Peach finally gets another chance to shine in the starring role after Tose’s Super Princess Peach on Nintendo DS nearly 20 years ago. Good Feel (developers of Wario Land: The Shake Dimension and Kirby's Epic Yarn on Wii, Yoshi's Woolly World on Wii U, and Yoshi's Crafted World on Switch) have been given the chance to shine the spotlight on Peach again with Princess Peach: Showtime!
Heading off to the Sparkla Theatre to watch some shows, things take a turn when Madame Grape shows up and takes over the theatre and makes all the shows despair-inducing. It's up to Peach and her new ally Stella to save the Theets (really cute new Mario universe character design that is super simple but works really well) by going through all the plays and bringing the theatre to life again. It's a simple and cute set up and it's all brand new enemies and allies that help give this game its own identity which is greatly appreciated.
With each of Good Feel’s takes on Nintendo ip, the main thing that stands out is the aesthetic design. Wario Land was like a 2D animated cartoon, Kirby's Epic Yarn and Yoshi's Woolly World were yarn focused, and Yoshi's Crafted World was more arts and crafts focused. Princess Peach: Showtime! as the story suggests is very theatrical inspired with its artistic design. Every level takes place on a stage play of sorts where you can see a lot of the background elements are 2D cutouts being held in place by string. Things like horses are also held up by string and have a crafted look to them to give that feel of a stage play element. Stuff like fires are little cardboard cutouts and some stages feature elements like the whole stage rotating round to give a new perspective and it's all really cute stuff. It might not be the mose immediate stand out from Good Feel’s aesthetic designs because Peach herself is the standard 3D model instead of a yarn version but nonetheless a lot of attention to detail has been taken in giving this the most stage like feel possible and it shows.
So what's the gameplay loop with this one? Well, each floor of the theatre is home to four different plays which Peach needs to tackle and collect Sparkla’s in to open a boss door that shows up once each play has been beaten. Stepping into the first play, say the door at the bottom left, will see Peach enter a world based on that play, like a Swordfighter play in this case. Each of the level 1s play similar where Peach starts off hearing the plights of the Theets and using Stella to bring life back into the play and the Theets before eventually getting a transformation. Yup, Peach gets a very magical girl inspired treatment and each play sees her don a costume with unique abilities to take on the Sour Bunch. In the Swordfighter play, Peach becomes a fencer inspired Swordfighter.
To keep things simple between each play and not confuse players by giving them too much to learn and adapt to, each outfit is controlled via two main buttons. A to jump and B for an action which differs for each costume. There's also a pose button on ZR which is used for finding secrets in the plays and collecting hidden Sparklas.
The goal of each play is to make your way to the end by working your way through specific obstacles unique to each costume and the variety of gameplay styles on offer makes sure things stay fresh even through the relative simplicity of the gameplay on offer. There's 10 costumes in total, each with 3 levels to beat and things get a little bit more involved in each as you go, though always remaining on the breezier side of things.
Swordfighter plays as mentioned earlier sees Peach become a Swordfighter, allowing her to cut through enemies with ease as she traverses through the stage. She has a Matrix style slow time dodge that activates if you press either action button just before getting hit whichs makes her jump over the enemy and opens them up to a counter attack. Her lives are handled by 5 hearts and if she loses all of them you lose a few coins and go back to the last checkpoint. Swordfighter is a fun costume but due to the simplicity of the combat, it's also one of the more just alright ones. It's fun but not as memorable as some of the others.
Ninja Peach however is one of the more memorable ones. This one sees Peach sneak through levels by hiding up against walls, in grass, or in water. The animation for each one is really cute, she holds up little cardboard bushes in the grass, uses a bamboo stick to breathe underwater and holds up a piece of paper where the background blends into it on the walls. So Ninja levels are more stealth orientated where you have to avoid the enemies spotlights and take them out. These levels end with an auto run sequence where you have to time your jumps and then finish with a spectacular scroll special, like Peach riding a giant wave and crashing through enemies. It's simple fun but one of the more engaging outfits and the incredible attention to detail help sell this one more.
Patisserie Peach sees her basically enter bake offs. These include two types of minigames. The first is decorating cakes by putting cream on them to match a design in the background and the second is making cookies by tapping B over and over until you hit the rainbow section to build the best possible bunch. If you over do it, the bowl explodes and wastes time which is important because these minigames are timed and you're rewarded with more Sparklas the better you do, turning this into one of the more difficult outfits surprisingly. The cookies in particular see you having work out how to time building your own cookies and when to team up with a Theet to build quicker and it can be very tight trying to hit the score that nets all 3 possible Sparklas. Again it's simple but the time and score pressure helps keep this one engaging.
Cowgirl Peach is one of the more action based ones. These plays see Peach fight enemies by lassoing them or throwing barrels at them with the lasso. You also get sections where she rides a horse which are on rails and you have to time your jumps and lasso collectibles and Theets free from the enemies. These plays are just really fun for the spectacle and Western style music is so good in these stages.
Another highlight is Phantom Thief Peach. Using a grappling hook she can swing from hooks and zip line across stages and the fluidity of the movement here is just so much fun. There's pretty simple gate unlocking puzzles to do and then the plays end with a Metroid style escape sequence where the full fluidity of Peach’s movement is put to the test and you get a small paraglider sequence to wrap it up. This one's just a ton of fun when you're chaining together hook swings and zip line dashes to move through the stages in style.
Detective Peach sees her going full Sherlock in a rather standard point and click/detective style gameplay. Basically you just investigate objects and talk to characters to try and find the answer to a puzzle and then hold B to use your intuition on something you think is suspicious to see if you're right. It's probably the weakest of the costumes, a lot of the puzzles are really basic and the answers can be very obvious at times which is a shame. It does what it needs to but is a bit dull.
Picking up the slack though is Figure Skating Peach! Here Peach gracefully skates across the ice and you'll get into little shows where you'll find icons on the ground to spin or jump on. There's a mini boss as well where you spin him around and collect the possessed Theets he has to circle around him and bedazzle him into defeat with your grace and elegance and my gosh I love it. The music here is a bop too which really helps make the skating a lot fun and the movement fluidity is great too. This is one of my favourite costumes from the game, even if the gameplay is basic, it's just a lot of fun controlling Peach in this one.
Mighty Peach sees Peach donning a sort of Power Ranger/Mech like outfit giving her super strength. The scenario for these plays is that an alien invasion is happening and Peach must save the abducted Theets and drive back the aliens. This one is more action focused and you'll get some basic action game puzzles like using a bus as shelter from falling meteors to allow Theets safe passage. There's a few good spectacle moments where Peach gets to fly and take on a mini boss by throwing it around. It's good fun and basically a more engaging take on the Swordfighter being combat focused.
Mermaid Peach is an interesting one. Here she uses her incredible voice to guide fish in the background to solve puzzles and progress through the stage. It's a little to stop/start for me as Peach stops moving to sing. These plays end with a simple musical performance and a basic rhythm mini game where you press the direction the fish come from as they get near Peach. It's decent fun but ultimately on the lower end of the scale for the gameplay styles on offer.
Finally there is Kung Fu Peach, another combat heavy one. While the combat itself remains relatively simple, the level design is pretty fun here with poles for Peach to swing around and take out dozens of enemies at once. The mini boss fights are structured like a 2D fighting fighting game but you have to time your button presses to land hits. Again it's very simple stuff yet still manages to be fun and engaging all the same.
The boss fights unlocked on each floor are very inventive and fun. Each boss is themed after a stage play prop so you get things like a projector cat or a spotlight lion which is a really cute thing. The bosses are fought with the standard Peach using the Stella ribbon to send projectiles back at bosses a few different ways. They're not going to test your reflexes that much but they're a lot of fun to fight as you adapt to their patterns. I won't spoil the final boss but I will say it is a very cool spectacle fitting for a grand finale, giving Peach her true moment to shine.
For those looking for more of a challenge, going for 100% and collecting every single Sparkla can provide that. There's extra boss challenges that require no hit runs and as mentioned earlier, some of the baking challenges can be tough to hit the score needed to. It is here where you'll find the game's biggest flaw though. While levels do feature checkpoints for dying, there's no scene select if you want to start over at a certain point if you fail to get a Sparkla and when some sequences are automatic, even dying after doing those will only take you to the point after that sequence. What this means is if you miss a Sparkla, then quite often you have to restart the whole level again to try and get it which is quite annoying, particularly in patisserie levels where you have to do a whole set of cooking minigames over and over to get to the one you need to do. Luckily the levels aren't that long but it's still a basic thing that probably should've been included.
On the performance front there's a handful of issues. While the game looks pretty good, it is prone to stuttering during cutscenes and loading screens. During gameplay itself the game mostly holds up though I did notice dips around the final boss in particular. While the Switch is showing its age into its eighth year on the market, I think these issues are more Good Feel still learning to adapt Unreal Engine 4 onto the Switch which some devs have struggled with.
As I've said throughout the review, this is a pretty basic and simple game but I don't think that's automatically a bad thing. I think there's a charm and fun to be had that's unique to games like this that can be pretty relaxing to come home to after a long week of work. Just something cutesy and chill that you can smile at as you play through the game and that can be a rewarding experience in itself. Princess Peach: Showtime! might not reach the potential highs of each of the gameplay styles it dips its toes into but it does offer enough to be a fun and engaging experience that ultimately lets Peach be the star she truly has deserved to be.
Heading off to the Sparkla Theatre to watch some shows, things take a turn when Madame Grape shows up and takes over the theatre and makes all the shows despair-inducing. It's up to Peach and her new ally Stella to save the Theets (really cute new Mario universe character design that is super simple but works really well) by going through all the plays and bringing the theatre to life again. It's a simple and cute set up and it's all brand new enemies and allies that help give this game its own identity which is greatly appreciated.
With each of Good Feel’s takes on Nintendo ip, the main thing that stands out is the aesthetic design. Wario Land was like a 2D animated cartoon, Kirby's Epic Yarn and Yoshi's Woolly World were yarn focused, and Yoshi's Crafted World was more arts and crafts focused. Princess Peach: Showtime! as the story suggests is very theatrical inspired with its artistic design. Every level takes place on a stage play of sorts where you can see a lot of the background elements are 2D cutouts being held in place by string. Things like horses are also held up by string and have a crafted look to them to give that feel of a stage play element. Stuff like fires are little cardboard cutouts and some stages feature elements like the whole stage rotating round to give a new perspective and it's all really cute stuff. It might not be the mose immediate stand out from Good Feel’s aesthetic designs because Peach herself is the standard 3D model instead of a yarn version but nonetheless a lot of attention to detail has been taken in giving this the most stage like feel possible and it shows.
So what's the gameplay loop with this one? Well, each floor of the theatre is home to four different plays which Peach needs to tackle and collect Sparkla’s in to open a boss door that shows up once each play has been beaten. Stepping into the first play, say the door at the bottom left, will see Peach enter a world based on that play, like a Swordfighter play in this case. Each of the level 1s play similar where Peach starts off hearing the plights of the Theets and using Stella to bring life back into the play and the Theets before eventually getting a transformation. Yup, Peach gets a very magical girl inspired treatment and each play sees her don a costume with unique abilities to take on the Sour Bunch. In the Swordfighter play, Peach becomes a fencer inspired Swordfighter.
To keep things simple between each play and not confuse players by giving them too much to learn and adapt to, each outfit is controlled via two main buttons. A to jump and B for an action which differs for each costume. There's also a pose button on ZR which is used for finding secrets in the plays and collecting hidden Sparklas.
The goal of each play is to make your way to the end by working your way through specific obstacles unique to each costume and the variety of gameplay styles on offer makes sure things stay fresh even through the relative simplicity of the gameplay on offer. There's 10 costumes in total, each with 3 levels to beat and things get a little bit more involved in each as you go, though always remaining on the breezier side of things.
Swordfighter plays as mentioned earlier sees Peach become a Swordfighter, allowing her to cut through enemies with ease as she traverses through the stage. She has a Matrix style slow time dodge that activates if you press either action button just before getting hit whichs makes her jump over the enemy and opens them up to a counter attack. Her lives are handled by 5 hearts and if she loses all of them you lose a few coins and go back to the last checkpoint. Swordfighter is a fun costume but due to the simplicity of the combat, it's also one of the more just alright ones. It's fun but not as memorable as some of the others.
Ninja Peach however is one of the more memorable ones. This one sees Peach sneak through levels by hiding up against walls, in grass, or in water. The animation for each one is really cute, she holds up little cardboard bushes in the grass, uses a bamboo stick to breathe underwater and holds up a piece of paper where the background blends into it on the walls. So Ninja levels are more stealth orientated where you have to avoid the enemies spotlights and take them out. These levels end with an auto run sequence where you have to time your jumps and then finish with a spectacular scroll special, like Peach riding a giant wave and crashing through enemies. It's simple fun but one of the more engaging outfits and the incredible attention to detail help sell this one more.
Patisserie Peach sees her basically enter bake offs. These include two types of minigames. The first is decorating cakes by putting cream on them to match a design in the background and the second is making cookies by tapping B over and over until you hit the rainbow section to build the best possible bunch. If you over do it, the bowl explodes and wastes time which is important because these minigames are timed and you're rewarded with more Sparklas the better you do, turning this into one of the more difficult outfits surprisingly. The cookies in particular see you having work out how to time building your own cookies and when to team up with a Theet to build quicker and it can be very tight trying to hit the score that nets all 3 possible Sparklas. Again it's simple but the time and score pressure helps keep this one engaging.
Cowgirl Peach is one of the more action based ones. These plays see Peach fight enemies by lassoing them or throwing barrels at them with the lasso. You also get sections where she rides a horse which are on rails and you have to time your jumps and lasso collectibles and Theets free from the enemies. These plays are just really fun for the spectacle and Western style music is so good in these stages.
Another highlight is Phantom Thief Peach. Using a grappling hook she can swing from hooks and zip line across stages and the fluidity of the movement here is just so much fun. There's pretty simple gate unlocking puzzles to do and then the plays end with a Metroid style escape sequence where the full fluidity of Peach’s movement is put to the test and you get a small paraglider sequence to wrap it up. This one's just a ton of fun when you're chaining together hook swings and zip line dashes to move through the stages in style.
Detective Peach sees her going full Sherlock in a rather standard point and click/detective style gameplay. Basically you just investigate objects and talk to characters to try and find the answer to a puzzle and then hold B to use your intuition on something you think is suspicious to see if you're right. It's probably the weakest of the costumes, a lot of the puzzles are really basic and the answers can be very obvious at times which is a shame. It does what it needs to but is a bit dull.
Picking up the slack though is Figure Skating Peach! Here Peach gracefully skates across the ice and you'll get into little shows where you'll find icons on the ground to spin or jump on. There's a mini boss as well where you spin him around and collect the possessed Theets he has to circle around him and bedazzle him into defeat with your grace and elegance and my gosh I love it. The music here is a bop too which really helps make the skating a lot fun and the movement fluidity is great too. This is one of my favourite costumes from the game, even if the gameplay is basic, it's just a lot of fun controlling Peach in this one.
Mighty Peach sees Peach donning a sort of Power Ranger/Mech like outfit giving her super strength. The scenario for these plays is that an alien invasion is happening and Peach must save the abducted Theets and drive back the aliens. This one is more action focused and you'll get some basic action game puzzles like using a bus as shelter from falling meteors to allow Theets safe passage. There's a few good spectacle moments where Peach gets to fly and take on a mini boss by throwing it around. It's good fun and basically a more engaging take on the Swordfighter being combat focused.
Mermaid Peach is an interesting one. Here she uses her incredible voice to guide fish in the background to solve puzzles and progress through the stage. It's a little to stop/start for me as Peach stops moving to sing. These plays end with a simple musical performance and a basic rhythm mini game where you press the direction the fish come from as they get near Peach. It's decent fun but ultimately on the lower end of the scale for the gameplay styles on offer.
Finally there is Kung Fu Peach, another combat heavy one. While the combat itself remains relatively simple, the level design is pretty fun here with poles for Peach to swing around and take out dozens of enemies at once. The mini boss fights are structured like a 2D fighting fighting game but you have to time your button presses to land hits. Again it's very simple stuff yet still manages to be fun and engaging all the same.
The boss fights unlocked on each floor are very inventive and fun. Each boss is themed after a stage play prop so you get things like a projector cat or a spotlight lion which is a really cute thing. The bosses are fought with the standard Peach using the Stella ribbon to send projectiles back at bosses a few different ways. They're not going to test your reflexes that much but they're a lot of fun to fight as you adapt to their patterns. I won't spoil the final boss but I will say it is a very cool spectacle fitting for a grand finale, giving Peach her true moment to shine.
For those looking for more of a challenge, going for 100% and collecting every single Sparkla can provide that. There's extra boss challenges that require no hit runs and as mentioned earlier, some of the baking challenges can be tough to hit the score needed to. It is here where you'll find the game's biggest flaw though. While levels do feature checkpoints for dying, there's no scene select if you want to start over at a certain point if you fail to get a Sparkla and when some sequences are automatic, even dying after doing those will only take you to the point after that sequence. What this means is if you miss a Sparkla, then quite often you have to restart the whole level again to try and get it which is quite annoying, particularly in patisserie levels where you have to do a whole set of cooking minigames over and over to get to the one you need to do. Luckily the levels aren't that long but it's still a basic thing that probably should've been included.
On the performance front there's a handful of issues. While the game looks pretty good, it is prone to stuttering during cutscenes and loading screens. During gameplay itself the game mostly holds up though I did notice dips around the final boss in particular. While the Switch is showing its age into its eighth year on the market, I think these issues are more Good Feel still learning to adapt Unreal Engine 4 onto the Switch which some devs have struggled with.
As I've said throughout the review, this is a pretty basic and simple game but I don't think that's automatically a bad thing. I think there's a charm and fun to be had that's unique to games like this that can be pretty relaxing to come home to after a long week of work. Just something cutesy and chill that you can smile at as you play through the game and that can be a rewarding experience in itself. Princess Peach: Showtime! might not reach the potential highs of each of the gameplay styles it dips its toes into but it does offer enough to be a fun and engaging experience that ultimately lets Peach be the star she truly has deserved to be.