Without fail, my experience has been that games made by Good-Feel are very charming, occasionally very fun, and at times a little boring to play. Princess Peach: Showtime! is no different.
I think to some extent, the demo and press previews incorrectly pitched this game as a one-button action game for babies. Having playing through it over the course of 6-7 hours, I'm surprised to say the vibe is more like Luigi's Mansion 2-3 than anything else.
Like other Good-Feel games, levels are 15 minutes long and have a bunch of collectibles -- some frustratingly missable -- but like newer Luigi's Mansion the levels themselves have little themed stories/vignettes attached to them. The difficulty/action gameplay feel almost in service of the adventure-y elements rather than necessarily being the point of Showtime.
This is totally fine of course, and it's not like there's nothing to the gameplay either. Peach has 10 costumes to use through levels themed to each (3 levels per costume) and although it's a one-button action game, the different themes mix up the gameplay well. Ninja Peach has stealth gameplay, Mighty Peach (Hero Peach?) has some shmup sections, Swordfighter Peach has some basic parry/dodge mechanics, Baker Peach (or whatever she's called) has baking minigames, and so on.
I enjoyed this aspect a lot, though all costumes are not created equal. The Kung-Fu, Ninja, and Hero levels sat at the top of the pile, and the Baker/Detective ones were really dull I thought (they had no action gameplay to speak of). Everything else sat somewhere in-between. This created an odd pacing to the whole thing where I would be bored, then entertained, then bored again.
On the positive side, the boss fights are fantastic and feel like some of the better fights you'd see in a GameCube/Wii-era platformer.
Peach is a good Nintendo protagonist and I hope they do more games with her. But aforementioned elements and others (it's pretty short for a full-priced game, gets fairly framey at times, and doesn't have much to do after you beat it) paint a portrait of a game that has high highs and low lows. Good-Feel at its most Good-Feel!
I think to some extent, the demo and press previews incorrectly pitched this game as a one-button action game for babies. Having playing through it over the course of 6-7 hours, I'm surprised to say the vibe is more like Luigi's Mansion 2-3 than anything else.
Like other Good-Feel games, levels are 15 minutes long and have a bunch of collectibles -- some frustratingly missable -- but like newer Luigi's Mansion the levels themselves have little themed stories/vignettes attached to them. The difficulty/action gameplay feel almost in service of the adventure-y elements rather than necessarily being the point of Showtime.
This is totally fine of course, and it's not like there's nothing to the gameplay either. Peach has 10 costumes to use through levels themed to each (3 levels per costume) and although it's a one-button action game, the different themes mix up the gameplay well. Ninja Peach has stealth gameplay, Mighty Peach (Hero Peach?) has some shmup sections, Swordfighter Peach has some basic parry/dodge mechanics, Baker Peach (or whatever she's called) has baking minigames, and so on.
I enjoyed this aspect a lot, though all costumes are not created equal. The Kung-Fu, Ninja, and Hero levels sat at the top of the pile, and the Baker/Detective ones were really dull I thought (they had no action gameplay to speak of). Everything else sat somewhere in-between. This created an odd pacing to the whole thing where I would be bored, then entertained, then bored again.
On the positive side, the boss fights are fantastic and feel like some of the better fights you'd see in a GameCube/Wii-era platformer.
Peach is a good Nintendo protagonist and I hope they do more games with her. But aforementioned elements and others (it's pretty short for a full-priced game, gets fairly framey at times, and doesn't have much to do after you beat it) paint a portrait of a game that has high highs and low lows. Good-Feel at its most Good-Feel!