After the last two Mario Party games not being that well received by both fans and critics alike, Nintendo has returned to the series to its roots, but in this case, is less actually more?

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For the uninitiated, the Mario Party series is a series where up to four players take turns rolling dice and moving around a board collecting coins and stars as they go, that later of which serves as the game’s victory condition. The boards feature a number of different aesthetics and unique gimmicks. At the end of each turn, everyone participates in a minigame. These minigames feature a variety of different types of gameplay and are at the core the experience. Unlike other Nintendo party game franchises like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros, games take a lot longer to complete, with the sorted game duration option taking about an hour to complete.

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The first observation I had when playing the game was the size of the boards. They are significantly smaller than in previous entries. However, this is not necessarily to the detriment of the gameplay experience. Players are now a lot closer to each other during gameplay which makes the race for the stars more tense. Unfortunately, each board seems to have the same basic race for the randomly placed star goal as opposed to the unique and varied board rules present in the series since Mario Party 6.

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The second observation I had was the drastic change to the cast of character when compared to previous entries. Usually, Bower and his minions were the bad guys and wreaked havoc on Mario and company during gameplay. This time around Bowser, alongside several other notable Mario baddies, is actually a fully playable character, a first for the series. Each character comes with their own unique die that the player can choose role instead of the standard one, which gives each character their own sense of identity and adds a tactical aspect to the game. In addition, the player can summon allies during gameplay, which allows one to use the special dice of other characters and slightly increase the number of spaces they move each turn. While I welcome the changes to the playable cast, I am somewhat disappointed by the choice of hosts in this game. Previous entries have fun original characters with unique designs serve as the host character. This time around, Toad, Toadette and Bowser’s chief minion Kamek play the role as hosts.

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The minigames make up for many of the shortcomings of the boards in this game. They are fun and varied as ever. Some are fairly easy and others are extremely difficult. The traditional 4 player, 2 v 2 and 1 v 3 games all make a return; however, the Bowser minigames are gone due to him being a playable character. In addition, duel minigames (1 on 1 minigames played between players who land on the same space are also missing) which is unfortunate as the smaller boards would have made these more frequent.

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One odd choice for this game is the decision to mandate that the game be played using single sideways Joy-Con controllers even in docked mode. This decision makes sense as the game features motion controls for the minigames and in a few other places, but it’s frustrating that one really can’t use Nintendo’s portable console as a handheld for this game. Other than that, the controls are solid and I never really thought the motion controls were too intrusive to the overall experience.

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While the overall experience is very fun, it requires friends in order to truly shine through. Between the lack of a dedicated single-player mode and enemy AI that is laughably stupid at times, it’s clear Nintendo designed this game to be played by four real people, so grab your friends and buckle down for a flawed, but very fun ride.