My first impressions of
Princess Peach SHowtime from its demo on Nintendo Switch
Princess Peach Showtime! releases March 22nd on Nintendo Switch, and it has a demo out right now that you can play. If you’d rather not know anything going in, then stop reading now and go play it. Otherwise…
Princess Peach Showtime is not the first game from Nintendo featuring Princess Peach in a starring role (technically that would be Princess Toadstool’s Castle Run) but it’s the first one I’ve ever played, and it looks and sounds great. The presentation is similar to other modern Nintendo games, with colorful environments and well designed characters and environments, and the controls are just as tight as you would expect from Nintendo.
The game takes place in the Sparkle Theatre which has been overtaken by Grape, an evil sorceress, and her Sour Bunch. The main lobby of the theatre acts as a hub and lets you enter different rooms, which appear to be the various stages in the game (kind of like how the paintings in Super Mario 64 let you enter the various stages).
In the demo, there are two stages: one where you play as Swordfighter Peach (an action oriented stage where you have a sword), and another where you play as Patissiere Peach, which is more like an extended Mario Party mini game where you are suspended above various cakes and need to control Peach to properly decorate each cake.
Both levels in the demo are fun, but the Swordfighter stage feels more like an actual game, where the cake decorating stage feels more like a mini game. This could lead you to believe that every stage in the game will have a different outfit and different gameplay, but I’m hopefully there will be a good mix of action and mini game stages, and probably there will be multiple levels with each of Peach’s outfits. I definitely want to play more as Swordfighter Peach.
Nintendo has not said that your progress from the demo carries over to the full game, but luckily the demo is really short, so you aren’t losing a lot of progress in any case.
If you don’t have time to play the demo yourself, you can check out out my playthrough of the demo on YouTube:
Pros
✅ great looking Nintendo graphics
✅ tight controls
✅ interesting level design and gameplay
✅ great to see another Princess Peach game
Cons
❌ demo is really short
❌ cake decorating level just feels like an extended mini game from Mario Party
❌ no telling how much action versus mini game stages will be in the full release
FIRST IMPRESSION
Overall the demo left a good impression.
Honestly I’m not sure I’ll purchase the full game when it releases, since it will be priced at $59.99 and I’m not sure the game really warrants a full price release ($39.99 feels like the right price from what I’ve seen so far).
If you like rather chill cozy games, or if you have younger kids who you think will like it, Princess Peach Showtime might be just the game you’re looking for.
If you like a challenge, or you prefer more mature games, you may want to look elsewhere (but honestly that should have been obvious).
Gamatroid 