Though the Jackbox Party Pack 3 just launched for the Switch a couple of months ago,, the first two games in the series are just making their debut. It was worth the wait, honestly, because with all of the mini games available to us now, parties have a lot more ways to keep going.
The Jackbox series isn’t just about the novel games within, but also about all of the choices provided. If one game isn’t working well with a group, there are 4 (or more) others ready to take its place. With the release of Packs 1 & 2, that’s ever more evident, and especially viable since the games are essentially timeless.
And that’s the charm of the series: it never gets old.
Sure, there’s a point where you can get bored with one iteration — let’s say you plowed through Pack 3 all Summer on trips — but the magic of the games is that they’re basic and explanatory enough to go backward. That is, a quiz party game *always* works, no matter how old it is, so buying Pack 3 first, then Pack 1, then Pack 2 (and eventually Pack 4, whenever it’s released) is completely okay and, in fact, encouraged.
It’s kind of like having a shelf of great board games, and the ability to cycle through them at a moment’s notice.
It helps that Jackbox presents the games-within-games as stacks of cardboard boxes, then.
In the finite details, Party Pack 2 is perhaps slightly more enjoyable for me than Party Pack 1, but only because the development team learned a bit about how players react to the questions, and how to pit those reactions (and players) against each other. I still love Drawful (yay, arts degree) but Quiplash is better for groups. Fibbage 2 and XL are the same game, only with more questions.
And so it’s just really a matter of what mini games you like more than others, and perhaps that varies on the moment or time of day. They all work with our own phones (SWEET) and look greta on the Switch both when docked and undocked — just be sure to be on wifi.
That’s why it’s hard not to recommend taking a long look at both Party Packs. As the Switch plays catch-up, the series seems to have a fantastic new home on the device.
This dual review is based on eShop copies of the games for Switch sent to SideQuesting by the publisher
No Comments