Ever since the original Mario Party, I’ve tended to be a fan of the format more often than not. There have absolutely been some low periods where they sort of lost their way, but at least the most recent version got more right than wrong. It turns out that finding the balance of the proper boards, mini games, and gimmicks to keep the game both fair and still unpredictable is difficult. Something that’s made abundantly clear by the difficulties other developers have had in trying to find success with their own takes on the formula. In the case of Sweep the Board, while I may not be up to speed with the anime it’s based on, I can at least confirm they’ve done some good work to create something both familiar and yet very distinctive.

If you’ve played Mario Party, or any games in this same format, the basics are very similar. After choosing your character, you’ll roll to see who goes first, and then hit one of the multiple boards that each have their own flavor and surprises, with periodic mini game challenges helping to break things up with some action. Beyond that, pretty well everything takes on a different vibe, infused with unusual characters, some truly bizarre demons, and changes in the rules for how things work. Most critically, the game will shift between day and night, altering the board and the general focus. While during the day you’ll generally play a mini game between each turn, at night you’ll be hunting demons and that takes on quite a different feel. There are both short and simple encounters where everyone will have to play a reaction mini game for points, and larger scale battles where you’ll need to keep on top of the action with timing challenges, a little button mashing, and attacks you’ll need to counter by both pressing the proper direction and hitting the button at the right time. Initially these encounters can be a bit overwhelming, but they do absolutely help the game stake out a claim to their own space in the eShop.

While there can absolutely be periodic excitement, predictably for this board game format there are also times it drags. Especially when playing with CPU players, I wish it were easier to speed things up or skip some of the details and dialogue elements when they land on certain spaces. This is something Mario Party struggled with as well, and slowly improved, but in general a way to up the pace would be appreciated as a mere 10 turn game can feel like it’s beginning to drag at some points. As you’d also expect the mini games are hit and miss, though at least there are some fresh ideas peppered in among games that may look different but feel quite familiar. Everyone I played with did have some concerns about whether the controls always registered accurately and on-time, and especially in the demon battles I found that it felt like I had to press my button just ahead of the game visually showing a precise hit in order to be successful. It was something we could adapt to, but it was a consistent concern.

All things considered, Sweep the Board managed to make a positive impression, especially considering the typically dismal attempts other developers have made at tapping into the Mario Party vibe. It’s familiar but distinct, in general the way you’re scored tends to make who’s in the lead far more volatile, and the different characters and rules involved can lead to surprises and even some WTF sort of moments that are unexpected. If nothing else, serving as a family game that the older kids will be less likely to roll their eyes at, this may still have most of the same limits as the series that inspired it, but it has successfully charted out a course all its own.