As a big fan, I’ve always appreciated seeing characters other than the mustachioed plumber getting a chance in the spotlight. Despite this, I haven’t been as excited as I thought for . Not just due to my love of Daisy and Rosalina over the Mushroom Kingdom ruler, but because I didn’t hওave a good grasp on what this game was trying to be.

What we’ve seen of Showtime up until now has mostly focused on the cutesy theatre setting and variety of costumes for Peach to don, all with their own unique skills. As charming as this is, it hasn’t painted the clearest picture of how the game will play, leaving a lot of questions about Peach’s first solo outing in almost 20 years. Would it be slower-paced with unique mechanics like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Luigi’s Mansion? Does it focus less on skill-based platforming and more on levels with a variety of gameplay styles a la ? Was Peach 🦄taking a leaf out of ’s b🐻ook by having costumes with special abilities?

As it turns out, the answer, much like Princess Peach: Showtime itself, is very straightforward - it’s all of the above and not much more than that. Showtime is just as pleasant and fun to play as you’d expect from , but it’s also one of the simplest games I’ve seen from them in a long while,ﷺ and something that I hope is hiding a bit more depth beneath the surface.

Princess Peach: Showtime sees everyone’s fa🐬vourite Anya Taylor-Joy lookalike having a day off from Mario and Bowser as she acce🍎pts an invite to the Sparkle Theatre, clearly not having learnt anything from all the times Luigi was invited to random buildings and dragged into harrowing adventures.

Befo💖re Peach can even grab some popcorn, a mysterious villain who wouldn’t look out of place in a Kirby title known only as Grape unleashes dark magic to take over the theatre and its myriad productions. With each show turned into a tragedy, Peach has to work with her new ally Stella to fix the shows with the power of a fancy, magical ribbon.

The ribbon allows Peach to dive into each of the theatre’s plays, taking on a starring role by dressing up Peach in different costumes that each have their own set of abilities. Before playing Showtime, I thought these costumes would be swappable on the fly and applied to different situations, but it seems like they're limited to one level each.

My preview took me through the first four plays, wꦑhich each have a different gameplay flavour. One had Peach adventuring through a castle backdrop as a sword fighter who made easy work of the stage invaders with simplistic combat and dodging, while another saw her starring as a cowgirl who used a lasso to fling enemies around before riding off into the sunset on a mechanical horse♎.

Although those two levels ended up being pretty similar thanks to their focus on satisfying, yet basic, combat and simplistic platforming, the other two transformations mixed things up a lot more a🌜nd stood out as better examples of the variety that Showtime is trying to offer.

While dressed as a ninja in Feudal Japan, Peach took aও more stealthy approach and assassinated people (Requiesat in Peach) while hiding in bushes, blending into walls, and swimming underwater while breathing through a reed. Even though the focus was still on basic platforming and taking out enemies, the stealth did enough to make the level feel unique.

The best of the bunch had Peach donning an apron and hefty boots to become a patisserie chef. While every other level focused on platforming and combat, this inste❀ad had Peach baking cookies by mashing buttons and carefully decorating cakes with icing to try and match them up to a recipe. It was like a minigame but without the friendship-ending arguments.

It was these two levels that finally piqued my interest in Princess Peach: Showtime, by showcasing just how much variety each transformation can introduce when they aren’t limited by following a familiar design. The sword fighter and cowgirl costumes were fun to mess around with, but felt too similar to one another and shone a spotlight on how lacking in substance the core of the game is. What’s really ꦗgoing to make or break Showtime is how well the rest of the g𝔍ame continues to shake up the formula.

It might seem harsh to focus on how easygoing Princess Peach: Showtime is considering how it’s clearly aiming for an all-ages audience, but it was a surprise to see how mindlessly easy it really was. While Mario games aren’t exactly known for being difficult, they do at least turn up the heat towards the endgame with more challenging sections for♎ those who want to learn the mechanics inside and out, something that doesn’t appear to be the case here.

I'm still not over Champion's Road from Super Mario 3D World and The Perfect Run from Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Combine that with each level taking around 15 minutes to beat and only including a few things off the beaten path to ret🐈urn for, and it seems like Princess Peach: Showtime is a little slimmer than wh🌜at Nintendo usually offers. I only played for an hour and have no idea how many costumes I didn’t get to experience and how different their levels might be, but I’m not holding my breath for too much more depth.

Princess Peach: Showtime might be on the simpler side and not provide much challenge for older players (or even younger), but its charming levels, steady stream o𒅌f surprises, and variety of mechanics have me excited to see what’s behind the curtain in the final game.