I'm a sucker for Risk, and have played many editions over the years. However, it's nice to spice things up and play other dudes-on-a-map wargames. As this is my favorite genre of board game, I gladly present to you some of the best board games to play if you like Risk.

878 Vikings

878 Vikings is a lesser-known board game set during the Viking invasions of England. Although it may seem rather removed from Risk, the?? staple of moving around your minis to fight your opponents is the same.

878 Vikings benefit from its own special dice and two different sides with two different winning objectives. The British must repel the tides of Vikings that keep seeming to invade the shores and attack and pillage cities. With different systems and approaches to playing the game, the asymmetry 878 Vikings provides a natural step up from Risk, offering more inherent replayability.

This is the perfect next step if you want something that shares the same vibe as Risk but takes things up a notch and goes i??nto its o?wn direction.

War of the Ring

War of the Ring is a huge board game that should only be taken on if both parties are ready for it. With loads of rules, complications, minis, and cards, War of the Ring simulates the epic tales of the film franchise?? perfectly.

Both sides in War of the Ring have different objectives and systems to such a degree that it's like you're both playing different games. However, the quintessential practice of moving figures around and rolling dice is the same. It's like Risk if a million more rules and addi?tions were thrown upon it.

If you're ready to graduate Risk and take on something much more complicated but rewarding, you can dive into War of the Ring.

Star Wars Rebellion

Star Wars: Rebellion is a grand game that takes the formula of Risk, and Star Wars-ifies it. Yet another asymmetrical game for two players, Star Wars: Rebellion offers the side of the Empire an??d the Re??bellion in cosmic dudes-on-a-map gameplay.

The Empire in Star Wars: Rebellion will be seeking out the Rebel base by chauffeur??ing their many units, aircraft, and even the Death Star, to different planets they suspect may be harboring the Rebels. They, on the other hand, will be carrying out sabotage and guerrilla warfare to take down the ??mighty Empire.

If you're looking for something more thematic and interesting than Risk, then Star Wars: Rebellion? may provide the tense gaming experience you're looking for.

A War of Whispers

I've recommended A War of Whispers before, and I'll do so till the cows come home. If you're tired of being the ones in charge of the armies in Risk, then why don't you ?play ?as agents manipulating the conflicts behind the scenes?

In A War of Whispers, each player is an agent and will secretly vy for different end states for each of the factions on the board. As each player takes their turn, they'll be mustering, moving, and ordering troops to fight. Despite having the same appeal as Risk, wi?th the map and the battles, it's a very political and intriguing game.

For an alternative take on the classic Risk-esque formula, A War of Whispers is an excellent board game that puts you in a ??position ?of secrecy and guile.

Small World

Small World is ?a wonderfully succinct and tight board game about setting up and retiring empires as every player battles to control the most land throughout the game.

Unlike Risk, you won't use armies on the board to battle other regions, as you'll send your off-board tokens to conquer instead. As you run out of tokens for a race, you can put them into decline. This means you can play as another ?race, but you'll still benefit from the previous race's presence by earning victory points for their dominated regions.

In a tight game of constant conquest and knowing when to call it quits, Small World provides a refreshing new take on? what war games can be.

Inis

Inis is like Risk, but if it was an epic fantasy adventure and if everyone got along every once in a while. Playing on a procedurally-generated map with multiple win conditions, Inis provides an exciting game that feels like Risk with a rich story added to the experience.

You and other players will explore new lands while working toward your victory condition. But this means that you must refrain from fighting with others and instead come together at festivals. There are no dice in Inis, but the combat benefits fro??m a more fleshed-out system.

If you've ever wanted your Risk games to have more of a narrative, then Inis is the perfect board game for you to try.

Twilight Imperium

Where to even begin with Twilight Imperium? This is such a colossal and classic game that it may feel completely removed from Risk. However, for those who enjoy Risk and also love more complex and dramatic board games, you can't get much better than Twilight Imperium.

As though a literal space opera, each player will take on a different race in a bid ??against each other to claim the stars. As every??one slowly makes their way toward the center of the galaxy with their multitude of ships and units, the border everyone shares grows longer and longer.

A very economic and political game, Twilight Imperium is Risk on steroids. Could you handle it?

Kemet

Kemet is a tight and innovative war game that combines so many ideas I??'m surprised it runs as well? and as quickly as it does.

In a twist on the typical Risk-like formula of sniping weak targets and lugging your units around to establish areas of control, Kemet immediately springs everyone into the action with one-way teleports and pr??omoting aggression. In this game, you gain a victory point for every battle you win that you start, and you only need to get eight points.

Kemet doesn't use dice, but it uses a dramatic sleight-of-hand deck system that makes every battle so much more interesting than standard dice. Additionally, the inclusion of other epic units that you can field (that nobody else can!) makes Kemet a quick epic that doesn't outstay its welcome.

Axis & Allies

I'm surprised that Axis & Allies is the only World War 2 game on this list. Although it's a war game, it's a much more serious one than Risk, making it ?a great next option for those wanting a more s??trategic and grounded experience.

In Axis & Allies, you'll build up an economy and try to maintain it while fighting off your foes. As the teams begin in the same positions at the start ?of each game, Axis & Allies acts more like a strategic puzzle players can keep trying to get right and experiment with.

If you're ready for a war game with more systems and unit types, Axis & Allies is a must-try.

Nexus Ops

Nexus Ops is a popular recommendation for Risk substitutes, and I can see why. In a war game with many unit types and a map that'll be slightly different every time you play it, Nexus Ops allows for a tig??ht game of exploration and conquest.

The game is won through victory points, although it is possible to eliminate a player to call the end of the game quicker. Every army will have access to the same types of units, making it more symmetrical than other titles on this list to be more familiar for Risk fans, although which units a player chooses is u??p to them??.

In a board tied up with conflicts spanning many rounds, mines holding untold riches, and strange beasts that you'll be waging war with, Nexus Ops is a deceptively simple war game similar to Risk.

W?ith these excellent suggestions of Risk-adjacent board games, you can start your next game night with your new favorite.

The post Great Board Games To Play If you Like Risk appeared first on Destructoid.

Interested in setting out into the world of board gaming but feeling overwhelmed with the quantity and complexity of your choices? In this list, we’re highlighting 10 of the best board games for beginners that won’t break the ?bank and have high replay value. You might've heard of some of our picks before; they’re classics of their respective genres and have won over many fans. Others are exciting new titles that highlight how fun, engaging, and dynamic board gaming can be for players who are completely new to the hobby.

1. Dominion

Dominion is a great introduction to deck-building and always welcome at the game night table. Your goal is to get as many victory point cards as possible before the game ends. However the victory points also slow you down because they don’t do anything during the game. Instead, you’ll need to add a solid mix of treasure and action cards to ensure you have enough card draw and buying power. There’s also a big selection of Dominion expansions t??hat allow you to slowly increase the game’s complexity, which i??s a great mechanic for newer board gamers. 

2. Forest Shuffle

In Forest Shuffle, the goal?? is to build the best ecosystem by planting trees and attaching sets of animals and other plants to your forest. Each card type has different set bonuses and traits that you’ll need to align before winter arrives at the end of the game. It’s a relaxing, refreshingly straightforward card game that’s more focused on what you’re building than on competitive gameplay. 

3. PARKS

PARKS is your chance to explore the natural beauty and wonders of America’s National Parks in a unique tabletop format. As you move your hiker across each locale, you’ll get points for snap??ping photos and creating memories in the forest, at vista points, or next to stunning waterfalls. The game also offers an accessible solo mode and has incredible art on every tile and card.  

4. The Resistance

The Resistance is a game of social deduction and secret roles in which you’ll have to guess which of the other players at the table are secretly spies. If you’re aiding the Resistance, you’ll need to set out on quests without bringing any of these ??spies along- just one of them can sabotage your mission. If you’re a spy, you need to subtly convince the Resistance that you’re on their side. In addition to it being a gre??at board game for beginners, The Resistance is also a fantastic party game, and supports up to 10 players.   

5. Sagrada

The Sagrada Família is a famous landmark in Barcelona with stained-glass windows so beautiful that they inspired an entire board game. Sagrada allows players to reconstruct these windows with colorful transparent dice. No two colors can be placed next too each other, but there are also many fun ways to bend the rules and score higher. It’s the kind of abs?tract game that highlights just how unique and diverse board games can be. 

6. Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a well-known classic for good reason. The rules ??are simple and easy to learn. The gameplay offers exciting risks and rewards when building your route. The theme is engaging, and there are? so many different ways to win. There many expansion maps to keep the game fresh and multiple editions with which you can depart on a new board gaming adventure.

7. Sheriff of Nottingham (2nd Edition)

Bring your best poker face to the table when playing Sheriff of Nottingham- you’ll need it. Your goal is to smuggle as much illegal contraband as possible into town without getting caught. Each round you’ll place a number of cards from your hand facedown in a bag, and the person playing as sheriff for the round has the option to check what you’re bringing into Nottingham. You can bribe the sheriff, or bring in only legal goods and make the sheriff pay for checking. Risking the right amount and knowi??ng your opponents are the keys to victory.

8. 7 Wonders

7 Wonders takes players back to the Ancient World to build a new civilization from scratch over the course of four rounds. In the early segments of the game, it’s all about gathering resources and trading. As the a??ges progre?ss, however, you’ll need to build iconic landmarks and win conflicts to achieve greatness. The board game is a good introduction to engine building, a fundamental element of many more complex board games.

9. Forbidden Desert

If you’re more interested in cooperative board games, Forbidden Desert is a great place to start. You and your team journey into a vast desert to find an ancient flying machine, but your helicopter crashes, leaving you stranded. To escape alive you’ll need to excavate tiles, gather tools, and find the flying machine parts before you run out of water?? or supplies. An incoming sandstorm also threatens to sweep you away, giving the game great thematic tension. 

10. Istanbul

For beginners seeking a slightly more complex starting point in the world of board gaming, Istanbul is a great choice. It still isn’t too difficult to learn, but you’ll need to think strategically if you want to win. You’ll play as a merchant ??and send your assistants to the various locations around the city to sell goods, bet money, and hopefully gather five rubies faster than anyone else. At the start of the game, the players arrange the markets, gambling houses, and warehouses randomly, which means the map changes every time you play and the game is always fresh and exciting.

The post 10 Out??standing Board Games for Beginners to Play in 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

Die. Mutate. Repeat.

Acclaimed roguelite Dead Cells is getting set to bring its compelling and amorphous adventure to your local coffee table, courtesy of a br??and new board game currently in production at Le Scorpion Masque.

The Montreal-based studio, which has previously produced board games such as Decrypto, Zombie Kidz, and Stay Cool, launched a Kickstarter for Dead Cells, which will be the company's first licensed title. While the crowdfunding kicked off with a modest target of around $30,000 USD, the campaign has, at the writing of writing, surpass??ed a staggering $250,000, with 15 days still to go. As such, the game will now go into production. A release window is yet to be ann?ounced.

//youtu.be/rfl-gb3M520

The Dead Cells board game will look to retain both the visual aesthetic, immersive atmosphere, and general gameplay of Motion Twin's 2018 release, as 1-4 players pick their way through ever-shifting dungeons in co-operative action, as they battle thro?ugh High Peak Castle en route to a confrontation with the nefarious Hand of The King. One of four uniquely skilled Beheaded can be chosen, and the board will retain the Die/Repeat nature of its roguelike origins.

You can check out a breakdown of a pre-production copy in the video below, courtesy of the board game fans at Good Time Society.

//youtu.be/qny-UMI4y1Q

Explore biomes, level up your character, defe??at enemies, conquer challenges, and lose it all on the turn of a card. Level up your Beheaded, earn p?ermanent upgrades, and work with your fellow team members to defeat what seems, at first glance, a near-insurmountable challenge. But strategy, synergy, and persistence can pay off in the end, or you'll simply die, and die, and die, and die trying.

You can check out a full breakdown of Dead Cells on the official Kickstarter.

Dead Cells is available now on PS4, PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and iOS?/Android platforms.

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Quest your way to the throne

Classic board game-meets-RPG mayhem title Dokapon Kingdom is coming to a new platform. Dokapon Kingdom: Connect is embarking on a new quest for the Ninten??do Switch this spring.

Originally released for the PlayStation 2 and then the Nintendo Wii, Dokapon Kingdom is a mixture of board game antics and RPG questing. It's like if Mario Party and Dragon Quest somehow blended together into a ??chaotic competition f?or the throne.

Playing as one of several adventurers, each player's goal is to defeat beasts, gather money, and eventually win the throne. Of course, while this is your goal, it's everyone else's too, and there can only be one ruler in the Dokapon Kingdom.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfU6eDroSN4

Take down monsters or other players, gain control of towns, and learn new job classes all in pursuit of the ultimate victory. The?re are five different game modes to choose from: Normal, Story, Shopping Race, Kill Race, and Town Race. Plu??s, the board is fairly expansive, so there's good reason to replay it in different modes and combinations.

One big addition is the Connect aspect of Dokapon Kingdom: Connect. Players will be able to hop online and battle with their friends across the different game modes too, so now you won't need to all be on the same couch to fight for the kingdom. If my experience with Mario Party is any indication, it might be better th??at players are not in c?lose proximity for these games.

My kingdom on the Switch

Dokapon Kingdom is one of those games I've heard whispered about time and again. It's often described as an alternative to Mario Party, one that maintains ?the screwing??-over-your-friends fun but eschews some of the mini-games in favor of some light RPG activities.

Honestly, the style mash-up of classic RPGs and party games alone is enough to draw me in. With online play added too, it seems like Dokapon fans ?have something to look forward to this spring.

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The Pull-Out-Dining-Room-Tables Between

Bandai Namco is teaming with Steamforged Games to produce a board game variant of its stellar RPG release, Elden Ring. As reported by Eurogamer, the tabletop edition of the mega-selling 2022 release will launch a preliminary crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter "soon."

While there are very little in the way of images or details pertaining to the adaptation, Steamforged Games has revealed that Elden Ring will see one to f?our Tarnished players embark on a whole new adventure in The Lands Between, visiting familiar locations and locking steel with a rogues' gallery of recognizable and formidable opponents. The board game will feature "characteristically challenging" dice-free combat, relying on strategy and adaptation in order to survive the encounter.

"Elden Ring is a stunning, genre-defining video game, and we are humbled and privileged to be bringing it to your tabletops. To say our team is passionate about the game would be an understatement," says Steamforged CCO Mat Hart in a press release. "Our mission is always to deliver authentic tabletop adaptations tha?t capture the essence of what fans know and love about the IP. Fans should expect a dark, richly-realised t??abletop world of mystery and peril, with satisfying combat and rewarding exploration. Prepare to lose hours to this game, and to be glad about it."

This is not, obviously, Steamforged's first rodeo in the world of tabletop video game adaptations. Previously, the company has developed board and card games based on popular franchises such as Dark Souls, Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Pac-Man, and Devil May Cry. We will be sure to give you a heads-up right here on Destructoid when the Elden Ring campaign goes live.

For more information on the new game's format, check out the official Steamforged Games website.

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Because sure, why not

Wordle has seen huge success, as it went from cute and engaging daily game to overnight craze. It's now owned by the New York Times, and the Times is partnering with Hasbro now to make a Wordle board game.

CNN reports that the New York Times and Hasbro are collaborating on Wordle: The Party Game, a board game adaptation of the online version.

In the board game version, players compete with each other to guess words the other players have scribbled. Rather than guessing the word solo against the computer, you're trying to guess the other team's chosen five-letter word. It's kind of like Mastermind or Battleship, but with words.

There are a few different game types out of the box, including a "fast mode" that involves a clock and team variatio?ns. I also dig the dry-erase boards and markers, so it's easy to just re-use the same board over and over again.

Wordle: The Party Game is currently live for pre-order on Amazon, the Hasbro site, and soon on Target. The board game goes for $19.99 ?and will ship ?on October 1, 2022.

Guess the secret phrase

While strange, it isn't all too surprising. Board games are increasingly popular as of late, and board game adaptations are no different. Look at how many video games have been turned into tabletop versions over the years.

With the popularity of Wordle, I imagine a Worlde board game will absolutely sell like hotcakes. And now I'm just curious if other popular online games are soon to be adapted, too. How much longer until newfound Heardle owner Spotify turns the audio game into a board game?

The post Wordle is getting a board game appeared first on Destructoid.

Scariest tabletop since Atmosfear

[Update: The Dead by Daylight board game is now officially available to pre-order from Kickstarter. Both the Standard and Collect?or's Editions are now live at the prices noted below. Pre-orders close April 21, with copies of ??the game expected to ship in time for Halloween 2022.]

Behaviour Interactive's Dead by Daylight is surely one of the scariest multiplayer games on the market right now, but do you know what would make it even scarier? If you added CARDS. Think of the risk of papercuts. If you agree with me, (which you shouldn't), then you'll be h?appy to hear tha??t the asymmetrical multiplayer will be headed to a tabletop near you later in 2022.

The developer has teamed with game-maker Level 99 to produce a board game based on the survival horror title. Typically titled Dead by Daylight, the new game hopes to transpose the hide 'n' hunt nature of the video game to your dining room, complete with teams of survivors, a variety of deadly killers, various missions and tasks, generators. and even a cute plastic equivalent of DbD's "hook-hanging" sequence.

"As fans of the original video game, we worked hard to capture the tension between the Survivors and the Killer on every turn," says Level 99 designer D. Brad Talton Jr. "The moment when you commit to your move and then have to hold your breath while the Killer makes their play �to me that’s the essence of Dead by Daylight."

The new game, like so many licensed board games of the modern age, will be crowdfunded on Kickstarter, with funding opening on March 29. A Standard Edition, priced at $49.99, will include six Killers, seven Survivors, and two maps, while a prestige Collector's Edition, priced at $99.99, 16 Killers, 17 Survivors, and four maps. Level 99 promises an entire cast of characters leading up to the release of the All-Kill DLC �so a lot o??????????????????????????f your favorite slashers will be in the mix.

We'll be sure to give you a reminder when the Dead by Daylight Kickstarter opens, March 29.

The post (Updat??e) Dead by Day??light board game pre-orders now live appeared first on Destructoid.

Turning the Ultimate Summer Camp into a summer job

Danganronpa Decadence hit the Nintendo Switch last week, bringing four games in the despair-ridden universe to the portable console. Three of those are what you'd consider the classic Danganronpa experiences, mixing murder and mystery with broader narrative arcs. And then there's the newcomer, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp.

While the previous three Danganronpa games are adventure games, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp sees the cast of those games and Ultra Despair Girls (a side game not included in Decadence) diving into a virtual summer training camp. Hijinks ensue, series antagonist Monokuma unleashes evil robotic Monobeasts across the islands, and the stude??nts set off to defeat robots and enjoy their summer.

Ultimate Summer Camp is an expanded version of the board game mode included with Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, mixing RPG combat with a tabletop format. The idea is you take indivi?dual characters, play them individually through a 'run' of the board game to level them up, then use those powered-up versions in a party to take on a challenge tower.

It's a cycle that gets monotonous incredibly fast, though. And so when the gameplay falls away, all that's left is the other focus of Danganronpa S: the fan service. There is a lot of it, and some of it's even pretty good. But even that falls prey to the issues that plague Danganronpa S as a whole.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-lArfrcc34

Danganronpa is no stranger to these 'what-if' experiences that allow characters to interact and hang out without the looming pressure of death and despair. Each of the Danganronpa mainline entries has its own carefree social sim mode, so you can spend t?ime talking to characters that you didn't hang out with in your proper run of the main narrative.

Danganronpa S expands this out across multiple games. Now the detective Kirigiri can hang out with Danganronpa 2's Hajime Hinata, or Gonta can share a laugh with Komaru Naegi. Some characters, like the? main antagonist and source of much series despai??r, get really interesting recontextualizations in this light. Seeing them, or even the cruelly comedic Monokuma, enjoy a summer break together is the main draw.

The problem is that it ha??ppens far too sparingly, and takes a while to get there. At?? the outset, the only playable characters available are the protagonists of each game in the series. Outside of that crew, you'll be rolling from one of several gacha machines for different variations of the characters, with different outfits and potential based on their rarity.

Putting gacha mechanics in a paid video game is already not a strong first impression. Then, you consider how many playable characters are in Danganronpa S, and their different variations too. It's a lot to collect, through currency you earn by playing the game. You can, however, pay to directly purchase the card of a character?? you want; so if you want that s??uper-rare version of Ibuki, for example, you can plunk down some cash in the eShop to get it.

It's a bleak monetization model, especially considering how Danganronpa V3 before it took particular aim at the commodification of creative work. Someone playing this series for the first time would be understandably baffled to play the final case of V3 and then boot up Ultimate Summer Camp, and see the model laid out before them.

Even if you have the cards you want, you're mostly at the mercy of die rolls to rack up events. Character interactions are earned through landing on special squares on the board, and I've already had a couple repeats in th?e few repeat runs I've done with characters. The events are largely text-based too, with special art seemingly reserved for either the cards (which have some wonderful guest art for the power-up Hype cards that unlock character potentials) or big story moments.

The board game section itself in Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp is fairly novel at first. I enjoy the idea of working my way around a board, building up my character, and eventually tackling the Monobeasts in big, turn-based bouts. The board design is really clever, making use of the island structure from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair to lay out a fun and interesting world.

You aren't really encouraged to stop and smell the roses, though. You only get a set number of turns to develop your single card, to best prepare them for a run in the tower later. Within a few runs I was already min-maxing the best route I could take across the board, sinking int?o repetition as I leveled up and moved on. The Auto function for battles stayed on most of the time.

And so most of my time with Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp has been just that: repetition. Pick a single player card to level up, beat as many Monobeasts as I can in one run, check the achievements to see how ?many coins I got, roll the gacha. Go to the tower, build my party, see how high ??up I can go, check the coins, roll the gacha.

Despite this, I'm still playing it. I like these characters enough that seeing them in??teract and hang out is its own reward, ?and I'm somewhat bullheadedly set on getting cards for my favorite characters before I drop it. But even then, I'm not really paying attention to what's going on. I'm hitting Auto, island hopping, and making occasional choices, building up more rolls as I watch something on another screen. I'm playing more runs I don't have much vested interest in, so I can get a chance at seeing the characters I like roll out of a machine.

It just feels cold, and not in the despair-inducing way that makes the Danganronpa series one of my favorites in the adventure genre. The board game itself isn't very appealing after a few go's, and while there are fun fan-service chats and crossovers, they're fleeting and locked behind either chance or ca??sh. If this was a free game, I might feel a bit more lenient, and maybe even consider kicking in a couple bucks just to get some of the Ultimates I reall??y like.

But as a $19.99 standalone, or part of the full Decadence package, it feels tacked on. Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp is tedious, and doesn't feel interested in getting you to the reason you're playing it in the first place at a reasonable ??pace. I'd rather spend my time building up hearts in the other three games, or even replaying their excellent stories.

It's on the Switch, docked next to my couch, so there's a very strong possibility that I'll boot this up every now and then when I feel like watching a long-form YouTube essay or something. But Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp doesn't do enough to pull my attention fully onto itself. Hopefully this isn't a portent of despair for the seri?es' futur??e.

The post Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp is fan service served?? cold appeared first on Destructoid.

New coat, same chaos

Mario Party is, in my opinion, a staple of Nintendo's chaotic multiplayer offerings. Smash Bros. has a good deal of fighting and frenetic chaos, sure, but there's something different about Mario Party. This party, and Mario Party Superstars, are about the potential for both fun co??mpetition and massive swings in equal measure.

It captures the moment someone rolls a die and lands on Boardwalk in Monopoly, and s??eethes in quiet frustration as they count out every last buck they have to fork over to another player, and turns it into a fully virtual board game. The earliest Mario Party games are some of the best adaptations of this anything-can-happen concept. Spinning blocks with stars, arrows, and portraits could swing the outcome of th??e match in a single turn.

There were fewer stay-ahead mechanics, and more comebacks and massive swings. It's this side of the Mario Party that Mario Party Superstars goes back to, and if you've been aching to steal so??meone's stars, it's got a lot of that going on.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jEq0F656aY

Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo Switch)
Developer: NDcube
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: Oct. 29, 2021
MSRP: $59.99

Mario Party Superstars is essentially a best-of for the earlier era of Mario Party games. The boards themselves come from the first three Mario Party games on the Nintendo 64, while the minigames pull from the N64, GameCube, and more. Content-wise, it's presenting exactly what it says: a rehash of the best, from an era that's pretty beloved by Mario Party aficionados.

And honestly, Superstars makes a good first impression. After a short intro sequence, you're greeted with a menu screen that seems ripped right out of the Nintendo 64 years. There's something about this sort of hub village that transports me back to the era of not just Mario Party's first few games, but also Pokemon Stadium and other N64 go-to's.

Hopping into the boards, you can see right away the visual upgrade?s made to each one. These are, functionally, the same boards as before. The haunted woods and space station are just as you remember them, except with a? visual upgrade. But that visual upgrade really does make a difference.

Highlighted by the side-by-side you're presented with at the start of each board, you can really see how much?? different these boards look n??ow. It's remembering the games like your rose-tinted memories do, rather than what they actually looked like back then. Having a revitalized version of these classics might be enough by itself for some Mario Party fans to pick this collection up.

And the boards do hold up. They are every bit as hectic, infuriating, and ridiculous as I remember. In one match, I advanced forward a few spaces and landed on an event tile, which caused a Thwomp in a car to chase me down the lane I had just advanced across and all the way to the other end of the board. "Okay," I thought?. "It's bad, but I've got some Double Dice. I can roll doubles and make up the time lost next turn."

Then next turn, I locked in a special event I half-paid attention to as I passed by and landed on the exact same Thwomp event as before. Except now, because I had activated the other one, I was pushed back even further. I had to laugh, because really, that is Mario Party: a mixture of cold, cruel die rolls and comedy found in the suffering thos?e die dish out.

If board games aren't your style, there are actually a fair few things to do that aren't just classic Mario Party. They're all contained in the Mt. Minigames area, which has a pretty impressive number of ways to repackage and host the large collection of minigames in Mario Party Superstars.

Some of them are a little more team-oriented, while others provide a solo challenge. I like the idea of Daily Challenge modes, as it gives you a reason to k??eep coming back to the minigame mountain, and it threw a few neat playlists of games my way.

To be clear, it's all still playing the minigames you know from Mario Party proper, but they're packaged in a way to encourage a little bit more teamwork than you might hav??e in the board game. The 1-against-3 mine-cart gauntlet is an example of this, where you're chall??enged with win-streaking with a team against one foe in consecutive minigame bouts.

To be honest, I spent most of my time on Mt. Minigames in the sports area, where games like volleyball and hockey we??re available as their own standalone experiences, with rankings to climb and everything. An hour went by in a blur when I was playing a bunch of volleyball match??es, and it was honestly a blast.

While there are local options available for Mario Party play, in both the board game and minigame areas, another big draw is online play. Unlike its predecessor, Mario Party Superstars has online play right out of the gate, and in my experience, it's worked fairly well. I've heard anecdotal cases of players dropping when they get too far behind, but like a game of Monopoly, som??etimes you can't help but have a few walk-offs.

What's been most notable to me is the contrast between Mario Party Superstars and Super Mario Party, the previous Mario Party go-to on the Nintendo Switch. The latter was a new game, and it tried a lot of new ideas. I think some of them were interesting, and I especially dug the mode that sent four players hurtling down a river in a raft together. There were some interesting stabs taken at what a co-op Mario Party experience might look like, though the main Mario Party formula wasn't so great. Character dice were?? cool but made it easy to stay ahead, in my experience, and the board offering was less than stellar. Games also took a pretty long time to close out.

Contrast this with Mario Party Superstars, which uses the benefit of its own legacy to launch right out with the classic Mario Party its fans fell for in the first place. It is absolutely a retread, with its innovations coming in the visual tune-ups and clever repackaging of content. And the retread also works really well. I've found myself revisiting this on a whim much more than I did with Super Mario Party, and most of my time has been single-player too, as there's a surprising amount of fun to find even if you don't have a party going. And it revives a lot of what I've liked about past Mario Party ?games, from higher-cost Stars to interesting board mechanics like the plants on Peach's bi??rthday cake.

So while Mario Party Superstars doesn't necessarily break massively new ground, it's so good at replaying the classics that it will probably be my new go-to for Mario Party fun moving forward. It isn't just the Nintendo 64 nostalgia talking here; this is a good collection of minigames, a smart board selection, a nice-looking game, and it's got tons of settings, dials, and options to fiddle with for repeat play sessions. It might not be filled with new ideas, but Mario Party Superstars plays the hi?ts, and plays them as well as it did the first time around.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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