Buy The Sisters: Party of the Year

The purpose of a license for video games is recognition. It means that fans of that particular book, TV show, movie, or celebrity will be more inclined to check out a game featuring that thing they love. Results always vary, but there's no denying the power of familiarity. That sort of thing only works when you actually have people in the area who know anything about said property. The Sisters: Party of the Year falls in a strange predicament, as the game is based on a French-produced cartoon that has been running for two seasons, but the only region outside of Europe to hear about it is Canada. Yet here it is in physical form and on the Nintendo eShop in North America, where most of the residents have no means of watching the show.

The series is a slice-of-life cartoon based on the comic of the same name. In the context of the game, the older sister Wendy has decided to throw a party at her house with her friends. Before she can ask her dad for permission to do so, her younger sister Maureen swipes the idea and asks first. Following a brief verbal scuffle, the two decide that the only fair way to decide who gets to throw the party is to perform a bunch of competitions around town, with the winner being the one who wins the majority of those contests.

The game features 24 different minigames that seem novel enough on first inspection. You start off with typical stuff, like trying to sweep toys so that your area is less cluttered than your opponent's area or mowing more of the lawn by the time the clock strikes zero. There's even something unusual here, with you trying to hang on to an active ceiling fan longer than the rest. Later on, you'll toss garbage in the appropriate bins, participate in food fights, and even engage in four-way ping pong battles.

There's some variety in the minigames, but they all lack the sort of spark that makes minigames fun, like WarioWare and Mario Party. Making fries seems rather unusual, but it fails to elicit excitement when doing it. The obstacle course races are button-mashing endeavors that let you mash or twirl the stick at certain times, and that doesn't feel engaging no matter how many people are playing. They're simple enough affairs that people can pick them up and play almost instantly, but they don't encourage players to keep coming back after their initial foray.

The Sisters features several modes that revolve around multiplayer. Challenges lets you play any of the 24 minigames either solo or with friends. Tournament has the group trying to win the most minigames out of a small selection, while Around the World gives everyone a turn at selecting the next minigame to play. Finally, All or Nothing has everyone completing all 24 minigames in one session. There really isn't enough of a difference between modes to make them separate things versus just having them be modifiers in a general Versus or Party mode, making it feel like this was done to make the game look fuller than it really is.

The focus of the title is the adventure mode, which replaces the usual board game layout in this genre with an open world. After a few games that take place in your home, you'll be tasked with going into the town of Millau to meet up with friends to get minigames from them. Along the way, you'll find loads of collectibles and characters that give you tickets for completing races. You can turn in the tickets for costumes and accessories for all of the characters you can select from in the other game modes.

The open world is a great idea, and it has enough to keep players busy. It's sizable and has enough townspeople and cars roaming around to make it seem rather lively. It isn't perfect, as the world has a number of invisible walls that aren't disguised as debris or impassable buildings or gates. The navigation arrows are also terrible at leading you down a path toward a goal, and the same can be said of the minimap, which isn't immediately noticeable. Even the sparkling path in the world does a poor job of guiding you to the next goal, making this better for those who like wandering.

No matter what you may think of the rest of the game, the presentation is a letdown. In terms of audio, the music is fine, even if the music seems out of place for some of the minigames, but everything else suffers from one thing or another. During cut scenes, the voices end up being low enough that it gets overshadowed by the music, making the subtitles essential since you can't hear what's being said. Go out into the world on your scooter or skateboard, and the sound of the wheels rolling overpowers everything else in the game. It could be better after a patch or two, but by default, the sound just isn't that great.

Graphically, The Sisters only fares a little better. The style of the cartoon is emulated perfectly in the characters, but mouth movements look stiff and unusual. The animations are fine, but the game is let down with an inconsistent frame rate. Playing inside the house produces a stable 60fps, as does playing some of the minigames, but if you go outside, you get something wild and unstable. The open world also produces plenty of object pop-up, and the camera can be rather unruly when near objects, causing lots of extreme zooms, twitching, and general disorientation.

Overall, The Sisters: Party of the Year has some good ideas. The open world of the campaign works well not just because of the number of things to do and collect but also because it feels alive for what is essentially a small town. Including a story mode in the first place makes it stand out among its contemporaries. That said, from the mediocre minigames to the restrictive open world and presentation issues, there's not much to entice players to give it more than one playthrough, much less seek out ways to view the source material. You'd be better served checking out some of the stronger minigame compilations.

Score: 5.5/10