The traditional gameplay of the older Mario Party games returns in Super Mario Party, after the previous two games' departure from the established form. The standard game mode, Party Mode, features up to four players taking turns and navigating the board in search of stars while competing against one another in a variety of minigames. A second mode, known as Partner Party, has two teams of two players also searching for stars on a free-movement board similar to those in . The game can be played with only one Joy-Con controller per player, allowing two players to play together with only one Switch system, which comes with two Joy-Con. Super Mario Party also takes advantage of the Switch's local wireless capabilities, allowing teams to play from separate Switch consoles and allowing multiple Switch consoles to be arranged and synchronized to create larger, multi-monitor environments in a mode called "Toad's Rec Room". Some of the minigames can be played using traditional button controls, while others may be controlled by motion controls, such as a tricycle race minigame known as Trike Harder. Toad and Toadette return as Super Mario Partys host, directing the players through the game.
Online play
Super Mario Party features online multiplayerfor the first time in the Mario Party series. While Party Mode's board games are restricted to offline play, players are able to play the game's 80 minigames with other players either locally or online independent of the board games in the game's "Online Mariothon" mode. In the Online Mariothon mode, players compete in five randomly-selected minigames aiming to get the highest score. It also features leader boards and a ranking system, as well as rewards that the players can receive for playing the mode.
Super Mario Party was developed by NDcube. Nintendo revealed Super Mario Party on 12 June 2018 during their Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018Nintendo Direct presentation, where they also announced that the game would release on 5 October 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. In August 2018, Nintendo said that Super Mario Party would not support the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. In September 2018, it was revealed that Super Mario Party would not support handheld mode.
Reception
Super Mario Party received "generally favorable reviews" according to review aggregatorMetacritic. IGN gave the game a 7.3, stating "Super Mario Party delivers the couch multiplayer experience the series is famous for", though also mentioning a lackluster selection of maps. The game in general was widely criticized for only having four boards in Mario Party and Partner Party, and many reviewers also found these boards to be too small compared to old Mario Party games. While the game was praised for its wide variety of modes and characters, some of the highest praise has gone to the minigames.
Sales
Super Mario Party sold 142,868 physical copies within its first 2 days on sale in Japan, outpacing its predecessors Mario Party 10 and Mario Party 9. Super Mario Party debuted at #5 on United Kingdom sales charts for physical copies sold, at a very crowded time. By 31 October 2018, total sales of Super Mario Party reached over 1.5 million copies, far exceeding Nintendo's expectations and making it the fastest-selling Mario Party game since Mario Party 6. As of March 2019, the game has sold 1.22 million copies in Japan. Total sales reached 10.10 million copies worldwide by the start of 2020.
