Super Mario Party Will Feature Online Play With Friends, But Only For Minigames

Eh.. they probably shouldn't of even bothered.

Would prefer havinat the option to play board game with friend online. Still, this is the first MP with online with others.

Why?

well it wont be the only party game for the switch maybe the next one will have boards as a part of the online

This is a very "Nintendo" thing for them to do. Maybe Nintendo will have figured out how to implement full online functionality by 2021 when Ultra Mario Party releases.

Baby steps.

Preorder canc.....oh hang on a sec I wasn't going to buy it.

Nintendo in 2018. Couldn't be bothered to do online play proper in a flippin Mario game. At least tell us why you continuously choose to ignore our demands for online play.

@JTMnM No, the Nintendo thing to do is go backwards with online over time. So by 2021, we will be needing to directly connect each Switch console using cables bought separately.

Some truncated version of the full experience is actually a better idea than a full play thru...was negative about this att first, but if those 5 games can be played thru in one go, and are constantly randomized - could feel like playing thru a 4 races of Mario Kart and a more likely way to have an constantly active online pool of people. But FULL playthru's should still be another mode.

I feel like the full board game would be dull without people actually in the room anyway.

Or maybe I just feel the full board game will be dull

@RETRO_J "Please bring back the Nintendo of 2017, we miss you!" If Nintendo has headline for this year it'd be, "Almost what I want." From Kirby to Labo to Smash's release date, the Pokemon games, Star Fox in Starlink...

That's a shame. That said, I think most of the fun comes from being in the same room. Hearing the clicking sounds of the buttons when 4 players have to alternate pressing L and R, looking at your friend's face when you steal a star from them, constant laughing, etc. Boards can also take a long time so there would need to be an easy way to drop one of the players mid-match if someone needs to go or if their connection isn't good enough. Maybe next time?

WHY !

I’m actually surprised even it’s got online at all. Honestly can’t see how the full board game could work, definitely wouldn’t work with randoms.
Mario Party games can go on for a long time, not to mention online connectivity issues. Could see it possibly working only with personal friends dedicated to playing a full game.
But this here is a pretty good compromise.

Half-a-job

Nintendo's decisions baffle me

Perfect idea. Rage quits and lagging would kill the mood. Love the look of this one

Board games online wouldn't work.
People would disconnect and it would ruin the experience.

Can’t see any reason whatsoever to be unable to play online, with friends at the very least. A technical reason perhaps? Or the game is being rushed out and they’d rather not get proper online sorted? Certainly not for the best, how could fewer features be for the best?

As long as there isn't another Mario Party where everyone is in a car then I don't care to be honest. At least they're getting somewhere

@BensonUii to me Mario Party is a social thing rather than online, last time I played it we were loaded up with red stripes in my front room laughing and joking, playing it on the Gamecube, how time flies.

About freakin time

This is good for playing with randoms who might not be reliable enough to sit through a full board game, but come on, why can't we have full online modes with friends!

@jswhitfield8 That's a poor argument. There are games with dozens of people in them at once (like Fortnite). Even Splatoon has 8 at once.
And other online board games, like Talisman which has 6 players max has a nifty feature that if someone is dropped in the middle of a match, they can reconnect and return to the game, and the A.I. will take over until they return.

How many of you have 3 friends that are also going to buy the game or would buy the game if you were to get it? I don't know about you guys but I have bunch of friends who would play Mario Party locally but wouldn't bother to buy the game for themselves.

Does anyone know if you need a joycon to play this game? Will it not work with the pro controller?

I honestly just want the game to be good! The last few were so disappointing, trying to change the formula too much. Go back to Mario party 5/6 and they are still so great!

@FragRed Switch Advance Game Link Cables FTW!

@Moshugan @jswhitfield8 Nevermind games like Civ that can have more players and go for much, much longer. It's really not an excuse at all. The only excuse is Nintendo is being Nintendo. I guess that's fine and their choice, but I would prefer it if they let the players decide. If you don't want to play online and risk someone rage quitting, don't play with randoms. I don't see how the option hurts anyone. As for playing the full game with friends online, I can't fathom why you wouldn't want that.

Sorry but full board game online is a terrible idea. Not only would it potentially take HOURS, but unless you're only playing with friends you know and trust, no random person is going to stick with you for that long (let's face it, many online gamers are babies when it comes to losing) and if your internet connection has any issues (odds increase with eight players playing over longer periods), then it ends up being the opposite experience that players here think they might have.

Logically, the mini game mode is a great compromise. Maybe down the road they can add some "quick" modes similar to Monopoly where you can have an entire gaming session in 10 minutes.

@nintendork64 There's shorter game lengths available. It would still be lengthy for an online game, but certainly doesn't have to take hours. Internet connection is really a non-issue, unless Nintendo fails horrendously at setting up their online systems. Connectivity-wise, it would be fine - there have been more demanding, and longer running, online games for decades. This is just a case of Nintendo being Nintendo. There's really no reason you shouldn't be able to play the full game with friends, and I'd love to see it as an option to play with randoms. I'm sure there's a lot of things they could do to shorten the game as well, if they really needed to, for an online game.

I went from a zero to a 50% chance of buying the game. If they do actually plan to make the whole board game mode available for online play (probably not), the chance would jump to a 100%. Don't see that happening but then hey, it's possible.

Seeing as Minigames are the best part of any Mario Part imo, I'll take this

@WiltonRoots - Sounds like a fun evening. Mario Party, Smash Bros, and to a much lesser extent, Mario Kart, are games I always buy, but don’t play by myself very much; yet they’re priceless to have on hand in the event the right mix of people end up at your place.

That's very disappointing. I'll still be picking up Mario Party to play with my family at home, but I would have loved to play the full version of the game with some distant family that own a Switch.

Who is playing games like Mario Party any other way, than with friends/family locally? 😂

This is honestly fine because you can't really plan what you're going to do without having people next to you. Plus lag would make it super annoying.

@jswhitfield8

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. What would happen if you're close to the end of the game and somebody disconnects (or rage quits) and you get booted out? That would really suck. Mini games are probably the best way to go to have some online presence, but I know it's not what everybody wants.

I don't understand the complaining here. Online for just minigames makes sense from a design perspective considering the length a typical game of Mario Party not to mention the issues that can crop up with disconnects and randoms.

It would have been nice to have had online Mario Party with the board and voice chat. They could have limited the mini games to ones that didn't require to be in the same room (like not including those ones they showed off where two Switches are placed next to each other and you use the touch screen). Hopefully if this series continues, Nintendo looks at offering online play for it because it would actually add to replay value.

@JTMnM more like Super Mario Party Ultimate with ALL the boards, ALL the characters and ALL the items!!!

@JTMnM the saddest part about this is that, people were saying almost the exact same sorts of things both back on Wii U and Wii.

Good to see Nintendo never changes...The option to add online play to Mario Party has been there since the Wii one in 2008...when they do add it, it's only a baby step.

Was for the best. Rage quit was happen a lot if the main mode had online.

This is perfect for me in particular . I prefer playing minigames that a 50 min board game in which a lucky dice come in place. Rather play games based on skills but understand people like board games

@BensonUii what? Have you seen Fortnite on the Switch where 100 people play at the same time?

@BensonUii Many online games last 30+ minutes. It wasn't uncommon for Battlefield games to last an hour and that's with 64 players running, fighting, blowing up each other, and driving/flying.

If these other games can do so many people I'm sure 8 would woke perfectly fine.

Obviously disconnects would effect the game. Such is the nature of online play.

@nintendork64 what? I routinely play online games with strangers that last 15 minutes to hours, and the percentage of players I play with who quit (or lose connection) is incredibly low... even for many of the more toxic games. Heck, tabletop simulator the games can easy last a couple hours and there’s no punishment for disconnecting but I’ve yet to have anyone rage quit on that.

Well wasn’t really expecting it but now the game is off my radar anyways. I’ve already learned the hard way there’s no point buying a MP game if I don’t have people to play it with. Mini games online are a start but board game mode then is useless to me still.

Also the article mentioned someone rage quitting on the last turn... previous MP titles allowed you to turn human players into CPUs mid match, so certainly it could automatically do that, you finish the last turn and claim your win. Who cares if now and then an opponent leaves right before the end?

Heck, if match length was an issue they could easily streamline it too. Smaller boards with 5-10 turns, everyone rolls and moves at the same time, factor in the mini games and that’s like 15-20 minutes? Easy enough for an online match.

This is a good start. I was hoping for the board game it would only be available to friends, therefore limiting ragequiting mid game since no randoms.

Real pity. Have a full online experience between 2 Mario Party households would have been awesome. Even a Red vs Blue concept.

@Yorumi My thoughts exactly. Nintendo are hardly selling us their new service where they'll charge users to play games online.

@Toads-Friend There's something called a "friend list". I would never play Mario Party online with randoms, but would be cool to play with my wife against my brother and his wife who live in another city.

That's almost a deal breaker for me. Without online play I might be able to play witb friends once or twice... every other month. One of the drawbacks of being an adult is that everyone moves away to follow their own careers. No more running down the street to a friend's place.

@JTMnM maybe by that point Nintendo will realize how idiotic it is to make voice chat run through a mobile app instead of through the console. It still amazes me that they thought that was a good idea

baby steps Nintendo... baby steps...

Lol, typical Nintendo.

So I'm not getting it. Can you play these minigames with strangers around the world? If not...wow.

I don't know why they even bothered in that case, I can't see too many going online just to play a few minigames and this is huge missed opportunity

It's nice to see Nintendo at least try to add online play to Mario Party, even if it's not perfect:/

They deserve points for the attempt.

Well... It's a start!

It’s 2018. I was going to buy a switch for the ability to play the actual game ( not just mini games ) with friends online. Bunch of morons at Nintendo. It’s a shame, this game had so much potential.

For online they should have drop in and out for game boards. They can use stars earned as a representation of your rank. Points from mini games won can be used to buy stars and be used to purchase upgrades to dice

There's really no good reason we shouldn't be able to play with our friends who live out of state. We've been wanting to play Mario Party online for so long. Still looking forward to online play but...come on Nintendo.

Does anyone know if a friend from a different location and I will be able to play against the computer without being in the same room?