Nintendo is in a unique position this year as it's the final year of the Nintendo Switch, so by all respects what we see being developed by Nintendo will likely be delayed until the release of their new system "The Succesor to the Switch". So anything that gets released by their first party or second party development teams are games that have been in the works for long enough to get finished but too late to be held off for a double release for the Switch and their new system. This was the same fate for games like Nintendo's 2006 release of "The Legend of Zelda: Twlight Princess" which had a double release for the Gamecube & the Wii, while 2019's "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" had it for The Wii U & The Switch. This particular game was in development for a while, as evident by the development studio in particular (Good-Feel)'s last releases being a paired development with Studio Justdan of 2019's Twin Stick Shooter "Monkey Barrels". They had split development between this game 2024's "Princess Peach: Swowtime!" and 2023's release of "Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitarou no Sainan!!", which was the Spiritual Succesor to Konami's forgotten franchise "Ganbare Goemon".
Now why is this important to know? Well Good-Feel is a second party development studio that is partially owned by Nintendo, and is headed by a man named Etsunobu Ebisu. Ebisu-San is a veteran of the video game industry and has been making games since the 1980s. His first title was in working on the hidden gem of the NES 1988's "The Adventures of Bayou Billy". He primarily worked on programming the game as well as doing quality assurance, to make sure there were no major bugs. Ebisu-San then got to work on a franchise that he became primarily associated with for the majority of his career, in 1989, Konami's Arcade sleeper hit "Mr. Goemon" was making the transition to consoles and thus the "Ganbare Goemon" franchise was born. Ebisu-San worked on programming the games, and was so beloved by his crew they created a character and designed it after him, thus was born the sidekick for the virtuous thief Goemon, was the "Nezumi Kozō" patterened and blue adorned Ebisumaru. Ebisumaru became an iconic character that was known for his love for food, women, & dance. Ebisu-San was able to produce hit after hit with his fellow employees to make the "Ganbare Goemon" series a mascot franchise for Konami alongside Nintendo's Mario, Hudson's Bomberman, & SEGA's Sonic. Soon with the advent of 3D gaming thanks to titles like SEGA's 1994 "Virtua Fighter" the industry was moving to the 3D realm for consoles and if you weren't making something 3D, you were going to get left behind.
Enter 1997's "Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon" for the Nintendo 64 with Ebisu-San in his Directoral debut. I could go on and on about the quality of this game, but let me make things perfectly clear about "Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon". It was the second 3D adventure game (the other being 1997's "Mega Man Legends"), the first 3D game to do a proper translation of 2D to 3D mech fights, and was the first 3D true Open World Adventure. And in my personal feelings on it, it's the best 3D Adventure game not just on the N64, but of the entire 5th Generation. Yes, more so than 1998's "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". So why isn't Ebisu-San still working on the Goemon franchise today? Well that fault lies with a mishandling of Konami's management and budget. Konami's other big franchise "Metal Gear" was syphoning a majority of funds as the industry was changing from "games made with creative intent" and more towards "Emulating of Hollywood" a trap that was felt before with Digital Picture Studio's Night Trap & Supreme Warrior. Thus in 2005, Ebisu-San along with his colleague Shigeharu Umezaki left Konami to form their own studio Good-Feel. They would form a relationship with Nintendo after they were headhunted to work on Nintendo's 2008 title "Wario Land: Shake It!". As producer, Ebisu-San and his team were able to translate high quality animation into sprite based 2D platforming. While "Wario Land: Shake It!" was not a runaway hit in sales, Nintendo did see the quality in it's work and thus bought partial ownership of Good-Feel to bring them under their umbrella. Still indipendent but they work on Nintendo games and franchises primarily.
And they did with high quality entries like 2010's "Kirby's Epic Yarn", 2015's "Yoshi's Wooly World", & 2019's "Yoshi's Crafted World". All simple games with a focus on showcasing technical wizardry, and basic well made level design (which is becoming a lost art, IMO). Their primary intention with those games was to give a "Good feeling" while playing them. And they did, with high ratings across the board. Thus with Nintendo at full confidence in the studio, they gave them two projects, 1 was the afformentioned Goemon Spiritual Succesor (a Ebisu-San request, no doubt), and the other was "Princess Peach: Showtime!". Could Good-Feel translate their "Good feelings" into another banger?
The answer is simply, yes. "Princess Peach: Showtime!" is a masterclass in simple level design with the unique choice of making each level unique with the game's gimmick of the titular Peach transforming into different roles to suit the level. While "Barbie-esque" in it's choice of presentation, Peach transforming into different "Dream Jobs" like a Swordfighter or a Thief or a Super Hero each gives unique gameplay moments that all feel satisfying. The presentation of the game is also top notch, as to compliment the "Dream Jobs" what better way to do so than on a stage. The whole game is set up like a high budget stage production. One can't help if they are a video game veteran, but to think of the comparrisons to 1994's "Dynamite Headdy" by Treasure for the Sega Genesis, as it also presented itself as a Stage Play. However the difference between "Headdy" & "Peach" is that Headdy is more of "The World is a stage", while Peach is done more like Sega's iconic franchise "Sakura Wars" as the heroines take the stage of the Grand Imperial Theater. Each level of Peach takes place in individual stages, and the level design each seem plausible that it could have been crafted specifically for a stage play. The set pieces are of obvious wood, there are puppeteering strings, an orchestra warming up in the pit, a projector to give the sense of something supernatural. The whole game and levels have such care and thought made for each piece. It's a treat for the eyes and ears.
Your goal as Princess Peach is to save the employees of the Theater Mansion from an invading force known as Madame Grape, from taking over the Theater and the Island it's on. Notably, the Character Artists for this game were primarily female, and the artist for Madame Grape and the Theeater in parrticular seems to be a big fan of Sega's "NiGHTS into Dreams" and the work of Naoto Oshima. The whole game has a very, to excuse the term, Sega-Like feel. Which isn't surprising considering most of Nintendo's in-house programmers and developers came from Sega after being headhunted from their collaboration on the "Mario & Sonic": franchise. Leading to an interesting thing, "Princess Peach: Showtime!" is pretty much a 1,000% better version of Oshima's & Yuji Naka's final collaborative work (Before Naka's Inprisonment for Insider Trading), 2021's "Balan Wonderworld". "Balan Wonderworld" was a showcase of it's "NiGHTS"-like inspiration, with dreamy landscapes and just as dream-like character design. And with controls to almost match, "Peach" is afforded a 3-button scheme of Jump/Attack/Pose to "Balan"'s 1-button everything. This allows for more player control without sacrificing level design, which hurt Balan in the long run. The game is so simple in it's design that you could even potentially play it on a NES controller, and in fact does feel like a lost Side Scrolling Nintendo 64 game that could stand side-by-side with something like Konami's 1998 "Goemon's Great Adventure" or Treasure's 1997 "Mischief Makers". It's that high of Quality
"Princess Peach: Showtime!" shows why it's important to understand "Arcade level design", why and how to put enemy or platforming segments where. Why you shouldn't just throw whatever in your level like you're playing "Minecraft" or designing an ametuer Skate Park in "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater", creating purpose for each part of a level makes it feel important and most importantly, fun to play or have a "good feeling" while playing it. With it's level design, character design, music quality, and presentation; there's no reason not to try "Princess Peach: Showtime!". It's only flaw being that it's at most, an 8 hour game. But you know what else was an 8-hour game at most? "Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon" "Shenmue" "Sonic Generations" "Final Fantasy", some of the greatest games of all time and all Tackie Award Winners. And if I'm comparing "Peach" to them? It's High Praise.
