Lights up on Princess Peach! (Princess Peach: Showtime, in review)

     It's no secret that the crown monarch of the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach, has had very few chances to stand in the spotlight. It's one of the many reasons why I liked the Super Mario Bros. Movie as much as I did, because they took the time to give her some character besides the "damsel in distress" persona that she has been assigned most often. This is also why I was so excited for Princess Peach to have a new game announced, her first in about 20 years. On top of just having a new game, this was one that looked to be almost entirely original, instead of the DS game Super Princess Peach which derived most of the identity from the larger Super Mario Bros. series. Princess Peach: Showtime deliberately went out of its way to not reuse anything from Mario canon, and gave Peach something that she can do all on her own, without anyone mentioning a plumber or a turtle king for the entire duration. The big question now is, now that the game is out and I have already beaten it, did I enjoy my experience? Well, take your seats, because the curtain is rising and the show is about to begin.

Welcome to the Sparkle Theater!

    Princess Peach: Showtime begins with the titular princess receiving a flyer from the Sparkle Theater, promising lots of great plays and spectacle. Peach, along with a few toads, heads to this island theater, ready to enjoy a bit of vacation. Unfortunately, chaos erupts inside the theater when the evil Madame Grape (That's right, her name is Grape because she's the enemy of Peach, and I love that) uses her magic to take over the theater with the power of... "Darkle." That's right, Darkle is the opposite of Sparkle, as we all know. It's up to Princess Peach, along with the help of Stella, the guardian spirit of the theater, to take down Grape and the Sour Bunch. How does she do that this time? Does she jump on heads like a certain plumber this time? Does she use an umbrella to whack them? No, she uses the power of Sparkle to transform into different personas and save all of the different plays from the inside. Ironically, that's about all of the story that you need for this game. It's quite a different experience from Final Fantasy XVI that I talked about last week, which required so much dialogue to explain what was even happening in the game, and even then, you were confused for a lot of the time. 

The play's the thing!

    Unfortunately, there isn't much story, but there doesn't need to be. In my opinion, many of these games shine on the strength of the gameplay alone. In this game, Peach gets about 10 costumes to use the powers from, depending on the play that she's in. One of the greatest triumphs of this whole game is that each of the powers and plays appeal to a completely different type of game. Swordfighter Peach is your typical "beat 'em up," with some light controls built in for some flashy dodges. Patissiere Peach is all about making the proper sweets in a certain time limit. Ninja Peach is an expert in stealth missions, all about blending in with the environments around you and taking out your enemies in only one hit. Detective Peach has to investigate crime scenes, feeling something like baby's first Phoenix Wright or Professor Layton game. The list goes on and on, and honestly, all of the costumes felt really great to use for the short stages that you're given and although each costume only has three plays, the mechanics were perfectly executed in those stages. I loved the way that the first level would ease you into the idea that the Theets on stage are all doomed because their hero is suddenly gone, then allowing peach to turn into the hero that is needed to save their play. Then in the second and third plays, Peach is already an old pro at whatever she needs to do, and saves the day no problem. It's a really great thread to weave through all of these different shows, and it connects in a fun way in the end which I didn't really see coming. 

    I will admit, this game is very easy, clearly being intended for small children and inexperienced players, but I have to say going back and completing these challenge stages later on, some of them are a bit trickier than I would have anticipated. I love the rewards being different dresses and ribbons for Peach and Stella, and it makes sense that this game was developed by Good Feel, because the best rewards for Yoshi's Wooly World (also made by them) were the different patterned Yoshi's that you would get for collecting 5 bundles of wool in each level. It doesn't really do anything for Peach and Stella, but it's just a nice little cosmetic change. Huh, cosmetic changes without microtransactions attached is a good thing? Who would have thought? I think Good Feel was a great pick for this game, since they've proven themselves to be really solid developers, especially for these games that aren't incredibly long, but are a lot of fun, especially when the cute aesthetics come in.

Who doesn't love good theatre?

    In 2013, there was a game that came out for Playstation 3 called Puppeteer. It was a 2D platformer based on the concept of a magical puppet show, and the entirety of the gameplay was played as a puppet on the stage. Even though Puppet shows freak me out to no end, there's so much charm in this game, and your actions are constantly met with cheers from the crowd and cheap looking special effects that would take place in a play, not how they happen in real life. I bring this up because with the first trailer for Princess Peach: Showtime, I immediately thought of that game. Games with this much emphasis on the art of theatricality are few and far between. Princess Peach is in the spotlight both literally and figuratively for almost this entire game. There are stage lights all around the stage, whenever something bad happens, the lights fade, save for the few spotlights focusing on the princess and maybe a few more key players. There's a section of the game where there are ghosts coming out, and instead of them looking spooky like real ghosts, they move at a different frame rate, to give the perception that they're actually just projections being cast on the background of the stage by some unseen projector in the foreground. Sometimes when you're going into another room, the door will be on the opposite wall from the camera, and when Peach stands in the doorway, the whole stage will rotate via the very visible turntable built into the floor. I love these little touches, and honestly I could do with a lot more of them, although there are already a lot in the game! I just mean to say that I don't think I could ever get tired of those transitional effects. They blend so well with the theatre setting of the game which just oozes from every aspect of this title. This is a bit of a spoiler, but I can tell you that even the ending of this game comes from the world of theatre, as all of the major characters come out and stand in a row for one last curtain call before the credits roll.

    This game was so much fun, and though I was able to beat it in only about 10 hours, I would definitely recommend it to friends looking for a fun and extremely varied gameplay experience. It's not a very hard game, I would say the difficulty and charm are both akin to many Kirby games, which is not a bad thing at all. Kirby is another series with a long history of shorter titles, but more charm than it knows what to do with, and honestly, I hope that we can look back at this game at some point and see it as the starting point of a long and very creative series of games, just like Kirby has had. I really loved this game, and I would love to see the princess take the stage sometime soon for an encore performance.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I hope there was something that grabbed your attention today about this game. I don't think it's going to win game of the year or anything like that, but I had a great time on this short, creative romp. Also I love that Peach finally has an identity of her own, and I certainly hope this isn't just a one-time thing. We'll have to see, of course, but this is a great first step to giving Peach her own series, if they decide to take that route. Thanks so much for all of your support, and I hope you'll have a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Theatre Patron, and I'll talk to you again soon!