For long-time fans of the Mario Party series, Mario Party Superstars is a breath of fresh air. It combines some of the best minigames and boards from past titles to create a loving throwback collection. Its release was met with critical praise and 5.3 million in sales by the end of 2021, earning it the title of the fourth best-selling game in the series. Despite its success, substantial updates must be made if it hopes to overtake its Switch competitor, Super Mario Party, as the definitive Mario Party game, which shattered records by selling over 17 million units.
Mario Party Superstars drastically improves the recent Mario Party formula, building strong legs for the title to stand on. Compared to Super Mario Party, which only received online play late into its lifespan, Superstars corrected the problem, allowing online multiplayer from the start. It also returned to the tried-and-true format of the original Mario Party games, increasing the cost of stars, doing away with character-specific dice blocks, allowing classic bonus stars, reintroducing Boo, and providing more minigames than ever with 100 remastered classics.
With all of its favorable revisions, Mario Party Superstars has the potential to be the ultimate Mario Party experience, but only if it refines its craft. The best way to keep Superstars active and growing is by strengthening the underperforming categories of content through DLC. While Superstars is a massive step in the right direction for the series, the content it lacks could lead to a much shorter life cycle for the game. Nintendo needs to learn from the opportunities it missed for updates to Super Mario Party and capitalize on the chance to perfect Superstars.
Mario Party Superstars DLC Can Add More Character Variety
This is a simple, yet crucial territory where Mario Party Superstars makes its biggest mistake. Super Mario Party packed 20 unique characters into its roster, whereas Superstars only offers 10. It seems that in the spirit of returning to a classic Mario Party setting, the developers decided to shrink the roster to match the old games’ selection. However, this doesn’t work in a modern game because the Mario franchise has only expanded over the years, providing more lovable personalities that players want to use in Superstars. Further, players grow especially attached to their chosen characters in the Mario Party games, and cutting half the cast from the previous game left many who used those characters disappointed.
This problem is partly caused by Mario Party Superstars’ framework, which makes Toad, Bowser, Koopa, Boo, Bowser Jr., and Toadette integral parts of each board. If these characters can’t be made playable, Nintendo will have to dig deeper into the Mario universe to find more additions. To provide players with a different playable Toad, developers could include Captain Toad from Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. They could easily bring back Diddy Kong, Pom Pom, Dry Bones, and Hammer Bro from Super Mario Party. King Bob-omb and Pauline, who have recently resurfaced in games like Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Kart Tour, could also make an appearance. Superstars could even learn from Mario Kart 8 and feature crossovers from other Nintendo franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Splatoon.
Diverse Boards As DLC Would Lengthen Mario Party Superstars' Lifespan
This is the most important improvement necessary to keep fans playing Mario Party Superstars for years to come. While the five boards it includes outweigh Super Mario Party’s four, they are still a shortcoming for an anthology game, especially given that Superstars offers less than the standard six boards offered in the earlier titles it emulates. Being able to choose from a variety of boards stops the game from becoming stale because once a board's gimmicks are fully explored and players have visited it countless times, its novelty can wear off. Different groups of players also tend to have different affinities for each board - there are always going to be one or two stages that players dislike, which minimizes their already slim choices.
Mario Party Superstars aims to be include lots of Mario Party's many minigames and be representative of the series as a whole, so it could stand to include more boards from later editions in the series rather than just the first three games, especially ones that shake up the gameplay. Pagoda Peak, from Mario Party 7, is similar to Peach’s birthday cake in that it offers one, unmoving star, but it presents a thematic mountain climb through a Japanese-themed terrain. The area is run by Kung Fu Koopas, and at the mountain’s peak, which is guarded by Bowser, is the Koopa Master, who exchanges a star for different amounts of coins depending on how many players have reached him. Original boards like Mario Party 8's King Boo’s Haunted Hideaway could also make an exciting addition. It offers a constantly changing maze within a ghost house similar to the ones in Super Mario World, in which players must locate the elusive King Boo to gain stars.
Mario Party Superstars Can Add Customization DLC Options
One of the most compelling aspects of Mario Party Superstars is its customization options. Players can vary the number of turns mid-game, tweak the types of bonus stars rewarded at the end of the game, and even decide between Mario Party Superstars' categories of minigames. Giving players control of these elements makes Superstars feel like a real Mario Party passion project meant for its most devout fans, especially because its wide audience has differing tastes in these features. The game could stand to lean even further in this direction, giving full access to players to personalize their experience. Like with Super Smash Bros.Ultimate's items, stages, and rulesets, Superstars could present fans with a checklist of minigames that could be toggled on or off, with options to remove features like hidden block stars or Chance Time spaces, as well as an opportunity to pick the exact bonus stars they’d like awarded at the end of each game.
Single-Player DLC Would Increase Mario Party Superstars' Appeal
Mario Party greatly encourages multiplayer competition against friends and family, but many fans also enjoy playing it solo, and some fans simply don't have many opportunities to play with others. Mario Party Superstars addresses this by allowing single players to link up with random opponents online, which is a major improvement, but Nintendo surprisingly opted to not adopt Super Mario Party's Challenge Road. This single-player game mode had players fulfilling minigame challenges to progress through its loose story. By deciding to omit it, Nintendo clearly underestimated the amount of fans that crave more single-player content in Mario Party.
Challenge Road was more than just a relevant attraction for lone players, it was a cornerstone of Super Mario Party that added an abundance of content and led to unlockable features. Without it, Mario Party Superstars feels incomplete, and DLC could be added to incorporate a new story mode that utilizes the game’s wide selection of minigames. It could even bring back many of the original Mario Party single-player minigames that weren't carried over to Superstars. A more developed story mode that has players proceed through unique Mario-themed locations and interact with the franchise’s characters would interest any Nintendo fan.
Partner Party DLC Could Give Mario Party Superstars New Gameplay
Partner Party is another feature of Super Mario Party that could be implemented and upgraded in Mario Party Superstars. This mode was a great concept, which had players pair up to form teams of two and compete against the opposing team for coins and stars, but it was poorly executed. In Super Mario Party's Partner Party, the boards changed entirely, offering players a barren map that removed blue and red spaces, reformatted the path to the star, and gave players awkward movement options. Instead, Mario Party Superstars could have players simply play on any of the standard boards, as individual characters who pool resources. The mode would have to do away with 1-vs-3 minigames, but it wouldn't have to be restricted to only 2-vs-2 games, allowing teams to strategize in 4-player minigames to be the players that come out on top. A mode that further encourages players to sabotage each other at every turn could be a recipe for even more signature Mario Party Superstars shenanigans like stealing stars.