One of the games I’ve been curious about ever since it was first announced is Princess Peach: Showtime!, Nintendo’s upcoming game about Princess Peach using transformation powers to save a theater from an evil troupe of villains.
A demo came out yesterday, so I decided to take a look.
After the theater is taken over, Peach allies with a little fairy called Stella and gets a special ribbon that lets her interact with stage props to restore them (such as making flowers bloom) and attack enemies. The demo lets you play through two stages, and in the first stage, Peach is able to transform into Swordfighter Peach.
This level plays like an action platformer, where you use a sword to take out enemies and cut down obstacles. It’s fairly easy, but it’s fun enough, with stylish slowdowns when you dodge an attack.
In the second stage, she instead becomes Patisserie Peach. Instead of fighting enemies, you play through a couple of baking mini-games to prepare cookies and cakes. These were fun, although it did feel a little odd to have a level that was primarily walking to one mini-game and then another.
One curious thing is that the game doesn’t force tutorials for the transformations on you. Instead, the “controls” prompt lights up, and if you open it, Stella explains whatever new mechanic is available.
Both stages have a series of stars for you to collect, some of which you’ll get automatically as you progress while others are a bit more hidden. You also get a lot of coins for defeating enemies, restoring props, and so on… but I don’t know why yet. In fact, the demo left a lot unknown; there’s four whole menu options that simply said “???” for the duration. There’s what looks like a dress shop in the hub area, and I found a “dress ribbon” in each level named after their respective transformations, but the demo didn’t explain how this will work.
I’d love it if you were able to use transformations outside of their origin levels and later stages would have secrets only accessible with other forms, but it might not mean that at all. Maybe the ribbons are just for a visual change.
The demo takes around half an hour, so I hope later stages are longer or this could be quite a short game. Overall, the demo didn’t change my feelings toward Princess Peach: Showtime! too much. It has the potential to be a fun game, but not an immediate must-buy. I want to learn more about it before I make up my mind.
