more like Queen Peach i tell you hwat

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As stated in my last review on Super Princess Peach, I was very excited for Showtime. Like, way more excited than I ever thought I would be. Just off of the first couple trailers, I was enamored by the charm and promise that was being presented, what would essentially be a full game's worth of watching Peach undergo magical girl transformations and exploring different set pieces with her new abilities. I was in it for the style, and nothing else. As time went on (and as Nintendo kept spoiling all of the fucking costumes on their Twitter...), in an unusual turn of events, my excitement only grew. The demo drops, I play it, and I'm locked in, pre-order and all. I got what I came for, and I enjoyed every second of it.

almost every second of it.

Obviously, the costumes are all fantastic. It is such a breath of fresh air seeing such a major character for the series in all these different outfits, especially since Peach doesn't usually get to do much in the first place. Of course she has all of her spin-off designs, but Showtime does so much more with everything, experimenting with all sorts of aesthetics and colors, not one of them failing to impress. That really was all I was expecting for this game, so to move on to the actual gameplay...

It's fine enough? Peach doesn't get much of a moveset, the game only ever utilizes a total of three buttons, and I think they did fairly well with such limited controls. Not every gimmick is a winner (lord knows I never want to play another patissiere level again), but I thoroughly enjoyed what they came up with, the big stars being the detective, mermaid, and ice skater plays. (sorry, ice world bias.)
I have to admit, though, and it never really makes itself known upon first playthrough, but holy hell is this game slow. Again, it's never a problem as long as you can finish up everything you need to in one go, collecting all the Sparkle Stones and Ribbons, but, say you miss one of those collectibles, either by simply not exploring enough or failing a certain task; in order to go back and try for it again, you have to do everything from start to finish a second time. Your newly made progress won't be saved after exiting the stage like in the previous Peach game, so instead you'll have to repeat the whole stage, and by then, you'll notice that most of your time in each level will be spent completely motionless as some dialogue fades in and out of view. You aren't given the option to skip any of it, either. Text is placed on screen by itself, accompanied by animations that you have to wait for the end of before you are allowed to start moving again. As I said, not a big deal on the first playthrough, but it gets excruciating having to see it any more times than once. god forbid you spend 30 damn minutes on the second patissiere level like i did

I see where everyone else is coming from. Yes, Princess Peach: Showtime! can feel incredibly easy, handhold-y, linear, whatever else you might have heard. It is not complex in the slightest, but that's not what I was looking forward to. I was looking forward to the cute costumes and the fun worlds to look at, with the added bonus of some new personality for the princess herself. With such little expectations, of course I was going to have at least a little fun. Not the "game of the year" I was maybe (somewhat ironically) psyching myself up for, but I'd say it's considerably better than everyone else is giving it credit for. Again, though, that could just be my low standards, made even lower after recently finishing a much worse Peach oriented game.

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peach's next smash moveset could be killer if you think about it now holy shit