Super Mario Party could be the game to save your Christmas from Fortnite
Is it a board game? Is it a video game? Truth is, it doesn't matter when it's this much fun
ON the most basic level, Super Mario Party is a board game you play on your Switch, populated by your favourite Mushroom Kingdom characters.
It's packed with over a hundred minigames that you can either play on their own or as part of the board game itself.
The main game is played by up to four players on the same console, with the idea being to progress round a number of different boards to collect stars.
As with any board game, you decided how far you move by rolling a die -- and it's with these dice that the personality of each character starts to come through.
Play as Wario, for instance, and you've got the option of a normal die, or one with a maximum that's higher than six--but it's also got two sides that see you go nowhere and lose coins.
We got the chance to check out the main game and a few of the mini-games as well as the game itself recently, and can report that the series really does look to be back to its kooky best.
- Super Mario Party, £42.99 -
The charm extends to character animations when your character wins or loses--it's impossible not to smile as big bad Bowser cheer in triumph as Princess Peach holds her head in her hands after she failed to shake as many sweets out of a jar.
The mix of co-op challenges that will have you shouting at your friends to get your timing just right and cut-throat all-in competitive challenges seems just right from what we've played so far.
From the minigames and metagame we've seen, anyone who could play a board game will be able to play Mario Party. Controls are simple and intuitive, and the little tutorials before each minigame clear up any possibility for confusion.
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Another thing that stands out is the different modes to stitch together the games.
If you've got an hour or so to kill you an set up a full-on game for four people to enjoy at home, but if you've got 5 minutes while waiting for a train there's a mode for that too.
It captures all the good bits of previous iterations and gets rid of a lot of junk that had been added over the years to make a game the whole family can enjoy together -- and it might just be the game to save Christmas by defeating both Fortnite and Monopoly at the same time.