tommy_lop's Full Review: Super Princess Peach for DS
Nintendo Princess Peach (Toadstool) has been the most kidnapped Princess in history. Not only has she been kidnapped and held up in Bowser castle numerous times but she also has been, sealed up in the walls of her own castle, came close to marrying a mad toy collector, forced to play step mom to Bowser JR, had her voice stolen, and kidnapped by alien shrooms. So now that Peach has your own game I had to check it out despite the mix reviews just for my own curiosity. Well the reviews are right on both sides Peach’s adventure is one heck of a solid platformer, but it’s way to easy.
Story.
Vibe island is a little island that is just off the shores of the mushroom kingdom, it’s small and no one pays attention to it. Bowser has decided to build a castle in this place and when his minions find the vibe scepter a magic scepter that can control emotions he uses it to attack Peaches castle. Mario and Luigi are to depressed to do anything about the evasion and are quickly captured my Bowsers minions. Luckily Peach was away from the castle on the walk and when she hears what happens she sets off towards Vibe island. The usually over protective Toadsworth; gives her a magic talking umbrella named Parry to aid her on her quest to rescue the Mario bros. She also gains powers from either going through menopause way to early, or having the world’s worst case of bi polar disorder you decide.
Like most Mario games the story is pretty lean and after the lengthy intro there isn’t much story development once the game starts to play. Between stages we learn a bit more about her umbrella Parry’s past but other then no more story is ever introduced.
Graphics.
With the exception of a few of the background effects the graphics could easily be GBA, that said it would have been one beautiful GBA game. The backgrounds and the enemy sprites are large and well animated and everything is done up in bright colors. In other words Princess Peach has a lot of eye candy to it. The bottom screen shows Peach usually just standing there looking up at you. When you activate an emotion the screen changes to show the emotions on her face. These little scenes at the bottom of the screen are also well animated eye candy.
Sound.
The music is so sweet in this game it can give you cavities. Seriously it’s got a cuter edge to it then your average Kirby game. Areas like the glacier areas are especially true. All though there are a few good BGM tracks around the volcano area. Peach’s overly high pitch voice also covers the game. There are a variety of sound clips of her whenever she uses an emotion, or clears a stage.
Gameplay.
Super Princess Peach does have a Mario feel to it. There are plenty of Mario bad guys and platform jumping to go around. But Peach plays just a bit differently. While collecting coins and getting to the goal post is the main idea Peach’s biggest differences comes in her powers.
Below her life bar is something called the vibe gage which gives power to her emotions. On the bottom touch screen are 4 hearts each representing an emotion. Joy, Gloom, Rage, and Calm. Joy will let her fly and blow away thing with cyclones, Gloom will make her run fast and cry tears that can make plants grow, Rage can burn things and shake the ground, then Calm will let her refill her hearts. You will need each emotion to solve puzzles along the way, for example in the ice stage you will need to push big blocks that can’t be moved. By using Gloom Peach can freeze the ground and push the block easily. Refilling the vibe gage is usually easy you pick up a blue crystal or you have her Parry eat an enemy.
Parry also changes the gameplay a bit to. While Peach can just use him to whack enemy away, she can also use it to pick up enemies and throw them. Or have Parry eat them to fill up her vibe gage. Coins can be used to power up Parry’s or give him new abilities. New abilities include a power stomp or the ability to do a charge shot. You can also increase Peaches health and vibe gage which brings me to the point about the game being to easily.
I have all ready stated that the emotion calm can heal Peach, and that the vibe gage is easily refilled by eating enemies. That right there tells you the game is going to be pretty easy because you can heal whenever you want. Now add in the fact that Peach only takes a half a heart of damage whenever she gets hit (and she starts off with 3 hearts). Also things like getting squashed in a scrolling screen level or falling into a pit only gives her a half a heart worth of damage as well. In other words it’s pretty hard to kill Peach inless you just really want to see what it looks like.
While the game may be easy it does have a lot of saving graces, plenty of things to find inside a stage. Each stage as 3 Toads that must be rescued in order to fight Bowser. As well has puzzle pieces, music samples, and mini games. I haven’t quite gotten enough pieces to complete a puzzle but I have gotten plenty of the mini games and music samples. The music samples can be collected and play in a sound track area. The mini games all use the DS’s touch screen or microphone to play. One game has you blow in the microphone to have Toad jump and the other has you using the stylus to poke Bowser balloons for points.
There are also a few times in the main game where you will be using some of the DS features as well. Before every boss fight you have to play a mini game. Either twirling logs around so Peach can move up, destroying stuff with the stylus to make sure Peach doesn’t get hit, or using it to manipulate trampolines. These are kind of a pain and after about the 3rd boss you wish they would just go away. However there are a couple of cool parts that mimic Super Mario land’s Marine pop stages, but instead of hitting B to fire bullets you have to blow into the microphone in to shoot bubbles at the enemy.
Final recommendation.
This one depends on what type of gamer you are. If have beaten pretty much any other Mario game then your pretty much out of Princess Peaches league, especially if that ending said press B to select a stage. And with the new Super Mario Bros coming out in a couple of weeks it may just be worth your while to wait. But if your heavily into old school type platformers and you don’t mind the super sweet and the super easiness that comes with Super Princess Peach then you might enjoy this game. I do hope that if they make a Super Princess Peach 2 that they put in a challenge mode that limits the use of the vibe bar and lets Peach take more damage when hit.
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