I was reluctant to get this game because of all the complaints I heard. When a friend of mine gave a glowing recommendation, that caught my interest. Its 60 bucks, sure, but Good Feel hasn't disappointed me, so this should at least be a good time, shouldn't it? Well, I'm glad to say that, for me, it was a good time indeed. I will say that I think this game absolutely should have been cheaper, though; it does not feel like a premium experience, even if I did enjoy my time with it. I think its best to go into Princess Peach Showtime with the right attitude: a willingness to engage with a very simple, cutesy, easy game. It almost feels like embracing your inner child in a way, decorating cakes and figure-skating away while taking out some baddies trying to muck up your theater plays. Good Feel is great at that sort of thing, though this unfortunately did not get close to the magic and charm of Kirby's Epic Yarn (the only other Good Feel game I've played admittedly). Every once and a while, I think its good to kick back and play a cute, relaxing, easy game. The game does get much more frustrating when you try to 100% it, though, judging from what I heard. It doesn't seem hard to do but the game very often prevents you from turning back to get stuff you missed and there's a major lack of quality of life for replaying levels. Thankfully, I didn't worry one bit about that, so I had the whimsical simple experience that was likely intended.
As mentioned earlier, the gameplay is extremely simple. There are only two buttons you need to press, one being the jump button and the other being an action button that changes depending on what costume you have. Regular Peach just spins her ribbon to interact with stuff, like cheering up sad Theets or making plants grow, and the other costumes switch (heh) it up in decently varied ways that introduce different play styles. There's a total of 10 costumes, plus two more unlocked in the final boss. There's five floors that each have four levels plus a boss, so the game has 20 regular levels. The basement has 10 extra levels that you unlock after completing two regular levels themed after a certain Peach costume; I thought these were optional content at first but the game has you do all of them first before you can fight the final boss. So, all things considered, the game isn't content-dry, but it is quite short. I suppose it could take you a while to grab all the Sparkle Gems - the main collectible - since some of them are hidden cleverly enough and some are tied to performance, so if you don't do good enough at a certain part of the level you won't get it. I felt that, overall, the gimmicks behind each costume and the different play styles they introduced were quite fun, none of them were a bore to play through for me. They aren't exactly deep, which I could see some complaining about, but they are genuinely fun and change up the game enough to keep it feeling somewhat fresh. Cowgirl, Pâtissière, Kung Fu, and Detective (surprisingly enough) were my favorites. Ninja, Dashing Thief, and Figure-Skater also get some really fun levels designed after their gimmicks. I heard people dislike the Mermaid because its gimmick is just holding B to lead fish around to lift stuff (as well as a short and sweet rhythm game section at the end of its levels), but I thought that one was fine. Unfortunately the game does have a rough start in my opinion; the first floor and the second floor are all basically tutorial floors and man do they feel like it. The game could really benefit from letting you skip the dialogue, honestly. For a game with little to no story, it is very chatty (it makes sense because these are meant to be theater plays but it could get grating at times with the constant interruptions just to see more dialogue). Also, the boss fights were surprisingly pretty fun in my opinion, if a bit too simple and short for their own good. The final boss almost reminded me of something out of a Kirby game, like the Robobot final boss fight (particularly the Star Dream parts) or the Star Allies final boss.
I think the presentation of this game is pretty great, you can tell some major focus went into it. Music is great, cutscenes are pretty good looking (not on the same level as something like Luigi's Mansion 3's gorgeous cutscenes but still pleasant), and the design choice of making each level be made of a bunch of props makes the game stand out. I personally REALLY love Peach's costumes and the way her voice changes to fit the role, its such a unique idea for this character that makes a lot of sense and is delightful to see in action. I have never been a big Peach guy myself but I couldn't get enough of Cowgirl Peach's southern drawl and the silly southern slang she uses in that outfit ("yippie-ki-yay", "yeehaw", "shucks", etc.), give me more of that please! Also, I hadn't mentioned her before, but Madame Grape is a really cool villain design and I think she could work great as a recurring villain for Peach if she were to get a full-on side series like Yoshi and Wario got. Princess Peach Showtime definitely has some real charm to it, I don't think I could ever agree with the people that call this game soulless. However, the game does have some very noticeable performance issues that have really drawn home just how badly we need a "Switch 2" to come soon. It will rarely lag while you're already playing the game, but the loading times can be downright painful and you'd have to not be looking at the screen to not see all that lag that happens during the loading screen. I have no idea why that keeps happening but it is distracting.
Even though I fully understand why others dislike this game, I had a great time with it. I was thinking this would be another Mario VS Donkey Kong remake situation where I spend most of the review nitpicking and whining about minor things, but for whatever reason I just didn't feel the same way about Princess Peach Showtime. Don't get me wrong, I do share some common complaints here (gameplay is too simple, game is too short, game is way too expensive, etc.), but my experience with this game was surprisingly really positive for me. I do think you need to be in the right state of mind with your expectations set on the lower side to fully enjoy this game, so keep that in mind if you want to give this game a whirl. I think I liked this game enough to give it a genuine 4 stars, so that's what I'll rank it.
As mentioned earlier, the gameplay is extremely simple. There are only two buttons you need to press, one being the jump button and the other being an action button that changes depending on what costume you have. Regular Peach just spins her ribbon to interact with stuff, like cheering up sad Theets or making plants grow, and the other costumes switch (heh) it up in decently varied ways that introduce different play styles. There's a total of 10 costumes, plus two more unlocked in the final boss. There's five floors that each have four levels plus a boss, so the game has 20 regular levels. The basement has 10 extra levels that you unlock after completing two regular levels themed after a certain Peach costume; I thought these were optional content at first but the game has you do all of them first before you can fight the final boss. So, all things considered, the game isn't content-dry, but it is quite short. I suppose it could take you a while to grab all the Sparkle Gems - the main collectible - since some of them are hidden cleverly enough and some are tied to performance, so if you don't do good enough at a certain part of the level you won't get it. I felt that, overall, the gimmicks behind each costume and the different play styles they introduced were quite fun, none of them were a bore to play through for me. They aren't exactly deep, which I could see some complaining about, but they are genuinely fun and change up the game enough to keep it feeling somewhat fresh. Cowgirl, Pâtissière, Kung Fu, and Detective (surprisingly enough) were my favorites. Ninja, Dashing Thief, and Figure-Skater also get some really fun levels designed after their gimmicks. I heard people dislike the Mermaid because its gimmick is just holding B to lead fish around to lift stuff (as well as a short and sweet rhythm game section at the end of its levels), but I thought that one was fine. Unfortunately the game does have a rough start in my opinion; the first floor and the second floor are all basically tutorial floors and man do they feel like it. The game could really benefit from letting you skip the dialogue, honestly. For a game with little to no story, it is very chatty (it makes sense because these are meant to be theater plays but it could get grating at times with the constant interruptions just to see more dialogue). Also, the boss fights were surprisingly pretty fun in my opinion, if a bit too simple and short for their own good. The final boss almost reminded me of something out of a Kirby game, like the Robobot final boss fight (particularly the Star Dream parts) or the Star Allies final boss.
I think the presentation of this game is pretty great, you can tell some major focus went into it. Music is great, cutscenes are pretty good looking (not on the same level as something like Luigi's Mansion 3's gorgeous cutscenes but still pleasant), and the design choice of making each level be made of a bunch of props makes the game stand out. I personally REALLY love Peach's costumes and the way her voice changes to fit the role, its such a unique idea for this character that makes a lot of sense and is delightful to see in action. I have never been a big Peach guy myself but I couldn't get enough of Cowgirl Peach's southern drawl and the silly southern slang she uses in that outfit ("yippie-ki-yay", "yeehaw", "shucks", etc.), give me more of that please! Also, I hadn't mentioned her before, but Madame Grape is a really cool villain design and I think she could work great as a recurring villain for Peach if she were to get a full-on side series like Yoshi and Wario got. Princess Peach Showtime definitely has some real charm to it, I don't think I could ever agree with the people that call this game soulless. However, the game does have some very noticeable performance issues that have really drawn home just how badly we need a "Switch 2" to come soon. It will rarely lag while you're already playing the game, but the loading times can be downright painful and you'd have to not be looking at the screen to not see all that lag that happens during the loading screen. I have no idea why that keeps happening but it is distracting.
Even though I fully understand why others dislike this game, I had a great time with it. I was thinking this would be another Mario VS Donkey Kong remake situation where I spend most of the review nitpicking and whining about minor things, but for whatever reason I just didn't feel the same way about Princess Peach Showtime. Don't get me wrong, I do share some common complaints here (gameplay is too simple, game is too short, game is way too expensive, etc.), but my experience with this game was surprisingly really positive for me. I do think you need to be in the right state of mind with your expectations set on the lower side to fully enjoy this game, so keep that in mind if you want to give this game a whirl. I think I liked this game enough to give it a genuine 4 stars, so that's what I'll rank it.