GAME PREVIEW
Princess Peach Is Starring in Her First Game in Two Decades — And It’s Great
'Princess Peach: Showtime!' finally gives the classic character her due
You’d think being royalty would afford one all kinds of privileges, but in the case of Nintendo’s Princess Peach, it’s been a mixed bag. Despite appearing in dozens of games since her initial appearance in 1985’s Super Mario Bros. — including as a skilled tactician in Super Mario RPG and the Mario + Rabbids series as well as a flat-out brawler in the Super Smash Bros. franchise — the Mushroom Kingdom’s sovereign has only starred in two games of her very own.
The first, Princess Toadstool’s Castle Run, was a McDonald’s promo from 1990 that literally ran on a watch. The second, 2005’s Super Princess Peach, was at least a legitimate platformer, but was relegated to a handheld title on Nintendo DS. But now, nearly 20 years later, it’s finally her time to shine with her own true-blue console game with the forthcoming Nintendo Switch title, Princess Peach: Showtime!
Rolling Stone recently attended a press event in New York City to get a hands-on preview of the soon-to-be released game, and after about an hour of gameplay (and some surprises in between), these are our impressions based on everything we know about Princess Peach: Showtime!
It’s Not a Mario Game
That much should be obvious from the title, but the truth is that many Mario-adjacent games starring other characters end up reversing the roles of hero and damsel, making Mario the one to save. This is true of little brother, Luigi, with the Luigi’s Mansion trilogy (and 1993’s edutainment game Mario Is Missing!), but it also plagued Peach’s previous outing on the DS, Super Princess Peach.
But alas, Showtime! is determined to exhibit that Peach herself has a life outside of the plumber brothers. After receiving an invitation to attend a show at the Sparkle Theater, the princess decides to take some of her Toads for a night out, only for things to go horribly wrong. Before the show can begin, a new villain emerges named Grape, whose goons, the Sour Bunch, take control of the venue to put on their own show. Now, Peach herself must go full John McClaine to take back the building and set things right.
With a breezy setup befitting any Nintendo mascot game, the adventure begins. Peach, working with a star-faced flower named Stella, must tackle every floor of the Sparkle Theater to bounce the Sour Bunch and get back to having her much deserved night off.
There’s Tons of Ways to Play
Like Luigi’s Mansion before it, Princess Peach: Showtime! doesn’t settle for being a straightforward platformer, instead tasking players with exploring all the various spaces in the theater at their own pace. Each room thrusts Peach into a different scene of the show that’s been overtaken and rewritten by Grape. It’s here where the game’s central conceit comes into play: transformation.
Each sequence has a different theme that forces Peach to take on a new transformation with costume swaps, empowering her with big Barbie vibes to fit into the scene and play out a new role. During our time with the game, we were able to play four of the stages in Act I and one from Act II, which allow Peach to transform into an introductory set of abilities including Ninja, Cowgirl, Swordfighter, Patissiere, and Figure Skater.
Each transformation not just overhauls Peach’s look with finely crafted attire but gives her entirely different move sets and controls. Each scene plays completely differently, essentially functioning as a series of minigames to learn and master over short sprints, strung together throughout the overarching acts.
The minigames range from automated runners to one-on-one combat, with some light baking in between. Paired up with another member of the press, we immediately gravitated toward Ninja Peach for our first outing. This section is defined by giving Peach heightened mobility, sprinting full Naruto-style across the stage and rooftops, and using kunai dashes to eliminate unsuspecting foes. There’s also a stealth mechanic where Peach must hide in tall grass or be camouflaged against surfaces to avoid detection.
Next up was Patissiere Peach, which puts the princess in an industrial kitchen to crank out as many cakes as she can in a short amount of time. This section adheres closest to the Platonic ideal of a Mario Party minigame, wherein players smash a button repeatedly to make the batter rise, but not too much! The next sequence in the scene sees users squeezing frosting onto the cakes to match predetermined patterns, in progressively more complex designs and speeds.
The Swordfighter transformation arms Peach with a rapier for some good old fashioned ultraviolence (err, light slashing) as she battles her way through legions of Sour Bunch minions to a boss battle. In fact, many of the sequences lead up to some kind of ultimate showdown with the zone’s big bad, requiring players to utilize all of skills they’ve learned along the way.
The last two transformations, Cowgirl and Figure Skater, were slightly more difficult than the previous ones, which served as easy-going introductions to the premise of the game. As a Cowgirl, Peach must use her trusty lasso to take out waves of enemies and capture projectiles to throw back their way, before mounting a steed for an automatic runner sequence dodging exploding barrels. There’s something unsettling about Peach taking cover behind a boulder from gunfire like Ryan Phillippe in The Way of the Gun, but the sequences are fast-moving enough that you never dwell on one type of gameplay for too long.
The final bout as Figure Skater Peach delivers a choreographed sequence dependent on hitting jumps and spins at the correct times to garner a strong rating, before using said moves to combat the boss in the grand finale. It’s another fun changeup from the previous minigames, as Peach traverses the snow-capped stage and ice rink in a certain blue outfit that’s one step shy of a court ordered cease-and-desist from Disney.
It’s Oozing with Personality
Like most Nintendo games, Princess Peach: Showtime! does not lack for personality. Again, like Luigi’s Mansion before it, the game has a singular art style that actually focuses on the princess having more normal human proportions — at least in comparison to the Toads and creatures around her. Most Mario games make the characters feel small or cherublike, but here the verticality of Peach’s frame allows the designers to lean into little flourishes of animation that help bolster the the larger-than-life tone.
While the game doesn’t run very smoothly, easily overpowering the Switch hardware and choking it with some major framerate dips throughout the experience, the illusionists at Nintendo once again make the case for trading in style over horsepower. As with last year’s sublime Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the developers have infused every aspect of this game with quirky little asides and creative flair that elevate what could be an otherwise bland-looking title. Peach is evidently a very gifted physical comedian, because both myself and other members of press were routinely taken aback in laughter at some of the reactions the character has to the world around her.
The Ninja transformation is a keen example. As Peach kneels into the brush for a stealthy crawl, she suddenly pulls up two paper bushes on popsicle sticks as stage props to mask her face. When leaning against a wall, she rolls out a scroll to cover her that perfectly matches whichever backdrop she’s against. Even the stage and spotlights change hue depending on the exact situation or place Peach occupies on the terrain, lending a subtle yet impactful sense of depth to the visual design that changes moment-to-moment.
All in all, despite arriving in the twilight of the Nintendo Switch’s lifespan (a newer model is rumored to be coming later this year) the team at Nintendo have gone a long way to maximize the palette for a game deserving of the princess.
Note: When asked if the game’s stage play setting was inspired by the classic Super Mario Bros. 3, which itself was presented as a play in front of a live audience, Nintendo reps firmly stated that they could neither confirm nor deny.
(It totally was).
Brie Larson Loves It
After wrapping our gameplay session for the morning, Rolling Stone sat down with avid gamer (and paid Nintendo spokesperson) Brie Larson, who called her time with the game, “Enchanting,” and noted that Peach’s transformations were, “Magical. Every single time.”
Asked about the enduring power of Princess Peach as a character, she noted, “Well, she’s always been the place to get to, hasn’t she? She’s just an icon and has been around for so long.” She continued, “As I was playing the game, I was like, ‘This makes so much sense,’ because I always knew that these characters were in her. We just hadn’t had a time to see them.”
In closing, she spoke about the reach of Nintendo characters like Peach across gaming and pop culture at large, stating, “It just shows you how much is available, that these characters have unlimited potential at all times.”
Players can find out for themselves how much potential Princess Peach herself has when Princess Peach Showtime! launched for Nintendo Switch on March 22.