Earlier today, Nintendo of Europe broadcasted a Super Mario Party Gamescom 2018 livestream. As well as showing some gameplay in-action, we also found out a little bit more about what to expect from Super Mario Party, including a new co-op game mode called “River Survival,” as well as some features and tweaks that aim to bring the game back to “the roots of the franchise,” according to Nintendo. Here’s a handy Super Mario Party guide detailing everything we know from the livestream!
Super Mario Party Guide: New Boards, New Dice
We also saw a brand new board, a tropical fruit-themed board that features both a pineapple and a watermelon island floating beside two sand islands. Each island has a circular path, and all are connected by either two bridges that link pairs of the islands, or by pipes that allow you to navigate between them all. The pipe navigation system is used by landing on points on the board adjacent to the pipe entrances, upon which you’ll jump in and emerge on the connecting island. The bridges also allow you to do this,but carry with them a risk — every other point on the bridge is an event that’ll trigger the attack of a monster from the ocean. When Wario lands on one of these event points, for instance, he gets tthrustin the air by an angry Mega Blooper and lands on a random point.
Chris Glerum of Nintendo of Europe talked about the new character dice feature — as well as the standard dice blocks, each character has their own specific dice that has some unique qualities. Wario’s dice block, for instance, has 4 times the chance of throwing a six, but two times the chance of losing 2 coins, Daisy’s dice always lands on either a 3 or a 4, and Mario’s dice block is almost like an ordinary dice but with 2 and 4 replaced by a 3. This adds a layer of strategy to Super Mario Party that we haven’t seen in the series before, giving you the opportunity to either play it safe or try your luck in a risk/reward system.
Super Mario Party Guide: So Many Minigames
In a conversation at the beginning of the livestream, Glerum confirmed that Super Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch will contain over 80 new minigames, “which is a lot for the series’ history,” he said. Each minigame will be played at the end of a round of turns on the board and will be introduced by a tutorial screen explaining how that minigame will work and what the controls will be. You also get to mess around with the controls before actually starting the minigame, just so you’re not left behind trying to figure out how it all works when you’re with other people who have already played them before.
In Soak or Croak, you’re all in a fountain and have water blasters that you need to use to try and knock the other players out of the fountain, refilling as needed, and keeping at it until you’re the last man standing. Another minigame, Rattle and Hmmm, makes use of the HD Rumble in the Joy-cons — a curtain is pulled back to reveal three characters from the Mario franchise, each with their own action and associated rumble. The curtain is closed and a rumble is played, and you need to correctly guess which creature it was that created the rumble, with points allocated based both on whether you guessed correctly and how quickly you did it.
Super Mario Party Guide: River Survival
The biggest thing we saw in the Super Mario Party livestream at Gamescom 2018 was a brand new co-op game mode, River Survival. The game mode begins with you and your friends being jettisoned from a log flume, all in the same dinghy and each with paddles. Toad floats just ahead of you, acting as your rafting guide. You all need to row together in synchronisation if you don’t want to crash your raft, and this is done by performing a rowing action with one of the Joy-cons. You have to reach the end of one of the branching paths of the river with a time limit, by navigating through slopes and rapids, all the while dodging rocks in the water, and occasionally you’ll come across balloons floating on the surface. Passing into these will transfer your party into a minigame.
The first minigame triggered in the showcase is called Miner Setbacks and it involves your party all moving in unison to carry a large chunk of crystals to the end of a winding path while dodging Pihrana Plants that stretch in and out of pipes along the path. Because each party member is holding a different end of the chunk of crystals, you all need to time your movements and move in the same direction, otherwise, you’ll risk being eaten up. Another we see, called Fetch Quest, has you collecting crystals in a maze that has switch-operated barriers, demanding more co-operation. is Once you complete one of these minigames, you get given more time to complete the rapids course depending on how well you performed.
It looks like there’s a lot to look forward to when Super Mario Party releases later this year on October 5. This Super Mario Party guide is everything we know so far, so be sure to stay tuned for when more information is revealed. In the meantime, you can check out the livestream in full on the Nintendo UK YouTube channel.
