Is one of your opponents one move away from Toadette (and therefore an all-precious Star) on Yoshi's Tropical Island? Then now's the time to use that custom dice block to land exactly on the event space that switches Toadette and Bowser's locations. You have to, for example, pay close attention to the day/night cycle in Horror Land to make sure the path you need will be open by the time you reach it. Yes, it's still hard to shake the rage that comes when seemingly random in-game events conspire to thwart carefully laid plans, but Mario Party Superstars (like most Mario Party games) shines in those occasional moments when your multi-turn strategy actually does bear fruit. Each of the boards here feature their own unique twists and turns that force you to think on the fly as conditions change. Nostalgia can only take you so far, though, so it's good that Superstar's boards-all taken from the first three Mario Party games-still feel fresh and engaging to play.
![mario party 2 metacritic mario party 2 metacritic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cd/Marioparty1.jpg)
I'm certainly old enough to remember the very first Mario Party back in the late '90s, so it was fun to get that hit of nostalgia dopamine when playing on classic boards like Peach's Birthday Cake and Yoshi's Tropical Island. In embracing the old, Superstar loses a lot of tweaks and additions that have livened up recent Mario Party games, making Superstars as much of a step back as it is a throwback. This is a game that delivers on the core Mario Party experience and is high on nostalgia, but my kids' questions highlighted the trade-off that comes with that approach. The newest entry, Mario Party Superstars, is a deliberate embrace of the Mario Party series' early days before motion control gimmicks and twists on its classic game mode became the norm.
![mario party 2 metacritic mario party 2 metacritic](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/box/9/8/6/4986_front.jpg)
My kids have had a lot of experience with Super Mario Party (the previous game in the series, which was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2018), so these comparisons were inevitable. Where, my 12-year-old son asked, was Monty Mole, his favorite character from the last game? Why are there no minigames where you have to waggle the controllers around, my seven-year-old daughter asked? Why are there so few characters to choose from anyway? And why does everyone have the same dice block? My kids had a litany of questions during our first game of Mario Party Superstars.