A free Princess Peach: Showtime! demo is available now on the Nintendo Switch eShop, Nintendo announced Wednesday. Nintendo surprise launched the demo ahead of the game’s March 22 release date.
Princess Peach: Showtime! puts Peach in the spotlight for the first time in nearly two decades. Peach’s job? Saving the Sparkle Theater from villains Grape and the Sour Bunch. To save the theater, Peach joins different stage plays — sporting different costumes with unique skills — to take down the baddies. The free demo lets players put on the Swordfighter Peach and Pâtissier Peach costumes to adventure across their respective levels. You can see several bits of Princess Peach: Showtime!’s gameplay in a new trailer released alongside the announcement — the clips show the aforementioned Swordfighter Peach, Ninja Peach, Figure Skater Peach, and a few others.
Nintendo also showed an additional mode, Rehearsal, where Peach can take on waves of enemies and earn rewards, like new ways to customize Peach’s outfits. (You can customize her companion Stella, too.)
After playing Princess Peach: Showtime! at a preview event in February, Polygon called the game a “charming, simple adventure,” but noted the game sometimes struggled to perform on the Nintendo Switch’s aging hardware. Princess Peach: Showtime! was first revealed in September 2023 after a teaser in June. Nintendo’s last game starring Peach is Super Princess Peach, which came out in 2005 for the Nintendo DS. Of course, you could also play as her in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which came out in October.
Princess Peach: Showtime! is out on Nintendo Switch on March 22.
