The Super Princess Peach Paradox - Does the Lady Trump her Champion?

A Princess of Contradictions

Super Princess Peach is certainly buxom with content, offering eight worlds of five stages with each crammed with various secrets and surprises. A shop allows players to spend collected coins on mini-games, in-game music, and a slew of new abilities. Hidden collectibles are everywhere, and completing the game opens up even more levels and content. The bosses are also climactic, far exceeding the usual “three-hit” formula of the typical Mario platformer. And Perry, that personified parody of a Parasol, is a complex personality himself as revealed through a series of increasingly complex cutscenes. For a princess so trim, Super Princess Peach is heavy on the trimmings.

The graphics are also well-drawn, with backgrounds sometimes richer and more imaginative than the Mario titles they clearly borrow from. And the music, if not quite as hummable as the best Koji Kondo tracks, still suits the action nicely…feeling fruitful and flowery in that cheery, Princess Peach way. If this game were a cake, it’d be fifteen layers high and decked in the creamiest, sweetest of icing.

And yet, for all its over-stuffed plush, the game lacks a certain defining characteristic or “feeling”—the precise floatiness of Super Mario, for instance, or the heft and crunch of the Wario Land games, or the wonky slurp, burp, and flutter of Yoshi’s Island. Rather than complementing these paradigms, Super Princess Peach feels somehow caught between them, repurposing their best mechanics in a sort of perverse regurgitation. Peach can swallow enemies (via Perry) like Kirby, toss baddies like Wario, become a submarine like Yoshi (again, via Perry), and slide down hills like Mario. She can also float, charge her umbrella for a long-distance energy attack, slide tackle, ground pound, and swipe left and right as if using a sword. She’s a maiden of maneuvers, essentially…a ninja in pink defined not by a singular skill (Wario’s shoulder charge or Yoshi’s tongue lash), but by an almost bottomless purse of perks. It’s both too little and too much, as if the developers, lacking a proper vision—a proper recipe—simply decided to toss in every ingredient they could find.

Interestingly, this is not a problem limited to Tose. In 2024, Nintendo decided to try again itself, unleashing Princess Peach: Showtime! onto the world…a game that, although radically different from its Super counterpart, still commits the same egregious sin; it can’t decide who its Princess really is. Why is the sweet-natured lass now wielding a sword or hurling kunai knives or, conversely, back to playing as a pastry chef? Instead of clarifying—crystallizing—her core persona, the game splits the difference; she’s now sweet and mean and everything in-between, a nonsensical amalgam of every princess ever conceived. That heavenly woman that shines above Super Mario 64’s castle door has been shattered into a million shards, a million farces, all in the name of post-modern commercialism.

The princess who would inspire peace now demands so with a sword.

Princess Preamble

Ever since her playable debut in Super Mario Bros. 2, fans have clamored for a game in which the Princess, not the plumber, got to be the star. But Peach isn’t exactly an intrepid character. Gentle and genteel, her name signifies her purpose. More than a peach, she’s an agent of peace…a Maiden of Grace who inspires not violence, but kindness. Who’s sugar, lace, and birthday cake. A woman more mother than warrior.

A Marian figure, essentially. Pure, unapologetic femininity.

But most games need action, a certain level of combat. Even Mario games, as “non-violent” as they are, still involve the stalwart plumber stomping heads and flinging fire at an almost endless cast of baddies. And for a woman of such elegant prestige, violence is all but unthinkable. Antithetical. Impossible for an angel of such benevolent distinction. But this begs the question: How would a “Princess Peach game” play, then? What could the heroine do without forsaking her very nature?

Indeed, Peach is why Mario exists—to not only battle the evil Bowser, but to do so on his lady’s behalf. Let the maiden remain untainted, leave the goddess to her charity. Mario, and men in general, lose their innocence so women can save their own.

But fans tend to get what they demand. And finally, Nintendo found an uneasy compromise between benign damsel and woman-of-action. Super Princess Peach became realized in 2005, her first and only solo title for the next fourteen years.

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So how did Nintendo reconcile its gentle princess with a game requiring running, vaulting, and fighting? First, Nintendo didn’t even bother—rather, it conscripted Tose, a jack-of-trades company known for its serviceable, but rarely excellent, efforts. And second, enter Perry the Umbrella (Parasol?), a character of contrivance and utility used to help excuse Peach’s sudden knack for attacking.

Of course, there’s also the setting: After the Mario Brothers and a legion of Toads are kidnapped by Bowser, Peach inexplicably charges off to Vibe Island where her buddies are being held. This island is like a microphone for emotions, magnifying the feelings of its visitors. And it’s a side-effect the Princess turns into an advantage. By tapping the four heart icons on the DS touchscreen, players can harness one of Peach’s four flamboyant emotes—Joy, Gloom, Rage, and Calm. Joy, for instance, allows the euphoric maiden to fly, while Rage infuriates her to the point of becoming a literal, ground-pounding fireball. This is a princess not be messed with.

Indeed, through these conceits, Nintendo tried to repackage its frilly princess into something more proactive. Dynamic. Dangerous. But did it work? Not really.

A Princess of Parts

Super Princess Peach, like its leading protagonist, is a product of indecision. It’s a mish-mash of concepts, original and borrowed, stitched together for an erratic, scattered production. Difficulty is low, the emotive “vibe” powers feel more forced than truly necessary, and the platforming is curiously flimsy, with Peach often slipping through the edges of ledges and altogether feeling more imprecise than the plumber she needs. The game follows Mario’s excellent play control; it doesn’t lead.

But it’s the lack of a compelling dynamic—a key mechanic—that truly undermines what could have been a promising franchise. Super Princess Peach, despite having a lovely voice, never quite hits the highest note…never achieves its defining chorus. For all its variety and fickle amusements, the game rarely transcends a certain sense of staid sameness. Levels are more reskinned than redesigned, more akin to a cheerleader superficially chanting the same lines than a practiced performer of real wit and ad-libbed sophistication.

The game’s root issue, however, is one of archetypes—a fundamental, and fateful, misunderstanding of its chief protagonist. Princess Peach is a symbol of feminine excellence. Of charity and temperance. Her role isn’t to wage battle. It’s to support, serve, and preserve. And here, the game waffles, keeping the damsel’s cute veneer and winsome pretenses while adding a stack of arbitrary attacks and abilities. Who is this maiden who would so bravely storm a dragon’s keep and rescue her former champion? The game, being as capricious as its princess, doesn’t know. It’s but a gaggle of parts without the connective tissue, without the coherent message. It’s the classical archetype revised and undermined; different center, similar outline.

Years later, Super Princess Peach is best viewed as a kind of progressive experiment. Did fans want a more pro-active Princess? Could the Big N have its sweet peach and, yet, eat it too? The answer, until 2023, was apparently no; the girl was swiftly reverted to her more regal demeanor, her one leading role promptly ignored. But The Super Mario Bros. Movie switched the paradigm again, granting Peach the same headstrong autonomy seen seventeen years before. Except now…more than a parasol, she wields a halberd. More than merely float, she can out-jump Mario. Oh, and she’s the best (Mario) kart driver, too.

Compared to that, the gutsy heroine seen in Super Princess Peach now seems downright modest.

Perhaps Tose had the right idea, after all.--D

The set-up involves the so-called "Vibe Island." Here, Bowser has found the Vibe Scepter which can control the emotions of others. Naturally, he uses the contrivance to capture the Mario Bros., leaving Peach to hike up her skirt and chase after them. In attempt, perhaps, to prevent the normally regal lass from becoming too much of a "Last Action Hero," she's allied with the magical Perry, a Parasol packed with his own inexplicable powers.

Peach's four emotional powers are more for puzzle-solving than anything. In this instance, the princess' tears grow the shoot into a climbable stalk.

The game's bosses are far more complicated then the typical Mario platformer. The player's ability to heal herself via the "Calm" power ameliorates much of the challenge...but these beasts are still sights to see.

Levels come packed with extras, baubles, and hidden secrets...including playable mini-games and puzzle pieces for later jigsaw galleries.

There's even a shop in which Peach can purchase new abilities and powers.

Even Perry has a deep backstory, told through ongoing flashbacks. While not good, exactly, it's another example of the developer's passion and attention to detail for the project.

Levels, like in a traditional Mario game, end with a bonus challenge. Here, timing a jump just right can net the Princess a royal number of gold coins.

Mario is rescued; the princess is victorious! But in a world where the manly champion is rendered irrelevant, where do heroes like Mario now go? What purpose do they now hold? And can a woman be feminine, nurturing...while still bashing in heads?

Platform: Nintendo DS Release: 2005/2006 Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Tose