Pro controller support.

This game also doesn't have any gimmicks like MP9 or MP10. It's simply a collection of the first 3 Mario Party's and is really good. It has 5 boards which I'll admit isn't a ton but it's still more than Super. Plus these maps are pretty cool and won't get boring quickly thanks to how well made they are. Minigame selection is also pretty great with there being a ton of them. It's also been optimized well so the minigames are actually fun to play this time around.

In another great move, the game lets you play the board game online instead of just minigames by themselves like Super did. It will also save the game after each turn if you have to go and wanna pick up the game later. This was a surprising but all in all fantastic choice. This is going to be very useful that's for sure.

The only thing I can confidently say that Super does better than this however, is the roster. The roster for this game is pretty bare bones with only the essential characters. This game is rumored to get DLC so I hope that happens so it could not only expand the roster but increase the amount of boards as well.

The hub world isn't important but I just really liked it so I'm gonna mention it. The hub world has a good amount of options. It has your Mario Party, Mt. Minigames (Minigames only), the shop to buy stickers, music, and other Mario Party Legacy stuff which I thought was quite cool. It also lets you play online, offline, or even local which I think was a nice addition to have all their bases covered.

Again, not important but I love this addition, that being the Stickers. Stickers are just little emotes you can use in game or buy from the shop. I just really like the art and thought they were another great addition.

This is a return to form for the Mario Party franchise. It doesn't have any annoying gimmicks, has proper controller support, VERY good online support out the box with consistent connections, and is just a really fun time. If you've been disappointed by the last few games in this series than this is a game you need to pick up. I'm gonna be playing this game for a while. Mario Party is finally back.
9/10

Every board is fun (even if I wish there were just a few more), the online isn't too bad, it's a good Mario Party.

anyway now for what really gets to me, why the Fuck are there only 2 mario party 8 minigames, I refuse to believe there was anything stopping them from adding
• Rotation Station
• Balancing Act
• Cardiators
• You're the Bob-omb
• Sugar Rush
• King of the Thrill
• Cut from the Team
so many damn good minigames from 8 but instead we got a shitty coin minigame and an okay 2v2

8/10, game sucks

Superstars is as definitive as a Mario Party experience you can get. Not tied down by the new, simplified foibles of 9, 10, and SMP, Superstars recaptures the magic (see: nonsense) of many of the classic games with some excellent board choices. Lots of minigames to select from as well, and the addition of stickers is a level of BM I would not have expected from modern Nintendo so kudos to that.

Most of the remixed music is stellar, and the visuals are gorgeous. The levelling and unlocks are nice incentives to play more, and the online and handling of interrupts like disconnects is very well executed.

I would have maybe liked to see some more boards and characters (and if Nintendo is feeling extra psychotic, a 50 turn option as the current max is 30), but I have no doubt that at least some of that will get added in a future update.

Superstars shows that somebody at Nintendo is still in touch with what made Mario Party memorable in the first place, and I hope to see the next numbered title following suit.

Going to subtract a point every time Nintendo cuts corners on this one.

Firstly, fuck Nintendo for doing the absolute bare minimum and just remaking a watered down Mario Party 3 party mode experience with maybe the worst map selection between entries 1 through 8. We have like what, reasonably 9 titles to pull from here and they bring home Peach's Birthday Cake, Yoshi's Tropical Island and Space Land? Woody Woods also just doesn't work well at all without MP3's item system which it was clearly balanced around. But hey at least Horror Land's here so easily half of the play sessions are going to default to it, right?! -1 star.

The item system is also watered down, the actual pool of items being like half the size of most of the others yet still being dominated by mostly just item variants (Mushroom -> Double -> Triple, Warp Block -> Super Warp Block, those weird coupon card things which only confused everyone I ever played this with.) -.5 star

The minigame selection is kind of baffling to say the least. This is the most amount of minigames in a single Mario Party, sure, but it's also the most bloated with borderline duplicates (3 minigames that are all just a vertical ascent platforming challenge) and utterly notoriously awful ones like Tug o' War. It reeks of "hey guys let's google what the most trending minigames are" and because they saw Tug o War at the top of the search results, it must mean good, right? The kicker is they PUT A WARNING NOT TO USE THE PALMS OF YOUR HANDS BECAUSE YOU MAY DAMAGE THE CONTROLLER OR YOUR SKIN. AND STILL PUT IT IN. There's also no way to really curate your own playlist of minigames despite them once-upon-a-time offering it in Mario Party 4 (why has this never come back? tf) -1 star

In a series first, two things: They added online and it's actually relatively decent, +1 star. They also made it so players can no longer hot swap with CPUs which has actually greatly impacted me and my family's ability to finish games. We're all adults, with bedtimes and some of us kids to tend to, we're okay with swapping out for a CPU if something collides with our schedule; so why remove it for the first time ever? -.5 star.

All in all it's a very middling Mario Party, that unfortunately will probably ride its way to the very top of most peoples' lists because of the online alone. But for people like me who want to play this locally with family, there hasn't been a less inviting entry besides 9, 10 and Island Tour. The fact they want $50($60?) + the cost of online for this minimal collection of nothing original whatsoever that somehow features less maps than ANY of its numbered predecessors is the last kick to the nuts here. (Mario Party 1 has 7 maps, and mini-game Island...) I could also go on and on about little details being tossed away assuming "nobody will notice, anyways", like how every character in Mario Party 1 had unique animations for being cut away in Shy Guy Says, or how most remixes sound weirdly muted and flat compared to even the farty midi tracks of the N64, but a bullet point list of everything like that would be boring and depressing. Oh well.

Will probably edit this as I remember/think of more stuff, but these are my thoughts thus far:

Pros:
- Good variety of classic boards with updated soundtrack and graphics.
- Modernized mechanics means holding up to 3 items on all boards with a good variety of items to choose from, as well as more powerful items only appearing at the halfway point.
- Everything moves much faster. You can speed up AI players and skip watching their item/duel mini-games. Longer cutscenes can be sped up by the player who initiates them.
- Item spaces and duels now select from a variety of games rather than a single one that fits the level theme.
- Online is here with a much more stable connection than Super Mario Party, and has matchmaking with randos. Although I frequently do still get one player disconnecting during a match, at least it doesn't end the game for everyone like Super Mario Party did. Edit: Ok it's actually getting really annoying that in a 4 player game the tendency is that one player will leave.
- For the most part, a great selection of 100 mini-games. Though who was asking for the return of Bowser's Big Blast and Honeycomb Havoc is beyond me.
- You can view potential star locations on the map and board.
- You can see how many spaces to the star and what space you'll land on in each direction of a crossroads without opening a map.
- You can make Wario say "Oh Baby!" ad infinitum.

Cons:
- Wario no longer says "Oh my God!" or "Oh I missed!"
- Peach no longer says "Bitches got it!"
- Penguin buttholes REMOVED!
- Fun costumes from Mario Party 2 gone.
- An abundance of luck spaces changes the economy drastically, making it much rarer for a player to not be able to afford a star. This could be good or bad depending on your taste.
- The custom dice blocks from Super Mario Party are gone. I'm sure most players won't care about this, but I really enjoyed the added strategy they brought to the board game part. It's much more engaging to think about the odds of your rolls and watch someone succeed/fail at them when they have more influence than one 1-10 dice plus items.

- Bizarre online design choices such as:
- No punishment for quitters.
- Once you start searching for a lobby, you can't leave aside from waiting out a 90 second timer or quitting the game.
- Despite this being a collection of boards from 1-3, which all defaulted to 20 turns, online defaults to 15 turns, which makes it difficult to find matches outside of that.
- Can only matchmake with randos while playing alone.
- Lack of a ranked mode makes skill levels vary wildly.

as someone who's well familiar with the current state of Mario Party, mostly from other people on the internet, I gotta say....this ain't bad

now I'm not a Mario Party guy, I was always the Mario Kart one instead so don't expect me to go "THIS ISN'T LIKE THE N64 AND GAMECUBE ONES GRAAAAAH" because my personal experiences with the Hudson Soft Mario Parties doesn't go beyond 8, DS, and recently a tiny bit of 7. I will say that when it comes to the post-Hudson Soft games, this is the one that's definitely the closest to the originals (typed by someone who's barely touched the originals). I think what helps is how the Mushroom Village hub from the original is brought back as well as the Koopa Troopa who's the same exact Koopa that's the guide of the boards in the first Mario Party, I think that's really cool. I mean yeah he's no Geno or whatever but seeing him so excited to guide again as well as explaining the board events that took place in the N64 days really makes me root for the guy, welcome back bro. oh yeah Toad's hosting again too but he's everywhere

there's only five boards from this game (two from MP1, two from MP2, and one from MP3) and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. granted they're excellent board choices, even if Space Land was a bit of a mess from my experience, but it couldn't have hurt to include a couple of more boards from the later ones. five is just way too low, the original Mario Party has more boards than this game! at least they're not slacking on the minigame department, which has at least 100 of them, all of them coming from the previous console Mario Parties. of course this is no doubt impressive, I don't even think I've gone through every one by the time I finished all five boards. personally some minigames feel near impossible to win if you're facing CPUs on Hard and Master, but that isn't too much of a critique instead more or less a skill issue on my part, as well as the usual Mario Party BS. lastly I want to mention the Lucky Spaces, which I know were definitely not on the original boards. I don't dislike them really I mean whenever you step on one you always get something good I can't hate that, but I do think there's a little too many of them. in comparison to all those Lucky Space spots, there's only been one time someone landed on a Chance Time Space during all five board playthroughs, they should really replace all those Lucky Spaces with Chance Time that'll truly bring out the chaotic Mario Party experience

so yeah I'm done for the time being. playing through all five boards is my personal completion seeing as there's likely no proper ending for this game. there's achievements and collectibles to get, but they're mostly not too special such as stickers and pages about the characters that you can easily find on the Super Mario Wiki, yeah sorry not incentivized with unlocking all of that. you can unlock the option to use the original board music, but I only wish they went all the way by having the option with the minigames too (I know there's 100 of them but it still would have been neat). but yeah I've probably sounded a bit nit-picky during this review but I really did enjoy my time with the game and I'm looking forward to returning whenever I start playing online with my friends. if you're a Mario Party fan, I heavily recommend checking it out, especially if you got other people to play it with either locally or online. this is really a step in the right direction for Mario Party, and I hope that continue to improve onward. so yeah not much else to say, I like that Mario's pose and the dice block is the exact same as MP1, thanks for reading.

you can't select Mario Party DS as your favorite Mario Party, ignore everything I said Mario sucks