YMMV / Super Mario Party

• Contested Sequel: The game is usually seen as a large improvement over NDCube’s other titles but is still very divisive compared to Hudson Soft’s games. Some fans praised the game for returning to the old formula, tweaks to the board gameplay, and the high quality/quantity of minigames. Other fans felt it paled in comparison to Hudson Soft’s games due to the boards being very small, grid-based, and only having four on top of feeling that changes such as Golden Pipes and Stars being 10 coins make the board gameplay much less balanced.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When you recruit Princess Peach as one of your allies, she quotes that she can play the hero when she needs to. Fast forward six years, she literally plays the hero in a theater play.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The small amount (and size) of boards and their shorter length (as well as a lack of an option for more than twenty turns) gets this response, as the game just doesn't have enough content for all it's improvements.
• Paranoia Fuel: "Don't Wake Wiggler". You and the other players each take turns petting a sleeping Wiggler to score points, each pet causing it to steadily awaken from its sleep. If you are the unfortunate soul that causes the awakening pet, the monster wakes up in a fit of rage, causing a Jump Scare with the creature letting out a loud, horrendous noise and turning red right in front of your face — in stark contrast to the quiet music and sound effects of the rest of the minigame.
• Replacement Scrappy: While he's seen as a logical choice to fill in the spot and not outright disliked, Kamek hasn't gotten the same Love to Hate reaction as the now playable Bowser when he took over his role. A big reason why is that he's a Punch-Clock Villain who works with the hosts, in contrast to Bowser who was playing a purely antagonistic role, which allowed him to be a real heel. It also doesn't help that he has much less to do than Bowser did, with no impact on the game extending past his Bad Luck Spaces, even on his own board where he actually loses two of his punishments. And in addition to less variety, his Bad Luck Spaces are less penalizing and thus less entertaining than the Bowser Spaces, even when they transform into Extra Bad Luck Spaces, which only last for the final three turns.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The game doesn't support any control scheme except for detached Joycons. As a result, the game can't be played with a pro controller, in portable mode or on a Switch Lite, largely defeating the purpose of the game being on the Nintendo Switch. Superstars made sure to fix this.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The very first trailer pulled no punches in revealing that Bowser was to be playable in regular gameplay (or at least multiplayer), after so many entries spent almost entirely as the series' prime board hazard or only playable in side modes. In fact, the trailer went to the extent of depicting a player explicitly playing as him, as well as Bowser competing in minigames and being affected by other board hazards the exact same way as a player character would.
  • Goomba was revealed alongside Bowser. Goombas have been in the Mario Party franchise since its inception, but have never been playable because of their lack of arms. They even show Goomba winning a tricycle race against Mario, Peach, and Bowser!
  • The game also lets you play as Pom-Pom, the Distaff Counterpart of Boom-Boom introduced in Super Mario 3D Land. Boom-Boom himself is (disappointingly) nowhere to be seen except as a cameo in the Absent Minded minigame.
• Win Back the Crowd: Super Mario Party was widely regarded as a step up compared to the previous NDCube games, returning the series to its original gameplay after the widely-derided "car-style" of 9 and 10 and the middling reception to the 3DS games, in addition to featuring creative modes like Sound Stage (whose minigames are rhythm-based, not unlike Rhythm Heaven) and River Survival (whose minigames operate under 4-player cooperation instead of competition). The only major criticisms were the lack of alternative control schemes and the low number of boards.

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