When King Koopa somehow manages to capture Mario, Luigi and more than a hundred hapless Toads with a scepter capable of tampering with emotions, it’s up to Princess Peach, apparently the lowest rung of the heroism hierarchy, and a magical talking umbrella to save the day. 

Role reversal aside, early impressions of Super Princess Peach led me to believe it might resemble a traditional Mario sidescroller, but it’s actually a much slower, easier kind of game, with an emphasis on casual exploration rather than straightforward platforming.  While the basic structure is typical Mario – eight worlds, each with six or so stages designed around a given theme – the actual level design couldn’t be more different.  Rather than linear, flowing sets of jumps, platforms and enemies, each stage is broken up by a series of warp pipes, with each pipe leading to another section of light puzzle-solving or platforming.  Breaking up the levels like this has the effect of making each one seem a little too similar to the last, even when the theme and content differs.  Also, rather than shrinking or dying with each hit, Peach has hearts, ala Super Mario Bros. 2.  She starts with three and that amount can be upgraded at a shop accessible between levels, though it’s not totally necessary because most hits only deduct a half a heart.  Even falling into bottomless pits isn’t fatal; Peach merely loses half a heart and is redirected to beginning of the section. 

While the general idea is similar, Peach doesn’t really move like Mario.  She doesn’t go very fast, for one, and she has a wider assortment of moves which could be considered bonus or clutter, depending on your perspective.  The basic stuff is simple enough: A is used to jump, which I found a little awkward, while B or Y makes Peach smack things with her parasol.  Hitting X makes her sweep the umbrella down and outward, allowing her to pick up objects or enemies by the tip of it.  The shop also sells a few additional moves early in the game: Floatbrella lets Peach float mid-jump, though not as impressively as in Super Mario Bros. 2; Slidebrella gives her a running attack-slide to get under tight spots; Poundbrella lets her ground pound, useful for crushing goombas and breaking blocks; and, last and least, Chargebrella fires off a weak energy blast, after holding the attack button down for a second (think Megaman’s Megabuster but not as cool).  I never used Chargebrella.  The umbrella is particularly versatile, doubling as a rail grip or automatically transforming into a boat or submarine depending on the situation.  Additionally, once Peach has grabbed an enemy, she can toss it or make the umbrella swallow it whole, Kirby-style, to partially refill her Vibe Gauge, which dictates how long and how frequently she can use Vibe Powers. 

The Vibe Powers are an interesting addition; the bottom screen is comprised of an animated image of Peach surrounded by four colored hearts representing different emotions and abilities.  Tapping one of the hearts transforms the Princess into an unstoppable killing machine: “Joy” gives her the ability to fly or twirl around to create a nigh-invincible tornado, “Gloom” makes cry and run fast, “Rage” surrounds her with fire and “Calm” replenishes her health.  The Vibe Gauge is easily refilled by absorbing enemies or grabbing these ubiquitous blue crystals scattered throughout levels.  As with health, the shop also sells upgrades that increase the Gauge’s maximum size and allow it to refill automatically.  While I wasn’t able to run through entire levels engulfed in hellfire, I never found myself hurting for more emotion potion.

While a nice twist on the standard platforming repertoire, the Vibes are a questionable use of the touch screen.  I think the stylus is meant to be alternate, ideally simpler, input.  By creating static icons that need to be tapped regularly, Nintendo’s just adding really some inconvenient buttons.  It’s not too obtrusive when the Vibes don’t need to be combined with conventional attacks, but it’s troublesome when I want to active Joy in the middle of a jump or Rage at the drop of a hat.  For instance, the first boss fight against a piranha plant requires three steps for each successful hit: first Peach must jump to a higher platform to get near him, then she needs to make him vulnerable by filling his belly with tears from the Gloom Vibe, and then she can pounce on him.  In effect, I had to switch from buttons to stylus and then back to buttons again (I could’ve used my thumbs for the Vibes, but that would smudge the screen).  It’s not too painful because there’s a lot of time to perform each action; it’s just inconvenient.  Having to switch inputs like that makes people more aware of them than they should be, and I get the impression that the bosses have been dumbed down in order to accommodate the awkwardness.  While I got used to it after a couple of worlds, I would have preferred not using the stylus.  There could have been an alternate control scheme for the Vibes, maybe something along the lines of holding a shoulder button and tapping one of the directions (hold L and press Up for Joy, for example).

The rest of the DS stuff works well enough.  Stylus-only sections before each boss and unlockable mini-games make for nice distractions.  Not especially challenging, they tend to require tapping objects or leading Toads around with the stylus.  One that popped up a couple of times in the main game has a vertical corridor encompassing both screens, with the Princess on the top screen gradually falling downward in a slow zigzag pattern and dangerous obstacles of varying trajectories rising up from the bottom screen.  You have to tap these obstructions to break them before they reach the Princess; if she gets hit, you have to start again.  Some mini-games call for blowing into the microphone, as do the aquatic sections of the main game (oddly enough).  When Peach is submerged in water her umbrella becomes a submarine, and blowing into the mic makes him shoot violent air bubbles straightforward.  Personally I’d rather just push a button, but at least this doesn’t require any fumbling about with the hardware.

Sadly, Super Princess Peach is incredibly easy.  Peach can kill nearly everything instantly by swiping away with her umbrella, so the standard Mario enemies merely serve as fodder or as an unlimited supply of Vibe Power, which the Calm Vibe can then convert to health.  In fact, most levels have pipes that stream out an endless supply of minions who exist solely to be cannibalized to this end.  Peach is a tank (I’d say “broken” if this were another genre), the bosses are all pushovers and the platforming sections are cake walks, especially since many of them can be circumvented with the Joy Vibe (flight). 

Each level has a number of puzzle-type sections, but almost every unique problem is preceded by a hint box that gives subtle clues like “aren’t ghosts scared of light?” or “I bet a whirlwind would clear up that cloud” followed by in-depth explanations of how to do the thing you’re supposed to figure out and do.  Back in my day, some strange old man in a dungeon would throw you a cryptic bone with something like “Dodongo dislikes smoke” and he’d let it go at that.  I can appreciate not wanting players to get stuck and frustrated, especially in a small-screen game with gratingly upbeat music, but there’s no satisfaction in having the puzzles solved for you.  Since the game’s trickiest obstacles can be solved through simple experimentation (hitting stuff or using the different Vibes), I don’t really think the hint boxes are necessary past the first world or so.

I’m not surprised by the handholding though, as Nintendo has developed a bad habit of explaining every little innocuous detail (Zelda games now tell you, over and over again, what a rupee is used for) and the overall tone is clearly marketed more to the Nintendogs demographic than the traditional Mario aficionado.  Everything is sugary sweet and super happy, even worse than Yoshi’s Story if memory serves.  Peach is particularly annoying; a ditz, in fact.  Her touch screen portrait is disturbingly vapid, she squeaks out “wheee” whenever you use the Joy Vibe, and finding a Toad or triggering the Calm Vibe makes her clap like a trained seal.  Even most of Bower’s minions seem really happy to be alive (until they aren’t), and the whole game is covered with pastel colors and bubbly music.  I can tune it out for the most part, but the problem is compounded by each world’s strict dedication to a particular theme – there’s no deviation within worlds, so rather than a haunted house every six levels, you get six straight and that’s it – and the game’s lack of humor, especially when compared to Thousand-Year Door and the like.

Despite Peach’s artistic shortcomings, lack of difficulty and slower tempo, it’s not a bad game.  I suppose I always enjoy jumping on Koopa Troopas and amassing gold coins like a miser – that may just be nostalgia, but it works for me.  There are also plenty of little Marioisms scattered about each level, like sliding down a slope to bump off a series of enemies or chucking a turtle shell to nail a row of Troopas, which I always get a kick out of.  Some of the other little obstacles are amusing, as is the occasional brief platforming section.  They often feel contrived and they’re less satisfying to complete because Peach essentially can not die, but they’re still basically fun.

While I could hardly stand the game through the first couple of worlds, it grew on me over time.  The levels are fairly short, but three Toads (along with some optional trinkets) need to be recovered in each, which adds some purpose and stretches each stage out a bit.  The last world isn’t half-bad and beating Bowser opens up new levels and upgrades, so there’s some nice replay value considering how light the rest of the game is.

Overall: 6.5/10

I’ve read articles suggesting people buy Super Princess Peach to fill the void before New Super Mario Bros, but I wouldn’t recommend it that way.  Peach is a very different game: it can be a pleasant diversion, played casually in very short sessions, but it’s no Super Mario.