This game is really like a minigame collection through and through. It allows you to play through fun little titles featuring a lot of Nintendo’s greatest warriors like Mario and Yoshi. It’s one of those games that is fun but there’s not a whole lot to do here so it’ll quickly get repetitive the more that you play through it. After a while you will probably be wondering what else there is to do and that’s when you will put it down. A minigame title would need way more options for it to really grab your attention. This one has 5-6 minigames when you start and you can unlock the next 5-6 after you get enough high scores. So that does help a little bit with the replay value but even then it’s not going to take you a super long time to pull that off. Trust me on this, this isn’t one of those super long games like that.

I think the biggest problem here is that for the most part, the games are too easy. You will get high scores without much effort but a lot of the time you will have to lose on purpose in order to stop. Without knowing what score you need for the highest medal though, you are basically stuck trying to figure that out. So ironically you may choose to let yourself die too early and now you have to try again. This is a big quality of life mistake and one that should be corrected. The target score for the highest rank should always be noted so you have something to compare yourself to. Without that, it’s all a guess which is annoying.

Each minigame can be played on normal and then hard mode. Additionally you can play modern or classic mode. Each one has their own set of medals so you will want to really be playing each game several times over. The modern versions have the classic Nintendo characters while the classic versions default you to various Game and Watch fighters. I feel like the gameplay also feels tighter on the modern settings but that could very well just be placebo effect at work. I wouldn’t be shocked so I need to make sure I keep that possibility open.

I highly recommend playing hard mode for all of the minigames first. The speed is higher so it definitely does make the experience considerably more fun than standard. I just feel like this should be the default speed and it would make the whole game more fun. Also, it should tell us what score we need right from the jump as opposed to having us guess the whole time. Now that would be way better and more efficient wouldn’t you say? It would help quite a bit. Meanwhile the graphics do look good though. I like the way all of the characters look and they’re all really expressive which is another W in Nintendo’s cap. The soundtrack is a bit more forgettable though.

So lets talk about some of the minigames. My favorite one is about eating the fruits as Yoshi. Basically there are 4 roads by which fruit is approaching you. You have to eat all of the fruit that comes your way without eating any bombs or other dangerous objects. It takes a good amount of speed and reaction times on your end (In hard mode at least) so you can’t let your guard down. It’s the most fun out of all the minigames and I found it to be soothing as I racked up the score as high as possible.

Then we have a food minigame where you play as a Toad getting items from Mario over to Peach. You have to jump on the birds to get to the other side. You have to make sure not to go on them when they are reaching for food though or you will end up falling down. So it’s all about timing similar to the first game. The constant eating does mean that you get delayed a lot so it’s a slower paced game though. I would say it’s also more difficult because you are always tempted to just rush in ahead and try to squeeze in another point even if it’s way too dangerous to make a move. You just can’t help it, ya know? You really want to get that score high.

After that is a cake delivery mission. As Mario and Luigi you have to package a cake as it goes up the conveyer belt. So Mario packs it and sends it forward, then as Luigi you put something on it and put it to the next layer. Mario follows upwards and this keeps on until you are at the 4th layer and take it to the truck. So you have to be moving both characters to keep track of each cake and you lose a point when a cake falls on the ground. This is a pretty good game for really testing your multi task skills. If you make any kind of mistake then it is all over for you.

Surprisingly the Donkey Kong Jr game is one of my least favorites. You have to go grab a key and then take it over to a cage. You do this by swinging on vines and dodging enemies that come your way. You can’t move while jumping so this means you do have to take your time as enemies arrive. It takes the most skill by far so I’ll give the game credit there but it also means that this is the slowest paced game. I imagine you won’t need nearly as high of a score as the others to get full points on your medals but I’m not really sure what kind of score they are looking for here. It’s a bit of a mystery really.

Finally you have a game where you are protecting some plants from both ground and aerial enemies. You have to outwit both sides in order to claim victory here and I can tell you that this is no easy feat. If you lower your guard for even a moment then it’s all over. This was a really fun one. It does fall into the trap of being easy so you will have to choose when to die but I still liked the idea of the game. It’s another calming one that just works really well.

I only played one of the unlockable games but it was a classic game where you memorize the opponent’s movements and copy them. In another one you have to follow along quickly. Both variations of the game were pretty cool and remind me of Simon Says. I also generally like memory games so this fit in really well with that kind of approach.

Overall, This is a fun game. There is some replay value with how you can play the games over and over but I do feel like it could have been smoother overall. The games should move fast to really let you keep on playing them without feeling like it’s a real time sink. I also think that a game should have way more minigames if that’s the entirety of the content. At least 30 minigames or so for the variety. Even with the unlockables this one only goes up to around 12 which isn’t much at all. So now that it’s on the Switch Online I would recommend checking it out but if you had to pay for it I would suggest getting the game at a great price!

Overall 6/10