Princess Peach: Showtime!

Princess Peach: Showtime!
The show must go on with Princess Peach!
Protagonist(s): Princess Peach Genre(s): Action-Adventure Platform(s): Nintendo Switch Release Date: March 22, 2024 Developer(s): Good-Feel Publisher(s): Nintendo Country: Japan Series: Mario Princess Peach

Princess Peach: Showtime! is an action-adventure game developed by Good-Feel and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the first game since Super Princess Peach in which Princess Peach has the starring role.

Why It's a Showtime

1. It's great to see Peach in a starring role after 19 years.
2. The Sparkle Theater is a bright, colorful place with six floors total (five normal floors and one basement floor) that Peach and Stella can explore to enter the plays.
3. Peach has a total of eleven transformations she can become in each play, while her normal self is called Sparkle Peach, in which she can use Stella to interact with certain objects.
   • Swordfighter Peach uses her rapier to cut through enemies and sticker bushes,
   • Ninja Peach uses stealth to defeat her foes, and can run and jump on walls like a true ninja.
   • Cowgirl Peach can lasso her foes using a cowgirl rope, and chases down foes on her horse.
   • Patissier Peach participates in a cooking minigame to prepare cookes and cakes for the festivals in the plays.
   • Dashing Thief Peach uses her poise and thief tools to get through side-scrolling stealth levels.
   • Figure Skater Peach participates in a rhythm game with her ice dancing moves and Skater Theet troupe to impress audiences.
   • Detective Peach uses her intuition to solve mysteries with the Junior Detective, similarly to a point-and-click adventure game.
   • Mighty Peach can power punch spaceships and lift objects in side-scrolling beat-'em-up/space attack levels.
   • Mermaid Peach uses her voice to control sea creatures, and also participates in a rhythm minigame when she's in concerts.
   • Kung Fu Peach uses her kung fu skills to defeat enemies in beat-'em-up style brawls.
   • Radiant Peach, only accessible during the Madame Grape battle, uses the Sparkle Power Peach has accumulated throughout the game to defeat the Madame in a shooter-type battle.
4. Good graphics, with the plays themselves fully utilizing the theater aesthetic. This game is also one of four Switch games to use Unreal Engine.
5. The story is simple, yet engaging at the same time: Princess Peach and her Toads find the Sparkle Theater, which is under siege by Madame Grape and the Sour Bunch, who have captured the Sparklas and are invading the plays. To save the theater, Peach teams up with Stella the Sparkle Sprite, who helps her transform into various guises.
6. Good soundtrack composed by Yuki Minami, which incorporates various genres depending on the type of play, including big band music, Spaghetti Western, tango, ballet, etc.
7. Once you complete both plays for each form, you can then access the basement floor to free the Sparklas, who are the original Theet actors for the plays and are necessary to open Madame Grape's seal.
8. Stella is a really likable character and a helpful ally, similar to Mario and friends' allies from the past (Geno, F.L.U.D.D., Luma, Cappy, Prince Florian, etc.), and is a worthy successor to Perry from Super Princess Peach in that she is used to attack Sour Bunch members when Peach is in her Sparkle form.
9. While there are only five major bosses (not counting the mini-bosses in the plays themselves), each requires Peach to use a different strategy to defeat them using her Sparkle form.
10. In each play, Peach can rescue the Ribboner to obtain new outfits for her and Stella to wear while he gives them a ribbon for his rescue.

Not-so Showtime Qualities

1. The game is a little too easy, as is to be expected for a Good-Feel game, and you can get through the plays without dying once. Really, the most challenging thing about the game is finding all the Sparkle Gems, which require the player to complete specific tasks.
2. While the graphics are good, they don't always look great due to the game's poor resolution, with many textures looking blurry.
   • Not to mention, the frame-rate can be sometimes unstable.
3. Due to the focus on Peach as the protagonist, Mario and Luigi, Bowser, Daisy, Rosalina, Yoshi, etc. do not appear in the game at all, nor are they even mentioned.

Reception

While not as well-received as Super Princess Peach, Princess Peach: Showtime! received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and users (scoring 74/100 and 6.8/10, respectively, on Metacritic); while the game's story, gameplay, and soundtrack were praised, its technical shortcomings and low difficulty were criticized.

Comments

Loading comments...