Today, I’m adding one more game to the list of games that have seen improvements when played on Nintendo Switch 2. Let’s have a look!

Super Mario Party Jamboree: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV

Genre: Party Game / Minigame Collection

Players: 1-4 Competitive / Cooperative (Local / Online), 2-8 Cooperative (Online), 2-20 Competitive (Online), Game Share

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Review:

When Nintendo revealed the existence of Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games, it felt like opening a door of endless promise and possibility for some of the best games on the Nintendo Switch library, and a second chance for games that were maybe a bit lacking the first time around. Super Mario Party Jamboree: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV, one of the first Nintendo Switch 2 games revealed (and from here on just referred to as Jamboree TV for brevity’s sake), was definitely in the former camp – I previously said that this was the best Mario Party game of all-time, and I stand by that assessment. So a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition version of the game had the potential to be even better.

This version of the game can be purchased as a $20 paid upgrade for those who already own the game, or the full package can be purchased together for $80. So in a way this presents us with two questions: Is it worth the $20 upgrade, and is the full package worth $80?

Well, first of all, we need to address some issues here. Firstly, while players can still opt to play the original Super Mario Party: Jamboree after buying this upgrade, that content has zero improvements at all – not even an improved resolution or framerate. It’s a puzzling omission and a pretty disappointing one, forcing players to choose from the new game modes with graphical improvements or the old game modes without.

Having said that, I don’t think anyone but the most discerning players is likely to notice. The original Super Mario Party: Jamboree already looked great, and while I did see some improved textures in this version like the grass texture, and a few nice effects like the twinkle of water under the sunlight in the distance, overall this seemed visually much the same experience to me. The others who played with me strongly agree on this point too – they both felt any graphical difference was negligible at best. Certainly not bad, and quite good in fact, but definitely nothing that feels like a hardware generation above what we played on the original Nintendo Switch just one year ago.

All of the new game modes are lumped together under this game’s “Jamboree TV” umbrella. This thankfully does include a Mario Party mode with all the same content as the original game -all unlocked from the start here, regardless of whether you’ve done so in the base game. However, this version of Mario Party mode has dropped the one game mode that I felt most delighted by in the original game: Pro Mode, which let players enjoy the game with less randomness. In its place are two new game variants: Frenzy Mode and Tag Team Mode.

Frenzy Mode has the entire game using bigger bonuses and penalties like the final few rounds of a standard game, and while this and the name would seem to indicate that it will make for a much faster game, we found quite the opposite – a standard 5-round Frenzy Mode game will still take an hour to get through. Tag Team Mode, meanwhile, ditches Jamboree’s signature partner system and instead has two pairs of players competing as teams. I suppose it’s nice to have these options, but not at the expense of Pro Mode.

One other change to Mario Party mode this time around is the inclusion of new mouse mode minigames. While the others who played with me were skeptical going into these minigames, I think we all came out in agreement that this is absolutely the best part of Jamboree TV. These minigames are varied, creative, and often use the mouse combined with the gyroscope in ways that make for gameplay that could never be done on another game platform, freely moving things around with the mouse while twisting to use the gyroscope.

The only problem? There’s only 14 of these new mouse mode minigames. In fact, during our first play-through in Frenzy Mode, an entire hour, we didn’t encounter a single one of these minigames, it was all just the content from the base game. Very disappointing.

Of course, players who want a tour of the mouse mode minigames can opt to just pick the new Carnival Coaster game mode, which focuses specifically on mouse mode minigames, interspersing them with an on-rails shooter using mouse mode. This was fun, but with only a handful of minigames to pull from for this mode, it promises to get repetitive very quickly.

Then there’s Bowser Live, which features minigames that make use of the Nintendo Switch camera and microphone. Ah yes, let’s take a moment to talk about the Nintendo Switch camera, shall we? Its functionality is put to use throughout Jamboree TV, but mostly just as a gimmick to show your face live next to your character, or blow it up across the screen when you get a star. However, in Bowser Live, it’s used for motion-controlled gameplay in a manner similar to Sony’s EyeToy from past generations… and it seems like it works about as well as they did decades ago (or worse).

Even with Nintendo’s own camera, the image quality and detection is pretty terrible, and Bowser Live doesn’t make it clear that this mode is meant to be played standing, with the camera taking in your full body. If you don’t have the camera, or don’t have a large room with enough space for everyone to be standing in the camera’s range, you basically won’t be able to play this mode at all. And even if you can, expect the camera to be extremely finicky and inaccurate.

The microphone detection is better here, but still has problems. There seems to be a noticeable delay between the time you make a sound and the time the game detects it, and there’s no way to adjust the calibration to fix this. And some of these minigames seem like they would be easy for an opponent or onlooker to screw up for you, even by accident, by making a noise at the wrong time, even laughing. This is a pretty terrible design flaw for a game intended to be played in a party setting.

When playing Bowser Live, players must select to play either camera-centric minigames or mic-centric minigames, and the game will randomly select two of the three camera games or two of the three mic games depending on which you choose, following it up with one more minigame that combines both camera and mic (the same one every time). Ah, yes, did I mention? There’s only three new camera minigames and three new mic minigames, plus one camera/mic game specific to this game mode.

So in combination with the 14 mouse mode minigames, that means that Jamboree TV only adds about 20 new minigames to what was already present there. For a $20 paid upgrade, I really hoped there would be more.

There’s one more addition I should add here, but it’s almost not worth mentioning. Jamboree TV adds local Game Share to let you play this game with players using either a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2. However, it only lets players play the original Mario Party mode, without any of the new mouse mode games, and it only lets you play the Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party board. With all these limitations, and the fact that this is a Party Game, and everyone is going to be right there next to you anyway, there doesn’t seem much reason to use this game mode instead of just sharing one screen.

In the end, Jamboree TV is an upgrade that almost feels like a downgrade. While you can always still play the original game in its original form, every upgrade this game adds either has a massive caveat or a major flaw that makes it not worth your time. The best part has to be the new mouse mode minigames that this adds to the standard Mario Party mode, but you’ll rarely see them while playing, and to play them you’ll need to abandon the excellent Pro Mode of the original game.

Do I feel like Jamboree TV is worth the extra $20 for those who already own the original? Not really, no. I can see the mouse mode content being enjoyable for a little while, but the tradeoff you have to make to play them doesn’t really feel worth it. Do I feel like this package is worth $80 for those who never bought the original game to begin with? Well… probably, but that’s largely just because the original Super Mario Party Jamboree is so very good, and you can always just get that for $60 instead.

If I had to give just Jamboree TV a grade, it would probably be a C, but since I’m judging this as an overall package, I’ll cut the difference and say B, thanks to just how good the original game still is. But wow, what a major disappointment this “upgrade” is.

tl;dr – Super Mario Party Jamboree is, in my opinion, the absolute best that the Mario Party series of family-friendly Party Game and Minigame Collection titles has ever had to offer, and this is still true on Nintendo Switch 2. Unfortunately, just about every “upgrade” the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition has to offer is either a mixed bag or an absolute flop, from negligible graphical upgrades that don’t extend to the original game’s content, a terrible lack of new minigames, camera minigames that just don’t work right, and poorly-conceived mic minigames. At the very least the mouse mode minigames are quite good, but there’s only 14 of them, and to play them you have to ditch the original Mario Party Jamboree’s excellent Pro mode. Overall, this paid expansion is a major disappointment, and the fact that the original game is still truly outstanding is the only reason this is still being rated as highly as it is.

Grade: B

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I hope you enjoyed this latest Nintendo Switch 2 Difference Mini-Review, and found it to be helpful! Want to see all Nintendo Switch 2 Difference comparisons? Check out this page for links to every article where I’ve included these comparisons!

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