Princess Peach: Showtime! Review

thesixthaxis.com:

There’s nothing quite like a night at the theatre. The escapism, the fantastical narratives, the impressive stage design; all of this awaited Princess Peach as she was invited to the Sparkle Theater for what promised to be a wonderful evening in Princess Peach: Showtime!. However, rather than having to put up with someone talking throughout, or a screaming child in the front row, Peach has to deal with Madame Grape and the Sour Bunch invading the building and corrupting everything.

Trapped in the building, Peach has to take the leading role of various plays to save them from becoming tragedies. Each role comes with a magical girl transformation sequence and a set of abilities our leading lady can use to progress in that play. Broadly speaking, these can be divided into more action-based stages and more puzzle-based ones, and with three instances of each transformation, you get to spend a decent time with each ability set.

You could be a detective investigating crimes through talking to witnesses and examining evidence to progress, become a cowgirl and riding around on horseback with lasso in hand, or even a thief hacking through systems and grappling through complex structures to find your target. The sheer breadth of gameplay styles found throughout is the game’s biggest strength.

The theatre is laid out in floors, each of which comes with four plays and a final stage for a boss encounter. These bosses bridge the gap between puzzle and action, with a set pattern required to dispatch them – and no transformation powers either. Once you have dealt with them you can move to the next floor with a group of new plays to save, and so on. Unfortunately, this is where a huge weakness appears: this game doesn’t pose much of a challenge.

I’m not under any illusion that I’m the target audience here, but I was able to get to the end of the game with very little difficulty. Even the bosses themselves posed no problems, with me taking little, if any damage in any of them. I could see