Princess Peach: Showtime Review

Princess Peach has been one of Nintendo's most frequently featured characters since her debut in the original Super Mario Bros. game on the NES, yet she has rarely been allowed to star as a main character. In 2005, Peach was put front-and-center in Super Princess Peach on the Nintendo DS, but since then, she's been largely regulated to party game spin-offs and the damsel in distress role. Princess Peach: Showtime is the first time in 19 years that Peach has been featured as a game's main protagonist. Unfortunately for Peach fans, Princess Peach: Showtime doesn't seem to have been made with the same effort afforded to some of Nintendo's other characters.

Princess Peach: Showtime has the titular princess visiting the Sparkle Theater as it is taken over by a group of villains known as Grape and the Sour Bunch. Peach then has to hop into levels themed after different stage play productions that Grape's magic has warped. Peach embodies the powers of the plays' main characters to fight Grape's minions and save the goofy little Theets playing the bit roles.

Princess Peach: Showtime's Costumes Change Up the Gameplay

Peach taking on the starring role in these plays gives her fancy new costumes with unique powers. There are kung-fu stages where Peach has to battle hordes of enemies in hand-to-hand combat, and there are baking stages that revolve almost entirely around decorating cakes and baking cookies. Other times, Peach becomes a Power Rangers-like superhero to fight alien threats, and other times still, she transforms into a mermaid, allowing her to use fish to solve simple puzzles.

Peach's costumes in Princess Peach: Showtime are creative and allow for a great deal of variety between the levels. For example, Peach's spy costume lends itself to more traditional platforming action, whereas her detective costume has her searching for clues and chatting with characters to gather information. The problem is that none of these ideas are allowed to reach their full potential. Each costume is given three stages, all of which are rather short, straightforward, and easy. And with the costumes confined to their specific stages, Princess Peach: Showtime sometimes feels like playing a significantly more restrictive Kirby game.

That's not to say that there isn't fun to be had in the levels. There are a few standout moments that we won't spoil here that use each stage's unique gimmick to great effect, and while the game is too short and easy, at least it's never boring. Personality oozes from every corner of Princess Peach: Showtime, from the amusing character interactions to the colorful, if relatively simplistic, graphics. Princess Peach: Showtime has good detail in its animations, with Peach picking up her dress to run and subtly twirling her wrist when readying her lasso in the cowgirl stages.

Princess Peach: Showtime also wins points for its boss fights. The last boss in Princess Peach: Showtime is a letdown because of how easy it is, but there are a couple of standout battles that are clever, fun, and offer a bit more challenge than the rest of the game. If nothing else, the Princess Peach: Showtime boss fights offer spectacle, which can go a long way.

Princess Peach: Showtime players will be able to beat all the bosses and conquer every stage pretty fast. Depending on how badly they want to find every collectible, it's safe to say that most players will beat Princess Peach: Showtime in under 10 hours. Completionists will spend a bit more time with the game, but that's mainly because getting all the collectibles in Princess Peach: Showtime is a pain. Many stages refuse to let players backtrack, so missing a collectible often means restarting the level from the beginning. Some short, but unskippable scenes can also make replaying levels needlessly tedious, seriously hurting the game's replay value.

Collectibles are Important for Endgame in Princess Peach: Showtime

Most players won't want to find all of Princess Peach: Showtime's collectibles, but there's at least a point to doing it for those who do decide to fully complete the game. The collectible gems in Princess Peach: Showtime have an endgame purpose that gives players a good reason to hunt them down, plus the coins players amass in each stage can be used to buy new dresses for Peach and color schemes for Stella, the star-like sidekick that accompanies Peach on this particular adventure. Beyond the dresses and Stella customizations, there's a surprising amount of content in Princess Peach: Showtime that isn't available until after the credits roll, so the game does at least give players a healthy amount of things to do after wrapping up the main story.

Still, it's hard to shake the feeling that Princess Peach: Showtime wasn't given the same level of care as other Nintendo games. The Good-Feel-developed title lacks a certain level of polish that fans expect from Nintendo products, with occasional frame dips and loading screens that last a little too long and chug in a distracting way. The load times aren't all that excessive, but they are long enough that players will definitely feel them when moving between theater floors and hopping into levels.

It took me roughly seven hours to beat Princess Peach: Showtime's main story, but there's a lot to do after the credits for those that want to get 100%.

Princess Peach: Showtime has a lot going for it, but it sometimes comes across as a concept demo for a larger game that will be much better. Peach shouldn't have to wait another 19 years for her next solo outing, but hopefully her next game takes the time to give the Mushroom Kingdom's princess a proper, full-scale adventure.