Super Princess Peach is a Nintendo DS platform game spun off from the popular Super Mario Bros. franchise. Though Peach has had playable appearances dating back to Super Mario Bros. 2, this is the first game where she is the central playable character.In a reversal of the typical Mario tale, Bowser has kidnapped Mario and Luigi and hauled them off to Vibe Island, and is wreaking havoc on the inhabitants' emotions with a wand called the Vibe Scepter. Determined to rescue them, Peach sets off on a journey with the help of a magical talking parasol named Perry. Due to the influence of the Vibe Scepter, Peach also gains powers based on emotions (joy, anger, sadness, and calm) that will help her solve some of the puzzles.
Tropes found in Super Princess Peach:
Aborted Arc: There is abundant info about Perry's past in the game. Nothing comes of it at all.
Bragging Rights Reward: Endless Vibe, the most powerful ability in the game, allows you to use vibes at will without ever draining your vibe meter. The only problem? You don't get it until you've achieved 100% Completion — in other words, after you've already done everything there is to do in the game.
Butt Monkey: Luigi. Bowser and Peach herself don't remember his name and call him the man in green. (She is rather happy to see him, though.)
Critical Annoyance: The alarm that goes off when you're down to one heart may be the real source of the game's ease — it's so annoying that you'll immediately regenerate health just to stop it.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: The game has no lives, though dying sends you back to the world map, and getting back to where you were can be an annoyance. You keep all the Toads and items you found before you died, however.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Many subtle elements of the game are very reminiscent of their equivalents in Yoshis Island — the inflating advice blocks, several of the graphic tiles, the action-freezing cut scenes (like waiting for a beanstalk to grow), and even the eerily similar appearance of the Koopa Troopas.
On a more suggestive level, there's the name "Vibe Scepter" itself... wonder what sort of batteries it uses?
Elite Mooks: Of a sort. Due to everything on Vibe Island being emotionally unbalanced, you have superfast Goombas, charging Paratroopas, and Boos that approach when you look their way — in addition to the regular line-up of Mario series Mooks.
Gender Flip: In this spinoff, Peach is the heroine trying to save Mario from Bowser.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Everything about the Vibe Sceptre, but particularly that it "may be found in your house" and could be responsible for Your Mom's "laughing" a lot. Nintendo... were you even aware the radar existed when you wrote that?
Metal Slime: There's an easy-to-miss recurring enemy that shows up in several levels and exists largely to be difficult to defeat (and thus add to your glossary) before it escapes. Oddly enough, it's Starfy.
Money for Nothing: Once you've purchased all the upgrades, music, and whatnot, all those coins become useless.
One Hit Point Wonder: Not during the actual game, but during the special stylus challenges in the boss levels and some of the minigames. Get hit once and you'll have to start it all over again.
Self-Imposed Challenge: A common way of counteracting the game's easiness is to avoid buying Heart upgrades, or any upgrades whatsoever. Avoiding using the regen health vibe entirely also helps bring the game closer to standard Mario difficulty.
Then there's the Mario Playstyle Challenge, in which the only permitted methods of attack against regular enemies are the Goomba Stomp and kicking Koopa shells. No upgrades purchased. Avoid using Vibes whenever possible.
0 reviews