Princess Peach: Showtime Review! – the theater is in trouble

The Nintendo Switch’s life cycle is slowly coming to an end, but while we’re already eagerly awaiting its inevitable successor, the Japanese company is still releasing games for its 7-year-old device with incredible regularity. Of course, we often talk about various remakes, remasters or ports, but today we will talk about a completely new game that is based on the cult Super Mario Bros. series, but in a somewhat unconventional form, instead of the plumber himself. we will take on the role of Princess Peach. This time she definitely doesn’t need savings, quite the contrary. It is she who must prevent the destruction of the theater, which the evil Madame Grape wants to control.

• Platform: Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: 03.22.2024
• Developer: Good feeling
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre: Adventure platformer
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Download data: 4.6 GB
• Game time: ~5+ hours?
• Price: 1399 CZK (Alsa)

Ten games in one

It must be said right away that Princess Peach: Showtime! not exactly a game with a classic structure, but essentially 10 small games in one. The theater itself serves as a hub within which you move between the individual levels. However, within the levels themselves, Peach will try out a number of different disciplines. She turns out to be an excellent figure skater, a skilled fencer, a smart detective or an excellent pastry chef. As I mentioned earlier, there are 10 of these Peach transformations in total, and of course each one works more or less differently.

But I come back to that structure again because the levels essentially work as mini-games with unique mechanics. All levels only take a few minutes to complete, so they’re fairly short, and there’s not a lot of room to flesh out the mechanics, which are mostly limited to a single button. Likewise, there are quite a few levels, 30 to be exact (3 for each transformation), and while the game also offers quite a bit of bonus content or challenges, I was expecting a bit more of this content. I reached the end in just over 5 hours. Unfortunately, the Switch doesn’t show an exact figure, but I think it probably won’t be much higher.

It’s a shame because the foundation is built very well. The idea itself is very interesting, but even in practice, the individual “mini-games” are seriously fun. Some of them belong to more activity-oriented types and at first glance may seem similar, but there are very significant differences between them. While the swordsman Peach will fight quite classically, in kung fu the princess will try her jumps or the correct timing of strikes, as a “rider” she can ride a horse and wield a lasso, and Mighty Peach can lift heavy objects and help peaceful residents in trouble like a real superheroine.

Fearless Princess

But don’t be fooled, this is not a pure action game, and the gameplay may be a little laggy. Of course, this is most noticeable in the investigation, where you, as a detective, have to examine all the details and solve puzzles. It’s all very basic (and that goes for all the other mechanics), but it’s not unusual for Nintendo, and the game will appeal to young children too. Plus, even these slower levels are a lot of fun because they’re so different from the rest. In addition to the detective story, there is also a pastry chef, Peach, who bakes cookies and decorates cakes on time, a mermaid who can navigate the surrounding fish with her singing, or a figure skater with pirouettes and jumps.

We must not forget the last category – secrecy. Here I would include a ninja, where you need to deftly use cover and attack enemies from the shadows, and, finally, a secret agent who can hack and use a grappling hook. In my opinion, these two transformations are by far the most interesting in the entire game because they develop their mechanics and use them in quite interesting ways. Moving with a grappling hook, as is the case with most grappling hook games, is extremely fun, and the ninja levels blend well with the environment.

The boss fights that await you at the end of each floor of the theater are just as fun and very impressive. Fighting them already requires some skill, but from a design and mechanics point of view this is a nice change. By the way, the music and concept are pleasantly reminiscent of the brilliant Cuphead. It’s just a shame that the climax itself in the form of the final boss is only great from a visual standpoint, but too straightforward from a gameplay standpoint.

Impressive audiovisual…

However, I will return to the environment already mentioned. It’s definitely worth watching, because the developers won big in certain locations. The levels are extremely varied in their parameters and have great aesthetics. Whether it’s a darkened Japan, a city from the future, an underwater world or the wild west, all locations are carefully thought out and have a strong atmosphere. In short, variety is where the game truly excels.

This is also facilitated by the fact that the visual style itself, as usual for Nintendo (even though it is a Good-Feel studio), is beautiful and colorful. This is even more true of the superbly edited cutscenes, which look like they’re from an animated film. The atmosphere is complemented by an excellent sound system and, above all, an absolutely fantastic soundtrack, which is perhaps even more varied than the environment itself, as well as exceptionally good tunes.

…which causes hardware and Unreal Engine failure

Unfortunately, the audiovisual praise may not be as high as we would like. It’s very noticeable in the game that the Switch’s hardware is already very outdated and that it’s built on the Unreal Engine. For one thing, the title is rendered in a distinctly low resolution, so even on the Switch’s OLED display itself it looks very washed out and the image suffers from heavy anti-aliasing. And add to this the fact that performance is also not entirely stable, the game tries to stick to the target of 30 FPS, but in the most demanding passages the frame rate drops and quite often you also encounter stuttering. The new product from Good-Feel simply lacks that “Nintendo polish.”

Something is missing

And this probably describes the whole game perfectly. At its core, it’s a really fun game that manages to be incredibly versatile in everything it does and present it in a beautiful way. If you go into the game with this in mind, you won’t be disappointed. However, I expected a little more from the game and I think its potential was not fully exploited.