Some are more traditional button-pressing affairs, like Slaparazzi where you need to fight each other to be front and centre at a photo shoot, or Off the Chain where one player rides a Chain Chomp in an arena and tries to slam into the others. There are also many games that make smart use of the Joy-Con controller's various features such as Sizzling Stakes, where you need to flick the controller to move a cube of meat around on a frying pan making sure to brown all six sides, or Perfect Fit where pairs of players rotate 3D shapes to find a way to click them together.

It's all in good fun, since in classic Mario Party style your skill in the mini-games has close to no impact on whether or not you actually win the game. Mini-games win you coins, but you still need to follow land on the right spaces to cash those in for stars, and at the conclusion the game will hand out two completely random bonus stars anyway, so complete last-minute comebacks are frequent. Proceedings do still have a tendency to get hilariously competitive though, and in this sense Nintendo gets to have its cake and eat it too, as players of at all levels of skill and luck end up feeling good. With this main mode taking about an hour to play (you can set it to go longer if you want), I can see this becoming a regular on game nights.

And speaking of which, it's worth noting that this is a game designed for playing in a party environment, and as such it doesn't really work for playing on the go. In fact you can't use the Switch in handheld mode at all while playing, because every player needs to be holding a Joy-Con controller. You can play with fewer than four players, with the game subbing in computer-controlled avatars for the others, but obviously it works best with a quartet of humans on the couch.

Outside of the main mode there's a lot to keep you busy. Team Party is a genius addition that turns the regular mode into a 2v2 affair. Teammates share coins and stars, so you can co-ordinate to cover different areas of the board depending on where the stars are or what your opponents are doing.

River Survival has players navigating in a kayak while popping balloons to launch into special co-operative mini-games, which makes for a brilliant change of pace after all that cut-throat competition. There are heaps of forks in the river, so you'll need to play through several times to see everything.

Meanwhile Mariothon challenges you to succeed in a series of set mini-games, and can also be played online. This is where you'll go if you don't have an hour to spend on a whole board game and just want to get down to business, and it's also a good option if you're playing solo.

Perhaps the most interesting mode is Toad's Rec Room, which is played on the Switch screen itself with no TV required, and so makes use of your ability to rotate and touch the display as you go. The mini-games here can be expanded by connecting with a second Switch console also running Super Mario Party, with some bizarre and impressive results. For example in the tank combat game Shell Shocked Deluxe, you can arrange the two screens in any configuration, such as end to end or in a T shape, and then you can drive your tanks seamlessly from one system to the other.

I had less fun with the final mode, Sound Stage, which sees you shaking the controller in a series of rhythm games, but I can see some people loving it.

Overall this is a solid — if random — digital board game with a lot of bang for your buck, surrounded by heaps of fun diversions to keep regular party-goers from getting bored. The entire thing has a great sheen of polish over it too, and I was frequently impressed with little details like the different things characters say to each other in different situations, and the way they have different body language depending on whether they're good guys dealing with bad guys or the other way around.

Dedicated Mario fans will of course get more enjoyment out of these funny little touches, but the game does a great job of being accessible for everyone, with unobtrusive explanations of all the rules and mini-games. This is how you do a Mario Party game right.

Super Mario Party is out now for Switch.