Mario Party: Star Rush

Genre: Party Game / Minigame Collection

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless, Download Play Supported)

.

Review:

Mario Party: Star Rush is the second of three Mario Party games to be released on the Nintendo 3DS, coming to that platform in 2016. Like other games in the series, this is a Party Game featuring a wide variety of minigames. And because multiplayer is such a central part of the Mario Party experience, I should note that this game unfortunately lacks online play, but thankfully does support download play, meaning that all you need is one copy of the game no matter how many players want to play it (though each player will of course need to bring their own Nintendo 3DS).

Where this game’s predecessor, Island Tour, touted a polished presentation, Star Rush absolutely tops it, with some really gorgeous, colorful, well-crafted 3D environments and characters. This is a beautiful game, one of the better-looking titles on the Nintendo 3DS.

However, while Island Tour felt somewhat bland and empty, Star Rush feels absolutely inspired, with not only a wide array of creative minigames, but a healthy selection of unlockable game modes, including Toad Scramble (clearly the precursor to Super Mario Party’s Partner Party mode, the best game mode in that game) and Coinathlon (a great rethinking of Mario Party that has players trying to collect enough coins in various party games to get past a finish line). It also helps that things are overall far more streamlined here, making it quicker to play your turn and get to the minigames.

Of course, Star Rush does have its downsides – it still lacks the excellent theming of Mario Party DS, its lack of online play is disheartening, and overall the value of a Mario Party game on a platform that’s exclusively handheld and requires multiple Nintendo 3DS systems to play in multiplayer is still somewhat questionable.

However, Mario Party: Star Rush is still a superb entry in the Mario Party series, and given the limitations of the hardware it finds itself on, this is about as much as one could hope for from a Mario Party game on the Nintendo 3DS. While Island Tour was a satisfactory entry in the series on Nintendo’s 3D handheld, Star Rush is a huge improvement, and well worth a look for fans of the series.

tl;dr – Mario Party: Star Rush is the second of three Mario Party games to release on Nintendo 3DS. It lacks online play but supports download play. This game is even better-looking than its predecessor, its games are more inspired, and the different game modes offer some very good options. While it still suffers from being a Party Game on a handheld-only platform, and its lacking online is unfortunate, otherwise this is an excellent entry in the franchise well worth playing.

Grade: B+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, u/RamboFox, Ilya Zverev, Connor Armstrong, Eli Goodman, K.H. Kristoffer Wulff, and Stov. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}