The last time I regularly played Mario Party was on the Nintendo 64. The technology has come a long way since then but the Mario Party formula hasn't really changed that much. This isn't to discredit the pleasant variety of game modes featured in Super Mario Party. Whether going head to head in a team battle, brawling it out in a free-for-all, or riding the waves as a team; there is a game mode for every occasion. Will the ability to pick from several interesting games modes help offset the limited selection of stages? We'll dig a bit deeper a see if the innovation in this newer title makes up for any shortcomings.
So the classic Mario Party mode returns where everyone is competing against each other to collect the most stars. Everyone will take turns rolling a dice and then proceed to move around the board that many spaces. You can set the turns as low as ten and as high as twenty depending on how long you want your game to last. There are four different boards to choose from in the classic Mario Party and the new team mode. The team mode is a real treat as you can actually move around the board in several directions. There is also a cooperative rafting mode in which everyone has to work together to both steer the raft but win more time from minigames. Finally you'll unlock a minigame adventure map and you'll need to win or set high-scores on every minigame featured throughout Super Mario Party.
What is new this time around is each character has an option to use their own dice. Some dice give you a chance to roll higher numbers, have several of one number, or offer coin rewards. To balance out those perks the dice may have smaller numbers than normal or they may cause you to lose a couple coins. Coins can also be obtained by landing on blue tiles or from winning minigames. They are import as you'll need to collect them to buy both stars and power-ups. Once you go past a shop there will be a variety of power-ups to purchase. Some items either let you set your next roll or add a set value to your roll. Other items can steal coins or warp you directly to the star's location.
It is nice to see Mario Party in HD for the first time (we'll ignore the WiiU). Also similar to the original Nintendo Wii this game incorporates motion controls into a handful of the minigames. There is even a rhythm themed dance mode in which up to four players compete in a short series of rhythm based games. Additionally there are even a couple games that incorporate the controller's vibration function. While I wish there was more than four stages at least there are over twelve different characters to choose from. You can select the difficulty for AI players and I never found the default "Hard" AI to be too much of a challenge.
If you ever played Mario Party before I'm sure you'll know what you're getting into. That said the variety of game modes really helps fill out the replay value for this particular title. While classic Mario Party is fun I did enjoy the cooperative nature of the team battles and the rafting. Also playing through all the minigames in the single-player adventure mode did a great job of demonstrating just how many minigames they managed to squeeze into Super Mario Party. I do wish there had been more maps but I guess at that point Nintendo would rather us just buy that next game is the series. So the only question remains is do you prefer the nostalgia of the classic stages offer in Mario Party Superstars or do you want to see the new content offered through Super Mario Party?