Princess Peach Showtime is Goemon designer’s first directorial role in over 25 years

Nintendo’s Princess Peach Showtime is the first game in over 25 years directed by Goemon designer Etsunobu Ebisu, it’s been revealed.

Ebisu is the founder and CEO of Tokyo-based Good-Feel, who is the developer behind Showtime, videos showing the game’s credits on YouTube have confirmed (which we won’t link directly to for spoiler purposes).

Before founding Good-Feel in 2005, Ebisu was a programmer and game designer at Konami, working on games in franchises such as Castlevania.

However, he’s best known for directing the majority of games in the classic Goemon series, including Goemon 2, 3 and 4 for Super Nintendo, and 1997’s Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on N64, which was the last title he directed before taking on a long-time producer role.

Good-Feel released a Japan-only Switch game last year which many fans have dubbed a spiritual successor, Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru, but it was not directed by Ebisu.

As with many of its recent collaborations, Nintendo has acted unusually secretive around the developer behind Princess Peach Showtime, even declining to confirm if Good-Feel was working on it when asked.

Previously, Nintendo declined to confirm who the new voice actor behind Mario was until people with early copies of Super Mario Wonder discovered it in the credits. After that, it was similarly secretive around the developer of Switch’s Super Mario RPG until its identity was discovered on a store page.

Good-Feel previously worked on the Nintendo games Yoshi’s Wooly World, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Wario Land: Shake It, and more.

Princess Peach Showtime will be released on Friday, March 22 and is Peach’s first solo adventure since 2005.

In VGC’s Princess Peach Showtime review, we wrote: “In truth, little here will provide meaningful challenge for experienced players, and there’s also little expectation that Showtime will win any awards for its innovation.

“However, I found it impossible not to be charmed by Princess Peach’s package—the transformations, the wonderful animation, and the fun, cinematic flair on every kung fu kick and perfectly baked cake.”