Princess Peach Showtime! - Demo
10The game will be out in about a week from when this video goes public, so I might as well show this now—Princess Peach will finally be getting her own game, after about 18 years without one (the last one being Super Princess Peach, for the Nintendo DS in 2005-06, depending on the region; prior to that was Princess Toadstool’s Castle Run from 1990, an LCD watch game that happens to be the first game in which she is the protagonist). Here is my run through it.
The premise is that Princess Peach has been invited to see the plays at Sparkle Theater, a legendary set of performance theaters in the Mushroom Kingdom, populated by Theets, a race of enthusatic little guys who love performance theater, both acting and watching. When she gets there, however, the sinister witch Grape, and her Sour Bunch, hijack the entirety of the Sparkle Theater, ruining all of the plays and attempting to rewrite them to their own preferences. As the Sparkle Theater is locked such that no one can get in or out, Peach has to step up to save the day, and in each play, she will find a costume that gives her additional abilities to help save the day. Along the way, Stella, the lead producer of Sparkle Theater, provides Peach with her unique skills in this game. (I hope whenever another Super Smash Bros. game comes out, Peach’s skills from here will be adapted into Peach there, with Daisy inheriting Peach’s old moves.)
I’ve heard people say that Princess Peach Showtime! is Nintendo’s take on Balan Wonderworld. I can definitely see the similarities: there is a performance arts motif throughout the game, Peach dresses in certain costumes that give her different abilities, the controls are very simple (only two buttons and the control stick regardless of mode, though Balan Wonderworld sticks instead to every face button having the same function), the hub has a radial spokes layout, making NPCs happy is a major gameplay component, and Grape has a very Yuji Naka-esque character design.
I can also see some key differences though. (And there’d better be, considering Balan Wonderworld was not very well-received.) For one thing, Peach does not revert back to her normal self when she takes damage, and she runs on 6 hit points instead of automatic death when taking damage in the default state, unlike Emma and Leo. Peach’s outfits also do not take away her ability to jump. And while both Balan and this game are 3-D platformers, this one goes further with its theatrical motif, with all action stages being literal stages, so playable areas are set to a narrow wide rectangular area. Because of the small, contained nature of these stages, the landscapes can have a lot more detail than in Balan Wonderworld. Showtime! looks complete to me; there isn’t anything I’ve seen that comes across as glaringly unfinished. And I’m guessing Princess Peach Showtime! also does not have seizure-inducing flickers of light at any point. (So far though, I think the music in Balan Wonderworld is better.)
Also, Princess Peach Showtime! displays the characteristic Nintendo little touches. For instance, observe Peach dancing and swaying with the Theets at certain locations when idling.
This demo takes you through two stages: “The Castle of Thorns,” which introduces Swordfighter Peach; and “Welcome to the Festival of Sweets,” which introduces Patisserie Peach. I actually thought I would be very bad at the former but better at the latter, but as you can see, I’m not precise enough to get the highest marks for the cookies segment or the cake-decorating segment. I heard that the counter move’s window, for Swordfighter Peach, is very generous, but you can see I had some struggles with it, as I don’t have much experience with games where countering moves is important.
I think I will put this game on my list. I don’t have any plans to put up a playthrough of it though, as I wouldn’t really know how to make this any different than anyone else putting up a playthrough, and it’d likely get major coverage anyway. I prefer to go off the beaten path in various ways, though any approaches you might have will be welcome.