It Took Nintendo 18 Years and 13 Games to Give Fans a “Great” Mario Party

Mario Party might be a favorite in the living room between friends and family, but game critics have never quite felt the same way. The spin-off series, originally developed by Hudson Soft and now by Nintendo Cube, has been ongoing since the original Mario Party for Nintendo 64 in 1999, but there was a significantly long period in which the series received average-at-best ratings. In recent years, though, that consensus has finally started to change.

Metacritic data show an average “Metascore” of 70, encompassing all 19 entries in the Mario Party series, which, based on Metacritic’s scale, indicates “mixed or average” reviews overall. After receiving decent reviews for 2000’s Mario Party 2, it wasn’t until 18 years and 13 games later that an entry in the series won favorable ratings, with Super Mario Party on the Switch. But for most of the existence of Mario Party, it has been viewed as a good but far from amazing series.

Mario Party Historically Received Middling Reviews

Before Mario Party reached a critical high in the Switch era, there were 10 mainline Mario Party titles, with three releasing on the Nintendo 64, four on the GameCube, two on the Wii, and just one on Wii U. Additionally, there are five handheld non-numbered Mario Party games — one on Game Boy Advance, one on Nintendo DS, and three on Nintendo 3DS.

For the most part, the series formula has remained the same: four players progress through a board game to earn Stars, playing mini-games between rounds. Criticism from reviews for these titles was consistent over the years, with reviewers opining that minigames had responsive controls, game boards were poorly designed, and the graphics and sound design were inferior to those of other Mario games. One of the most prevalent pieces of criticism is that winning a game of Mario Party is a matter of luck and RNG.

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There were attempts to shake up the Mario Party structure, with some games incorporating single-player modes, and a couple of the GameCube entries even included a microphone for use in certain minigames. But none of these changes ever stuck, and critics were especially tired of the series as it reached the Wii era with Mario Party 8. Under Hudson Soft, Mario Party was almost an annual series, only skipping 2001 and 2006 during transitions to new hardware.

By the time of Mario Party 9 in 2012, Hudson Soft had been dissolved by its majority owner, Konami, and many Mario Party developers jumped over to the Nintendo-owned studio NDcube (now called Nintendo Cube). Mario Party 9 then introduced the biggest shake-up of the formula, placing all players on a single vehicle that moves around a linear board. The change, which carried over to Mario Party 10 on Wii U, proved controversial to longtime fans, and it didn’t help the series win over any reviewers.

Super Mario Party Eventually Refined The Formula

Three years after the release of Mario Party 10, Nintendo Cube abandoned the numbering and launched Super Mario Party on Nintendo Switch. With colorful graphics, lots of variety, and a return to traditional game boards, this game finally won over critics, reaching a 76 Metascore, which hadn’t been achieved since Mario Party 2. In the span of almost two decades, Mario Party danced with mediocrity and hit some significant lows, but the Switch era proved to be kind to the series.

Mario Party Superstars in 2021 brought back game boards and minigames from previous entries, remaking them all with a fresh coat of Super Mario Party paint. Scoring 80 on Metacritic, it reached a greater critical height than its predecessor, even if it didn’t sell as well. And Super Mario Party Jamboree, released in 2024, hit a series high with an 82 in Metacritic, though fans found the subsequent Switch 2 re-release to be a mess.

It’s been a long and twisting road for Mario Party. While some players still might not enjoy the minigames and random nature of the rules, at least the data shows that we can finally consider Mario Party to be a good series.