I remember being unbelievably hyped for this game when it was first announced. Yeah, I know Peach already got a video game a long while ago but this time she was getting the home console experience. So that was a lot of fun to see. Ultimately I do think they could have gone in a more interesting direction with her but at the end of the day this game is still fun. It is a little on the short side and there isn’t a ton of replay value but you will have fun here.

The game starts off with Peach heading to the theater but the place is taken over by Grape. She’s one of the most powerful villains in creation and uses her reality warping abilities to cause a bunch of chaos. Peach must now jump into various shows and take over as the main character to get things back on track. She uses her various abilities to turn the staff back into their true forms and along the way she will also work to also put down Grape’s gang of villains. Does she have what it takes to do this without Mario around though?

I do think it is an absolutely massive missed opportunity to not have Mario and Luigi in here though. They should have shown up even briefly to get rolled by the villains and show just how high the stakes are. By not having them here, there are no real stakes. If Peach were to lose then she would just be kidnapped as she usually is and the game would turn into a classic Mario title. Now that could have been an amazing way to end the game. Like she beats Grape but then gets kidnapped by Bowser with a “To Be Continued” ending. It would have been a little rough for Peach fans to be sure but at the same time you can’t deny the potential there.

Ah well, story is not really why you are playing this game anyway. You are here for the gameplay and that part is mainly fun. It’s sort of like an anthology where each form has different gameplay. Peach has 10 different costumes here that all have fairly simple, but different styles. Because of that the game does feel almost like a minigame compilation at times though. Each costume gets 3 levels to it and they’re all rather quick so you’ll be blasting through them in no time flat.

The best costume is absolutely Mighty Peach. In this form she is able to throw meteors and land solid punches on all of her enemies. It’s a lot of fun and plays like a 2D beat em up. It’s definitely a true highlight. Another costume I liked a lot was Ninja Peach. In this mode you have to avoid enemy detection and then launch lethal counter hits. Really good stuff but you can tell that the game’s balance was not 100% because you could usually just run up and hit someone. It’s a one hit KO so they often don’t have time to sound the alarm. In a way that’s part of why it’s so good though because it ends up being very fast paced.

Then for a weaker one, we had Mermaid Peach. In this form you have to use singing to keep the fish at bay and you sort of attack with this but not really. Ultimately there just isn’t a whole lot to this one. It certainly didn’t keep me all that interested but then again I’m not a big underwater fan as it is. There is also baking Peach. It’s weak relative to the other costumes but still not bad I’d say. This is sort of how I would picture Cooking Mama to be in a lot of ways. The game is very lenient on your cake design skills so don’t worry about it being 1 to 1.

Then you have Detective Peach. This one’s also on the weaker side because it just feels a lot more slow paced. The mysteries are also really easy so while you are solving the case you are just waiting for the cutscenes to end so you can get to the end. It’s why you always want to be moving at a fast pace whenever possible. Figure Skater Peach is in a similar position. You aren’t able to speed up these levels and they aren’t the toughest ones out there so you are really just ready to move on.

A really good one was Kung Fu Peach though. The hand to hand attacks were great and reminded you of just what kind of game this could have been with this form as the mainstay. They did a great job with the combat and there are even quick time events here. There’s also Swordfighter Peach which is another really fun costume. Make sure you don’t miss the controls for this one because the parrying actually tripped me up for a little bit there. I got the controls backwards which was tricky. I really liked the speed effects used for this form.

Next up is Cowgirl Peach. This form’s fun, I’d put it around the middle. Mainly the issue with this one is that it is by far one of the easiest modes. So I do like the gameplay here but you can really beat the levels in your sleep. Then we have the toughest one which is Thief Peach. IN this form I actually had my one and only loss in the game. Some of the jumps in the last level actually take a whole lot of timing and get rather tricky. It made me really enjoy this form quite a bit.

Each costume has a boss battle as its third level and there are a bunch of bosses scattered in the normal levels but those tend to be mini bosses. I think the main problem the game had is that it spread itself a little too thin. It was trying to do too many things all at once and as a result there wasn’t a lot of time for any individual costume. Cut the amount in half so all of them have double the levels and then you’ve got yourself something. Additionally, with less development time for all the different styles, maybe you could actually quadruple the levels. Considering how small they are, there definitely should have been way more levels if you think about it.

In terms of graphics, the game definitely looks really solid. It’s definitely a AAA Nintendo game all the way. The soundtrack is more on the limited side but I did like a few of the tunes. You’re just going to hear them a lot since each costume effectively just has one theme. So if you don’t like any of the tunes then that will definitely hurt. Now there is replay value here even if there isn’t a ton of it. For example, you can work on getting all the collectibles and acing each level. It seems like that will unlock something but it’s hard to say what that is. So that’s still something to think about right? Hopefully with the Switch 2 Nintendo eventually adds trophies since that would be an automatic win right out of the gate for replay value.

Overall, Princess Peach makes for a decent main character in a pretty fun game. You’re just left feeling like this is really just a minigame showcase rather than a full game. It’s simply too short and while the simple nature of each costume makes this an easy game to pick up and play, there’s not a lot of depth to it. I will say that the game goes all out with the climax though. It really gets cosmic like in the Kirby games which was awesome. Definitely the strongest that Peach has ever looked. I do guarantee that you will have a lot of fun with the game though. It’s part of why we are all sad about the game being so short because it was a lot of fun to play through the whole time.

Overall 7/10