Princess Peach: Showtime!

PRINCESS PEACH: SHOWTIME!

Welcome back to our next revisit of the Mario series, covering all new games that have released since. First up is the only original game, Princess Peach: Showtime! This is the first game since Super Princess Peach to star the princess. It features her and a few Toads visiting the Sparkle Theater to watch a show, only for the theater to be overrun by a new villain named Grape and her Sour Bunch.

Obviously Princess Peach is our protagonist this time around, with a little star creature named Stella following her around and acting as her tutorial/navigator-type character. Stella might work as the general gimmick rep, though I do imagine Peach would gain at least a couple of moves from this. We'll see. When in her normal form, she can run and jump, and has a basic attack move where Stella swirls around her body, attacking or causing various effects to happen.

More importantly though, the main gimmick of the game is Peach putting on various costumes that give her new abilities. I had a bit of trepidation going in, wondering if I was going to end up having to make a bunch of new Peach movesets, but fortunately, most come with only a couple of moves each, so it's easier to just make a combined moveset. These include Swordfighter Peach (with a flurry of slashes and an upward slash), Detective Peach (with a magnifying glass and a "strike of intuition"), Patissiere Peach (with the ability to make cookies and lay down a line of frosting), Kung Fu Peach (with kicks and jumps), Ninja Peach (who can wall jump, throw kunai, and hide), Cowgirl Peach (with a lasso and a horse), Figure Skater Peach (who skates and can spin and jump), Dashing Thief Peach (with a grappling hook and a glider), Mermaid Peach (who can swim and sing), Mighty Peach (with superhuman strength, lasers, and a jetpack), and Radiant Peach, the super form for the final battle with Grape.

Outside of Peach and Stella, most of the side cast is the Theets, a new race of little olive-looking people, who run most of the shops and act as the NPCs in the various plays Peach enters, sometimes floating on balloons and such. Most importantly are the Sparklas, the actors who were supposed to play the roles Peach takes up, and thus can do all of that stuff too. A handful of Toads are around as well.

On the villains' side of thing, we have Grape, a diva who tries to take over all the shows and make herself the star. She uses all manner of dark magic and theater implements in her fights, including making minions guard her, causing pyrotechnics to go off under Peach, and presents to drop from above. She also has a giant mask form called Grape the Great.

She has four bosses serving under her, all monsters made out of theater trappings. These include Disco Wing, a bird made out of a disco ball, who flies, lays disco ball eggs and blocks, and rolls around; Light Fang, a snake made of lights that fights Peach on one of those tower-maze boss fights like from Captain Toad's game; Purrjector Cat, a cat made from projectors, who attacks with his claws through the shadows and has mice bombs running around; and Spotlion, a lion that shoots orbs of light and a laser beam from its spotlight head.

From there we have the Sour Bunch, the main forces of Grape's gang, who generally play the "bad guys" in any given play. While they don't do much (this game is pretty easy over all), they are generally equipped with swords and things related to the given chapters, and often have batwings to fly with. They also tend to steal a lot. Certain chapters will also have higher ranked members acting as the "main villain" of said story. These include a cowboy, phantom knight, dark swordfighter, figure skater, dark baker, kung fu master, a giant plant, and a UFO.

As for the stages, really just "Sparkle Theater" will do us just fine, as any stage I can imagine would have the background and stage props shift around between the different themes.

And that's about it! Here's what we've got so far:

Characters:

Princess Peach/Stella/Radiant Peach & Stella: Stella attack, Swordfighter, Detective, Patissiere, Kung Fu, Ninja, Cowgirl, Figure Skater, Dashing Thief, Mermaid, Mighty, Radiant

Theets/Probably Sparklas: echo of the above.

Grape: dark magic, minions barrier, pyrotechnics, presents, train, Grape the Great

Sour Bunch: various implements, steal, batwings, higher ranks

Bosses:

Disco Wing

Light Fang

Purrjector Cat

Spotlion

Stages:

Sparkle Theater

Thanks for reading! Next up, can someone call the zoo? A gorilla got into the toy factory again.