Super Princess Peach

King Koopa's servant brings to his notice the Vibe Scepter. It's a magical ornament that effects the feelings of ones target. King Koopa sends his minions to Princess Peach's castle and uses the scepter to kidnap Mario, Luigi, and many of her Toad servants. Peach takes it upon herself to rescue Mario and company with a magical umbrella named Perry. -summary

Talk about being late to the party. Nintendo pretty much opened up a can of worms back in 1988 with Super Mario Bros. 2, when they introduced the then Princess Toadstool, now Princess Peach as a playable character with an ability that set her slightly apart from Super Mario. I remember fans craving a Princess Peach game where she was no longer the damsel in distress, instead, the heroine who must embark on her own quest to save the hero whom has constantly put his life on the line for her. Nintendo finally gave fans what they wanted back in 2005 with Super Princess Peach. Now the game at times feels as if it caters more towards young female gamers, but there's a decent amount of gaming going on here that was able to somewhat hold my attention. It's far away from the gaming masterpiece some folks would try to force you to believe, and it's not better than New Super Mario Bros. either, in fact, I think it makes New Super Mario look even better. At the very least, I can say it's playable and die hard fans of the characters will get the most out of it.

Game Play:

Super Princess Peach is a platformer that feels very different from the usual Super Mario romp, and my feelings are rather mixed here. The story follows Peach as she travels through 8 worlds rescuing her servants, plus Luigi and Mario. There are three Toads in each stage that must be found, and each world is made up of several stages that can be re-entered after completing them.

Princess Peach can't exactly rely on only jumping on her enemies to defeat them, because this only immobilizes some of them for a short while. Her abilities lies in the magical umbrella named Perry, whose power effects her emotions called Vibes; when she's cheery, she's able to fly and create a tornado by spinning, when angry, she's engulfed in a pillar of flame that is used to melt ice, burn bridges, and defeat enemies that normally can't be beaten, when she's calm, her health bar slowly replenishes, and sadness causes her to move at great speeds crying waterfalls of tears. These abilities aren't only used for battle against enemies but they also help solve the pseudo puzzles found in the game. Her umbrella also causes her to float in the air for a very short while after a jump, and other abilities such as a ground stomp, charge shot, etc, must be purchased from the Toad shop with coins scattered through out the levels.

Similar to The Legend of Zelda, Peach has a health gauge made up of three hearts, and she loses half when hit by anything. She can also purchase more hearts increasing the count. There's also another gauge displaying the use of power she has for her vibes which can also be increased by purchasing items. Along the way as the bar is being used, Peach can replenish her vibes by using the umbrella to pick up foes and devour them. Super Princess Peach really did have the potential to be something special and quite possibly one of the better games in the Super Mario universe. Unfortunately, these abilities handed down to her dampens the difficulty in the game play resulting in a platformer that can be beaten with ridiculous ease. First of all, her Calm Vibe can be spammed all day in just about any given situation, this goes for during boss battles as well. Forget about the classic cheap deaths, because whenever you fall off a cliff you begin at the starting point of that particular level only losing half a heart in the process. I do understand not every single platformer should be NES Ninja Gaiden hard, but come on, this seems like Nintendo is once again taking pity on very bad gamers. What's the point in working to get better at a game, when you barely pay for your mistakes? The game also resorts to way too much hand holding. There are tips galore for everything; boss battles, finding secrets, as well as finding the three Toads in the stages. This game requires little to no skill at all.

Many of the stages feel like wasted ideas due to the very weak difficulty. If it wasn't for the unique boss battles I would probably hate this game. I enjoyed several of the boss fights since they require different approaches and tactics to be beaten. For example, the first boss encounter is with a giant piranha plant. Peach must use her tears to grow an over-sized plant in order to gain higher ground by using the leaves. This allows her to cry waterfalls of tears down the plants throat filling up its belly to leap on it and try to pop him. Unfortunately, this area isn't as great as it could have been though, since once again the game spoon feeds you on how to win, to include, there's a mini-game that must be completed before every boss fight, and these games suffer from serious redundancy since they are rehashed over and over.

I also have issues with the story and overall plot. Despite Peach being the main character, it's the talking umbrella Perry who steals all of her thunder. There's a cut scene at the conclusion of every boss battle, which focuses on Perry going through flashbacks in his dreams on how he ended up in that position in the first place, thus, making him the central character in Peach's own solo debut. This was a stupid decision from the jump, only made much worse since Perry's story is dropped and forgotten at the very end. Bad enough a stupid umbrella is the only character developed through out the whole game, much worse his story isn't even concluded. This is among the biggest troll endings I seen in a game. The entire story was wasted potential because those cut scenes could have been used building Peach into a hero and developing her relationship with her friends.

Controls:

This area is also hit and miss. All of Peach's moves and movements are easy to execute and I found the controls to perform very well. However, my problem is with the touch screen and stylus interface. It's impossible to utilize the control pad and buttons as well as the stylus for the touch screen on the bottom. Which results in using your thumbs to activate the Vibes on the touch screen, and this leaves the screen full of finger prints. I also wasn't very thrilled with having to tap the screen with the stylus during mini games. It just feels as if the screen can eventually be damaged and I just don't like that thought.

Graphics/Music/Sound:

Visually, I think the game is pretty nice and some of the backgrounds seem to have been reused for New Super Mario Bros., which was released only a few months later. The lava stages have some very pretty lava-falls, and I thought some of the dark, lightening filled cloud stages were nice too. The character designs have some good moments, with some good details in the over-sized boss battles. Peach on the other hand felt a little bland though. The worlds have a vivid feel to them and they fit well with the personality of the game. This also goes for the soundtrack which mainly caters towards children. It gets the job down without sounding overly saccharine. There's actually one song I did enjoy and it was the flute ridden Fury Volcano #1; and as usual, the sound effects are nothing more than average. You will hear the classic coin pick up sounds but Nintendo simply can't find the time to work in some actual voice overs.

Extras:

Through out the game you will be able to unlock some mini-games that can be pretty fun for a kid, and be able to access them later in the menu. There's one called Toad Tote, where you guide Toad through a maze of flames to the goal point, avoiding pillars of flames and attempting not to touch the walls; and another one called Toad Jump, where Toad automatically runs and you have to blow into the mic to jump over obstacles. Honestly, I could never see myself playing this in public. There's a Music Room that allows you to listen to the stage music you pick up in various stages throughout the game. These things are decent add ons but they were meant for a specific audience, and after completing the game, several more supposedly difficult stages are opened as well as harder boss battles. They still felt just as easy to me, and they didn't really hold my attention for long.

Closing:

Super Princess Peach had the potential to be far better than this; it's a shame it feels so held back though with its weak difficulty, control set up, and other things. This is a game I feel more comfortable recommending to casual gamers who hate to lose and die hard fans of Super Mario. I don't regret playing it, but I don't see myself coming back to it ever again either.

Rating: 5/10

Pros:Pick up and play, Fantastic for children

Cons:Too easy, unnecessary padding, annoying control set up, bad story conclusion