Mario Party Needs to Learn an Important Lesson From Mario Kart

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For many families, including mine, Mario Party has always been a go-to game for fun, competitive nights. It remains incredibly popular for a simple reason: the core gameplay is timeless. While Nintendo has made small updates over the years, a Mario Party game today feels remarkably similar to the original from 1998. Even the recent Switch version largely revisited classic boards with a few modern touches.

I don’t necessarily see this as a negative thing. While it might seem a little uninspired, the core of the game is strong enough that it doesn’t need major changes. That said, there’s definitely potential for growth, and Nintendo can’t rely on nostalgia and past success forever. It’s time for the series to try something new, like the recent crossovers we’ve seen in Mario Kart. This would be a great way to refresh Mario Party and keep it exciting.

Mario Party Needs Guest Characters & Boards

Both Mario Kart 8 and its updated version, Deluxe, were notable for including popular characters and tracks from other Nintendo games. These additions weren’t just thrown in for fans; each track was thoughtfully designed with unique details, like specific coins based on the character’s original game and special elements – for example, floating balloons on the Animal Crossing track – and music. Nintendo has a long history of successful crossovers, most famously with the Super Smash Bros. series. However, Mario Kart 8 stands out because it brought these types of crossovers to a franchise that usually doesn’t feature them.

While Mario Kart 8 showed Nintendo how successful characters from different games could be together, other Mario party games haven’t followed suit. It seems odd that even the latest Mario Party titles on the Switch don’t include characters from other Nintendo franchises. This would work particularly well for Mario Party because, like Mario Kart, the game relies on being fun to play over and over again, and new characters and maps from other Nintendo worlds would be a great addition. Considering how silly and imaginative the Mario universe already is, and that Mario Kart 8 already proved crossovers can work, it feels like a natural step.

Think about a Mario Party board game themed around The Legend of Zelda, complete with Zeldainspired mini-games. Or imagine a Xenoblade Chronicles board based on the titans from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, or even a Splatoon map where the game’s colorful paint is part of how you play. These ideas seem like obvious and easy ways to add new content to older Mario Party games, but Nintendo surprisingly hasn’t done much with them. After almost thirty years since the original Mario Party*, we still haven’t seen characters from other Nintendo games crossover into the series.

It Is Time For Super Party Bros.

Okay, so the new Super Mario Party Jamboree on Switch is… disappointing. It feels like Nintendo isn’t planning on adding many more boards, and honestly, I think it’s time we started thinking about something completely new. Why stick to just Mario characters when we could have a party game with all of Nintendo’s big names? Instead of just adding characters like they did in Mario Kart 8, Nintendo should create a new game series – I’m thinking Super Party Bros. It would be like a spin-off of Super Smash Bros., but instead of fighting, we’d be focused on mini-games and partying! It just feels like a natural evolution, and a way to really shake things up.

As a huge Nintendo fan, I’ve been dreaming about a party game that’s like Mario Party, but with characters and levels from all their franchises! Imagine playing as Link or Isabelle on a board inspired by Hyrule or Animal Crossing! It would be a massive project, though. Nintendo wouldn’t launch with a crazy roster like they did with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. I think a smart move would be to start with a smaller group of popular characters – Animal Crossing has to be included, obviously! – and then add more if people love it. That feels like the perfect way to do it.

Nintendo has attempted party games using properties other than Mario before, and they haven’t been successful. However, I believe a large-scale crossover party game would be very popular. LEGO Party already does something similar with Ninjago, and could expand on that by collaborating with even more franchises. Nintendo is missing a significant opportunity by not exploring a similar idea with its own characters.

I don’t even need big names like Solid Snake, Joker, or Cloud, though they’d be awesome. We could even skip Sonic, if necessary. But if Nintendo creates a really massive game, I think other developers would want to participate, just like they did with Super Smash Bros. Ultimately, Nintendo should start including more of its classic characters in Mario Party to keep the game fresh and the series going strong.

Would you like to see characters from other games appear in Mario Party, similar to how Mario Kart includes them? Share your thoughts in the comments and join the discussion on the ComicBook Forum!

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2026-04-04 15:10