Sorry Jackbox, Mario Party is still the best party game

The Jackbox Party Packs are one-off bits of fun, but I'll keep coming back to Mario Party.

Super Mario Party Jamboree artwork / Nintendo

Every year I invite a small handful of friends over to ring in the New Year, and almost every year, one friend cancels, leaving a nice round group of four ready to have a few drinks and shout about some video games. It’s not very adventurous or lively, it’s relaxed and low-key, more of a gathering of people that had nothing better to do than anything else. But that’s exactly the kind of environment where Mario Party thrives.

Super Mario Party Jamboree launched in 2024, finally giving my annual party a third game to play in the span of nearly eight years. I love Mario Party, but I can’t play it too regularly. Nobody wants me to be any better at the minigames than I already am, and opportunities to play with a full group of four don’t happen too often. As a result, last year we were stuck with the choice of playing Super Mario Party (from 2018), Mario Party Superstars (a 2021 collection of older boards and minigames), or something else entirely. For the first time in years, we opted for something else, and landed on Jackbox Games.

I’ve had some great experiences with a few of the Jackbox Party Packs I’ve played with friends in the past, and if you need to cater to a larger group, a Jackbox game is an easy choice. These games feel purpose-built for innuendo and rude jokes, and as long as your nan isn’t attempting to play along, it’s going to get a lot of laughs. Each Jackbox Party Pack comes as a pack for a reason, though. The games are, frankly, pretty shallow, and that shows itself the second time you play through them.

Jackbox Naughty Pack / Jackbox Games

The game design team at Jackbox might be a bit overwhelmed, too. 12 Jackbox Party Pack games have been launched since 2012, and some of those packs include games such as “Quiplash 3” and “Fibbage 4”. These games are fun while they last, but they don’t last long, and unless you’re with a totally new group of people, playing the game again is going to feel too familiar for how simple it is. 

Cut back to New Year’s Eve 2024, and I’m booting up a quick 10-turn game of Super Mario Party Jamboree for my pals. None of us have played this game before, nobody is quite sure what to expect, and we just might end up turning it off well before midnight. As soon as that 10-turn game wrapped up, a 20-turn game commenced.

You already know how Mario Party plays – you roll dice to move around a board and get interrupted by minigames – but it’s a system that works so damn well. Even if you’re playing with someone who isn’t a particularly skilled gamer, a good dice roll and the right team in a minigame can carry that person to victory. It’s just the right amount of tactical thinking and RNG, and like Mario Kart, can make you feel like your luck was actually skill the entire time.

My friends were outraged when my Buddy Wario helped me get two stars at once, sealing the game. / Nintendo

Whereas Jackbox titles are good fun, a hearty laugh, and then forgotten about after the fact, Mario Party is an actual game. You’re not just in it to make your pals laugh, you’re in it to utterly defeat them. Nobody wants to replay a Jackbox game to win, they want to replay for some more giggles. When a replay of Mario Party is demanded, it’s because someone was deeply offended and wants a chance at revenge. You don’t just giggle a bit while playing Mario Party — you laugh, you cry, you shout, you scream. The full range of human emotions, distilled into a goofy board game.

I’ll definitely be pulling up Jackbox Party Packs when at family gatherings or parties larger than four total people, because they are good fun, but if we’ve got just enough people together to play Mario Party, that will be my choice every single time. It might only get played once a year in my household, but my New Year’s Eve gatherings never feel complete without Mario Party — and the ten minute break we take for fireworks.