Super Mario Party

Super Mario Party is a party video game developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The eleventh main instalment in the Mario Party series, it was released worldwide on 5 October 2018, and sold 1.5 million copies by the end of the month, making it one of the system's best-selling games. As of 30 September 2019, the game has sold 7.59 million copies.

Gameplay
The traditional gameplay of the older Mario Party games returns in Super Mario Party, after the previous two games' departure from the established form. The standard game mode, Party Mode, features up to four players taking turns and navigating the board in search of stars while competing against one another in a variety of minigames. A second mode, known as Partner Party, has two teams of two players also searching for stars on a free-movement board similar to those in Mario Party: Star Rush. The game can be played with only one Joy-Con controller per player, allowing two players to play together with only one Switch system, which comes with two Joy-Con. Super Mario Party also takes advantage of the Switch's local wireless capabilities, allowing teams to play from separate Switch consoles and allowing multiple Switch consoles to be arranged and synchronized to create larger, multi-monitor environments in a mode called "Toad's Rec Room" (as patented prior to the game's reveal).

Some of the minigames can be played using traditional button controls, while others may be controlled by motion controls, such as a tricycle race minigame known as Trike Harder.

Toad and Toadette return as Super Mario Party's host, directing the players through the game.

Online play
Super Mario Party features online multiplayer for the first time in the Mario Party series. While Party Mode's board games are restricted to offline play, players are able to play the game's 80 minigames with other players either locally or online independent of the board games in the game's "Online Mariothon" mode. In the Online Mariothon mode, players compete in five randomly-selected minigames aiming to get the highest score. It also features leader boards and a ranking system, as well as rewards that the players can receive for playing the mode.

Playable characters
The roster of playable characters in Super Mario Party includes Mario, Luigi, Rosalina, Dry Bones, Boo, Koopa Troopa, Hammer Bro, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Shy Guy, Bowser, Wario, and Waluigi, all of whom are returning characters, with Bowser being fully playable for the first time. New playable characters to the series include Bowser Jr. and Diddy Kong, who had only previously appeared as a playable character in handheld Mario Party games; Pom Pom, Goomba and Monty Mole, none of whom have previously been a playable character in Mario Party, although this is the former's debut in the series, and the latter two have appeared as NPCs throughout the series.

Development
Super Mario Party was developed by NDcube. Nintendo revealed Super Mario Party on 12 June 2018 during their Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 Nintendo Direct presentation, where they also announced that the game would release on 5 October 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. In August 2018, Nintendo said that Super Mario Party would not support the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. In September 2018, it was revealed that Super Mario Party would not support handheld mode.

Reception
Super Mario Party received "generally favorable reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic. IGN gave the game a 7.3, stating "Super Mario Party delivers the couch multiplayer experience the series is famous for," though also mentioning a lackluster selection of maps. The game in general was widely criticized for only having four boards in Mario Party and Partner Party, and many reviewers also found these boards to be too small compared to old Mario Party games. The game was praised for its wide variety of modes and characters, however, probably the highest praise went to the minigames.

Sales
Super Mario Party sold 142,868 physical copies within its first 2 days on sale in Japan, outpacing its predecessors Mario Party 10 and Mario Party 9. Super Mario Party debuted at #5 on United Kingdom sales charts for physical copies sold, at a very crowded time. By 31 October 2018, total sales of Super Mario Party reached over 1.5 million copies, far exceeding Nintendo's expectations and making it the fastest selling Mario Party game since Mario Party 6.

Total sales reached 7.59 million copies by the end of September 2019. As of March 2019, the game has sold 1.22 million copies in Japan.