Super Mario Party Jamboree by itself is a great game, but today I am mainly talking about the new features included in the upgrade, the mouthful that is Super Mario Party™ Jamboree - Nintendo Switch™ 2 Edition + Jamboree TV.

While I did enjoy some parts, I believe SMPJNS2E+JTV has 5 key problems that make it less accessible for players. You could call these the 5 things I wish I knew before playing Jamboree TV (or 5TIWIKBPSMPJNS2E+JTV if you’re really into acronyms.)

The Menus Are Confusing

The first of these 5 things I will mention is that if playing the regular Mario Party Jamboree is your goal, it isn’t clear how to access the best version of it. 

When first opening the game I was presented with a menu with 3 options: Super Mario Party Jamboree, Jamboree TV and Gameshare. When I selected the Mario Party option, I was met with the un-upgraded 720p (or 1080p docked) Mario Party we were introduced to in 2024.

To access an upscaled Mario Party with new games, even when I didn’t want to play with the camera, I still needed to select Jamboree TV, which whisked me away to an admittedly fun TV set hosted by the Talking Flower from Mario Wonder. I love that guy. If you dislike him however, the game does give you the option to silence him.

No Access To Half Of New Features For Online Co-op

Speaking of great guys, my friend and co-producer at SIFTER, Chris ‘Mutton’ Button, is one of those for sure; very patient. 

I say this because after waking up early to play only to end up waiting a whole day for me to access a working camera, he was quickly informed by the game that we could not access ANY of the new camera or microphone mini games in online mode. 

That’s right; the second thing I wish I knew before playing was that Jamboree TV’s camera and audio minigames are local multiplayer only.

So, before I played those minigames locally with my partner, Chris and I decided to see what the upgraded Mario Party had to show us, including its new ‘mouse’ minigames. No, not Mario dressed in a little mouse outfit, games in which utilise the feature where one half-joycon works similarly to a mouse pointer. 

The Mouse Minigames Make The Rest Of The Experience Inaccessible

The third thing I wish I knew before playing this game is that, similar to the motion controls in the original Mario Party Jamboree, if you would like to utilise the mouse feature, this new version of Super Mario Party is only accessible by playing with a half joy-con the whole time. Something I don’t talk about too often is the fact that I have EDS. Basically, it’s a joint mobility disorder, and playing with a half joy-con the whole game is just not very accessible for me - the joints in my fingers were very mad at me afterwards. I would appreciate it if there were the option to switch to single joy-con only during games that require it.

This does not mean that these new games weren’t enjoyable. Of the 20 minigames introduced, 14 are mouse games. Games where you need to pull the controller backwards, such as Goomba Scoopas, a game where you use diggers to scoop up goombas, and Ice and Easy, a game where you launch a racecar across ice, felt clunky, and weren’t my favourite. But games such as Bob-omb Makeover where you shake a spray can to coat bob-ombs with paint and Shell Hockey, a virtual game of air hockey, felt amazing! It genuinely felt like I was playing air hockey with Chris, and the mini controller vibrations and sfx worked well for immersion. I am super competitive and I was, admittedly, yelling at him through my webcam’s microphone as if we were in the same room. 

I was so excited when Nintendo chose Mario Party to receive a camera feature and I am devastated that we can’t play more of the new games online. That didn’t stop us from enjoying the way we could see and chat to each other using the camera while playing the new Mario Party Jamboree boards. The simple yet effective camera gimmicks such as the way the money piled up in front of us as we collected it, were very silly and fun. 

Chris won in the end, in my opinion due to a series of very unfortunate encounters I had with Bowser spaces, and we said our goodbyes as I moved on to what I came here for: microphone and camera games!  

More Space Is Needed

This is where we come to the 4th thing I wish I had realised earlier: Mario Party’s new camera and audio minigames, accessed through Bowser’s challenge, require a large amount of space in front of the TV, especially if you are an adult. This is the first camera game for the Nintendo Switch 2 I have experienced that requires this. Other games that utilise the camera such as Mario Kart, allow you to just sit on the couch. This game expects you to stand, sorry tall people. 

This is something I am fairly used to from my era of childhood gaming, but for those who haven’t picked up the Xbox Kinect since its release in 2010 or the playstation 4 camera since 2013 it may come as a shock. 

However, after setting this space up and placing my face in front of the camera I felt my inner theatre kid take charge. I personally LOVE the novelty of a camera feature, and I hope it is utilised in more games in the future (*cough* Switch Sports *cough*). I have really fond memories of my younger sister and I running around in front of the Eye Toy, diving around screaming at the Kinect and replaying sped-up Singstar and Just Dance highlight videos where we were the stars. 

Bowser’s challenge does a great job of realising just that. In my opinion, when unable to use it to talk to friends online, the reason kids and adults alike will use a camera function locally is because they think it’s funny to be the star. The game immediately made me feel special, as I was picked from a crowd of screaming fans to compete and be judged by Bowser, who we all know is the coolest out of all the Mario characters (note: I said coolest, not best). 

The games are extremely simple and fast-paced, played in quick succession. When you start you are asked to pick between video and audio games - and like the other menus in this game, I have no idea why they made this decision. I understand having options for each individually, but after playing a selection of only 3 video and 3 audio games over and over, I wish that they also gave you the choice to mix them together. Despite the different selections, the challenge ends the same way every time - a scream-off. Due to the length of Bowser’s Challenge being around 5 minutes, I got sick of the scream mini game pretty quick.  

I enjoyed all three of the camera minigames: Talking Flower Says where I needed to stand or squat depending on what the talking flower said, Goombalancing Act where I balanced goombas on my head and Hitting It Rich where I fulfilled my dream of punching the absolute daylights out of a mario block to get coins.

The microphone games are fun as well: Bowser Beats is a delightful, clapping rhythm minigame and everyone knows I love rhythm games. Speak Up, Junior and Bowser Chicken were games with similar premises, I had to move a car by yelling “GO!” The difference between them however is that Bowser Chicken requires precision, which I found difficult in a party environment. My girlfriend and I struggled not to talk on each other’s turns.

Do you have 4 Coffee Tables?

The final new addition to Jamboree is a mode called Carnival Coaster. This showcases the new mouse minigames I talked about earlier in a co-op mode where you ride one of 5 different rollercoasters. Something this mode really highlighted for me is the requirement for a flat surface for each player when using the mouse feature. Between each rollercoaster mouse minigame is an arcade-shooter-style section where you shoot enemies. I found this fun but challenging as my girlfriend and I had to share any flat surface we had. When playing with 4 players I imagine this gets even more difficult. 

Don’t let the adults in the trailer fool you though as, along with Bowser’s Challenge, this game seems to be aimed at children. With a lack of enemies, I found myself repeating the words “This minigame was more fun against other players.” The co-op approach removed the best elements of some mouse games such as Bob-omb Toss, where you toss bob-ombs into an opponent’s air balloon, and Domino Effect where you compete with another team to stack dominoes the fastest. While these games still have the challenge of aiming to receive an S ranking, I found them lacking without the competitive aspect. Each session of Carnival Coaster is also very short, lasting around 15 minutes. 

Pics Or It Didn’t Happen

The camera function was used during Carnival Coaster to show a representation of us on the rollercoaster, which I barely looked at due to the fact I was busy shootin’ boos. Also, during the parts where the coaster went down a slope, when I lifted my arms the character I had chosen, Walluigi, would also lift his arms, how clever.

Something that irritated me is the fact that at the end of this mode, the game pretended to take a photo of us. This would be a great time to get a picture with my partner considering we were unable to take a capture because we were using the camera function. The Nintendo Switch 2 doesn’t allow you to use the capture and camera functions at the same time. Instead the game showed us a picture of our chosen characters, Waluigi and Ninji, riding the rollercoaster that was taken by a Paratroopa. This picture also isn’t saved to the camera roll and is ultimately useless. 

After playing this new version of Super Mario Party™ Jamboree - Nintendo Switch™ 2 Edition + Jamboree TV I was left with only a few photos of the experience; which does represent how I feel about this upgrade as a whole - unmemorable and inaccessible.

A copy of SUPER MARIO PARTY JAMBOREE - NINTENDO SWITCH 2 EDITION + JAMBOREE TV was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.