An easy game to love, but also a surprisingly easy game to dislike.

The islands look so cosy, the protagonist is cutesy-cool, the animals you can become are lovely (not to mention that the ability to poop as any bird was a great success with the kids), there are many fun little touches (like being able to pick up animals above your head and deposit them in your bag for later use, or how you can dance on your boat while it speeds into a sunrise), and seeing Tchia kiss another girl made my queer-loving heart jump with joy.

And yet when I had taken photographs of a factory for a mission and the game then asked me to take pictures of three more factories, I couldn't help but feel my finger twitching for the “skip gameplay segment” button.

Because the problem is that the game doesn't have much to offer. The story tidbits can be cute, but most of the game is threadbare and just filler, sending you running across the island back and forth on boring fetch quests while filling the map with icons to gather like you’re in an Ubisoft game (and it's just as exciting as you can imagine). The possession mechanic isn't even as fun as I had expected - you can only possess a handful of things and creatures (no possessing a chair that somebody is sitting on), your stamina for possession is limited per day, requiring you to sleep and eat (boring things) to use the most fun mechanic of the game, and even then possessing items is nearly useless, as none of them have any actions that remain fun beyond the first introduction.

But the clearest sign that the game didn't respect my time wasn't even the factory quest, but when I had to talk to another girl to progress the story, so the game sent me to the other side of the island from her home village where I got the quest, and then gave a short cutscene when I arrived which ended with the girl standing up and walking up a path, calling me to follow. The cutscene ended and I didn't see her anywhere so I checked the map to see where she was and she was back at the village where they had just told me to find her here! A backtrack followed, because I was not ready to quit yet; unfortunately that didn't last.

There are things that are legitimately impressive about Tchia, but unfortunately I couldn't love it, and as it left PSN before I could finish it, hence the grade.

And what's worse - I had plenty of time to return to the game before it left PSN; but remembering the factories I still had left to photograph, I just didn't want to.

You have chosen to read my Princess Peach: Showtime! review. This is on you, now.

I think it's worth reflecting on how Peach wasn't really even a character in the original Super Mario Bros. She was a destination. The MacGuffin you needed to reach in order to rightfully claim you'd won the game. The idea to expand beyond that in any way was largely an act of convience, as Fuji TV's Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic was rebranded as the second Super Mario game. They needed a roster of four heroes, and there had only been four sentient things in the Mushroom Kingdom that weren't enemies. They took the spritesheet for Lina and drew "The Princess" on top.

I don't point this out to demean or belittle Princess Peach. Far from it. The act of repurposing and rebranding is at the very core of what videogames are. Mario, himself, was the result of seeing what could be done with an unwanted Radar Scope arcade board, and missing out on the opportunity to use Paramount's Popeye characters. OXO, Tennis for Two and Spacewar! were all experiments to see if large-scale supercomputers designed for complex business calculations and global warfare could be used for the purpose of fun. Peach has quite rightly earned the title of Princess of Videogames. A direct descendant of the cathode-ray tube amusement device.

From her first playable appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2, she was treasured by little sisters, cartoon studios, and boys who valued the float-jump more than the societal pressures of homophobia and gender stereotypes. By Mario 64, her significance to the Mushroom Kingdom was fully fleshed-out, positioning the entire game within her castle, and illustrating her unwavering benevolence, ethereal presence, and also, her sense of fun with the introduction of her personally-commissioned Secret Slide. She was a true representative of videogames, and a welcoming presence for audiences who may have felt uninvited to the games gang.

In 2024, I feel Nintendo are more aware of the weight of their history. Back when they last tried this, with 2005's Super Princess Peach, there was an air of carelessness. It was a throwaway game, fobbed off to Chubby Cherub/Shrek: Reekin' Havoc devs, Tose, and launched to a market whose respect for Nintendo had already taken a beaten from the likes of DK: King of Swing, Super Mario Ball and Classic NES Series: Ice Climber. Now, Nintendo treat Peach with due reverence, having her host Universal Studios meet-and-greets in her own personal bandstand, as the highlight of millions of holidays. People are thrilled to meet her, regardless of how much spaghetti she's made for them.

Right now, we're in a very odd period for the Mario brand, overall. Nintendo have embraced the idea that there's no unified vision of what Mario is. In the last year, we've had a mainline 2D entry closely modelled on the art direction of Masanobu Sato, a major Hollywood movie that denied post-1994 backstories and reinstated the NES-era US canon, a remake of a very of-its-time mid-nineties Mario RPG, and the announcement of the remake of a very distinctly eccentric fan-favourite GameCube RPG. Mario has become Mr. Video again, appearing in all sorts of different projects, merely as a comforting presence. He's a doctor and an artist and a kart racer and an umpire and we're not supposed to take any of it very seriously.

The dynamic sits awkwardly in relationship to why New Super Mario Bros. took its iconography so seriously in the first place. Back then, it was a relief to see the series discard all the bullshit and get back on target, reinstating what was Real Mario Shit. Goombas were Goombas again, and if there were any weird offshot baddies, fans would need to adopt such convoluted nomenclature as "Mega Para-Biddybuddies". It felt like the programmers had taken more control, with the world defined by hard parameter references. There's a stiffness to that approach that I have a lot of affection for, and it was the lifeblood of the Wii U era (particularly in Europe and Japan). It brought us closer to the logic of the software, subconsciously making us better equipped to appreciate and understand it. It was fiercely objective. It's easy to see why this approach wouldn't resonate with the wider public, though. If Nintendo wanted to catch on to mainstream appeal, they'd need to foresake the concrete utility of their playing pieces and expand their surface-level appeal. During the promotion of the New Super Mario Bros. sequels, developers explained that Peach hadn't been made playable in the game because of how her float-jump would affect the balance of the level design. In Showtime, she doesn't even have the float-jump.

Ah - Here we are.

I don't really like Princess Peach: Showtime very much.

I could come out with excuses, justifications, characterisation discrepancies... I just think it's boring to play. Levels are formulaic and repetitive, there's little dexterity to its gameplay, the rewards system feels like you're playing the game wrong if you're not constantly digging at the scenery to find every hidden item, performance and presentation is way below where it ought to be for a game with this focus, yada yada yada... I don't think it really matters. I just didn't want to play the game very much. The first couple of days I had it, I was telling myself I was too busy to calm down and enjoy it. I spent multiple days away from it before completion, and only went back to it out of obligation. I really wanted to care less, and not bother coming back.

As much fondness as I may have for the character, I'm clearly not the target audience for this. And I don't mean to imply that it's a game strictly for young girls, either. But it probably is for fans of recent Yoshi games. I'm certainly not one of them. As I dodder around, looking at the nice artwork, but wondering what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. It's a bit of a shock to see Mystical Ninja's Etsunobu Ebisu come back to a directing role to make something so devoid of spark or humour. Though the different costumes grant Peach a range of diverse abilities, the structure of each introductory level is largely the same, and the bulk of her more intricate actions are automated. In a move that recalls Metroid: Other M, all core actions have been distributed between two face buttons, and if there's anything particularly acrobatic or impressive, it doesn't often feel like you were very involved in performing them.

Showtime is fun in theory. The level themes are bold and exciting, Peach's costumes and in-character voice clips are cute, there's a lot of great art and punny design. I saw one review compare it to Kirby and the Forgotten Land and became incensed. That's a game that loves being a game. It celebrates the medium, embraces all the tropes that come with being a platformer, and sets up young audiences to embark on a future, exploring many wonderful videogames. Showtime is like Paper Mario with all the jokes, strategy and compelling gameplay stripped out. It's an RPG without story or combat. If you wanted to dedicate a budget to having a team design a bunch of charming adventures for Princess Peach to go on, I can totally get behind that, but why make this game when your passions and energy were better suited to a series of YouTube shorts, or a pop-up book?

There's definitely things I wanted to like. I felt like I should have liked. There's several parts of the concept that feel like they're paying off on things they established with Peach's character years ago. The fact that Odyssey ended with her setting off to explore the world in a bunch of cute outfits feels like it was leading up to an idea like this. They're making a game with Cowgirl Princess Peach, for god's sake. How haven't I come away raving about it? It's just all so tame. Mermaid Peach sings underwater to guide helpful fish, and that sounds like something I should have adored, but they never take the next logical step with one of those trademark Nintendo Switch vocal themes. Why didn't they want this game to be brilliant?

Something that surprised me is how bothered I was by the stageplay concept. The notion that to some level, this was all pretend. That Peach is taking on the role of a character for each level. Her voice sounds different for a bunch of them. I don't really feel like this is a game about Peach. It's about her playing the part of generic characters. I didn't feel any sense of drama until the very end, when she emerges outside of the Sparkle Theatre, as herself. It was the first thing since the intro that the game was trying to convey as authentic. Maybe if I just believed in the game - like there was a real throughline that meant each level was an important new part of a story - I wouldn't have been so bored with it. You really don't have to do a lot to get me with this stuff. I honestly found myself crying when I first heard Odyssey attempt to finally convey Peach's perspective on her relationship with Mario. Is this what a good story has to offer a game? As it is, it felt like I'd bought a colouring-in book, and for some bizarre reason, it was important that I finish every page.

This is very much a 'me problem'. I hope I've established my criticisms as fiercely subjective. I can see some folk getting a lot out of this. I've heard some say that they loved Yoshi's Woolly World. I certainly don't want to convince Nintendo that people don't like Princess Peach games. It's just that I had to play through Sexy Parodius and Third Strike before I'd gotten through this, just to remind myself that I do enjoy playing videogames.

Short, simple, and sweet. Pretty easy game but it's targeted towards children so that's understandable. All in all I had a lot of fun with the game; the only time I was bored was when I was doing the detective peach levels. The levels for the most part had nice variety and the set pieces were nice to look at. The boss fights were very good too. After you beat the game you unlock boss challenges which are pretty fun but you also unlock the challenge where you have to find the hidden ninjas in every level. That specific challenge was pretty dull considering most of the ninjas are extremely easy to find. Peach has nice dresses she can unlock to wear throughout the theater and some of the levels. The soundtrack is honestly pretty damn good; I was bopping to the tracks the whole game. This game was good enough to get me interested in other Good-Feel games and I hope this dev makes another Peach game that expands on some of the ideas in Showtime.

This happened to my buddy Karl once.

Pretty bare bones at the moment, but a VERY solid foundation for what should be a great game. DRG Survivors adds onto the new "Survivor" genre through the addition of base DRG's core mechanics, most prominently digging, which adds a new level of setpiece based mechanics and strategy that works great.

I'm not sure if this was worth the $13.50 I paid for it, as I will keep playing it as it gets developed, enjoying new content and mechanics as they get added. I expect I will get my money's worth. This early version already got me more than halfway there with over 8 hours of enjoyment before it started to feel same-y.