Thursday 30 Nov 2006

Not far away from the Mushroom Kingdom lies Vibe Island, hiding place of the Vibe Scepter. Bowser unearths this mystical device and uses its strange powers to capture Mario and his friends. Princess Peach was fortunate enough to have been out when the raid happened, but upon hearing of Mario’s fate she vows to save her friends. She sets off to Vibe Island, armed only with a talking umbrella name Perry.

There are eight stages that Princess Peach must clear before she can enter Bowser’s Castle. The first stage, Ladida Plains, is a relatively simple stage which basically teaches you the controls and how to play the game. The controls are pretty simple and the learning curve is very short, particularly if you have played a platformer before. In each stage there are three toads to be rescued and players clear the stage by reaching the goal, where the game will save automatically. You can clear a stage without saving all the toads, but be warned that if you do not save every single toad on every level in every stage you will not be able to enter Bowser’s Castle.

But I am getting ahead of myself, let’s take two steps back. There are two vital things to understand in this game, they are the HP and Vibe Gauge. The HP represents Peach’s health points. When these run out Peach dies and players will return to the menu screen. Peach will lose HP’s by bumping into an enemy or being hit by an enemy attack. The HP are represented by a bar filled with hearts in the top left hand corner of the top screen. Just below this bar you will see the Vibe Gauge, which represents how much Vibe Peach has. She cannot perform her special abilities without Vibe and her abilities will run for longer if she has lots of Vibe and vice versa. You can grab crystals or absorb enemies with Perry to fill your Vibe Gauge.

Vibe Powers

Peach has added a unique touch to platformers, instead of Mario saving Peach from Bowser, Peach has to save Mario! Nintendo have tapped into the fact that the hero (or in this case the heroine) is a girl this time and so changing Peach’s vibes will cause different things to happen. Peach has four vibes, each can be accessed on the heart panels on the bottom screen. Simply touch the vibe you desire to engage it.

Peach’s vibes are joy, rage, gloom and calm. Players can use joy when they need Peach to fly or cause a cyclone. Rage will surround Peach with flames, enabling her to melt ice and burn wooden bridges. Peach will start crying if you touch her gloom vibe, which can be used to put out fires or make sprouts grow. Finally, use her calm vibe if you need to fill her HP.

Each vibe will depict Peach in that particular emotion and it really does add a lot to the game. Each vibe is also accompanied by a particular music. The sight of Princess Peach running (with her petticoat and skirt pulled up a bit of course) and suddenly flying through the air to the sounds of “wii wii” is really quite amusing. If you ever get stuck in this game, you should try her vibes, one is sure to help your progress.

Shop and menu

Players can access the shop by pressing R1 on the title screen or the menu by pressing L1. In the shop players can purchase abilities, puzzle pieces, as well as music from the various levels and mini-games. Look out for these while playing though because these can be collected throughout the game. But should you happen to be missing one piece of a puzzle, you can purchase it in the shop.

In the menu screen you can play the mini-game which you have unlocked, assemble puzzles (provided you have all the pieces) and listen to songs that you have unlocked, being performed by Peach Hit Five of course! You can also consult the glossary which lists all the enemies you will encounter in the game, as well as how to attack them.

As players navigate their way through the different levels they can collect coins. These coins can be used to buy special abilities for Peach, for example Floatbrella, Poundbrella or Chargebrella. Aside from these, Peach already has abilities that players can utilize such as sliding down a hill or using Perry to hit enemies. Players can also purchase various drinks to increase Peach’s maximum HP or extend her Vibe Gauge. If you save up your coins for these they do make the game easier.

More about gameplay

Each stage will have a boss at the end of it. The bosses range from Petey Piranha to Giant Kamek to King Boo. Although it may take you a while to adopt the right strategy to defeat the boss, and you may well die in the process, I think the difficulty level of the bosses is just right, not insanely difficult as some games tend to be.

Before each boss battle there will be a level where players will have to use their stylus to lead Peach safely through an obstacle. These levels are well though out and are an excellent example of the usefulness and genius design of the touch screen.

As I said earlier there are eight unique stages in the game. Hoo’s Wood is set in a wood and requires players to make various jumps in between the flora and flauna of the forest. Shriek Mansion was a favourite of mine because it featured Dry Bones, which are basically dead Kooper Troopas. Dry Bones can only be knocked out, not killed and throws bones at Peach to harm her. This stage is really well constructed, although it is quite difficult to complete because most of the enemies featured cannot be killed but must rather be avoided, for example the ghosts. Bowser’s Villa is quite similar in that it is set in a haunted mansion with Dry Bones and ghosts. I must say that both these stages featured levels where players had to navigate through a series of doors, some leading back to the start of the level and some to other sections of the level. After a while it became annoying to try and remember which door I had been into and which would lead me further in the game.

The Fury Vulcano stage is set in a volcano of course and players must be wary of hot molten lava, whereas in Wavy Beach waves can knock you off your chosen path. Gleam Glacier was a stage which I enjoyed immensely because it was challenging. You really have to control Peach perfectly because she will now slide on the ice or be blown away in a snow storm. This stage was ingeniously designed and had excellent use of her vibes. Another stage which was challenging was Giddie Sky because you have to jump from cloud to cloud and are never sure what lies beneath you.

Criticisms

After finishing Super Princes Peach there were only three things that annoyed me in this game. I have already mentioned one, the stages which featured a labyrinth of doors. The other is the fact that you have to save all of the toads before you can enter Bowser’s Castle. In other words, you have to save approximately 50 toads before you can finish the game. If you had missed one toad it now means that you have to go back into that level and search for him, i.e. the game requires 100% completion before you can face Bowser and save Mario. Maybe to some this would not be a big deal, but this was downright annoying to me.

The last criticism that I have of this game is probably my biggest. If Peach dies during a level you have to go back to the beginning of the level and start over again (boss levels excluded). Some levels are difficult because for example they require Peach to jump from ladder to ladder or platform to platform, but all the while the screen is moving up and towards you. This means that one mistake and Peach dies. Of course she will restart where she dies for a many HP’s as she has, but if she runs out of HP’s it is back to the beginning for you. After finally conquering a difficult part in a level, only to find another difficult part and to then die and start at the beginning became tiresome. A couple of times I stopped playing the game because of this, although I did find the next day my patience had returned to attempt the replay again. Why do developers do this to us? We don’t like it, or at least I don’t.

Super Princess Peach was an enjoyable game, craftily designed and excellently executed. Peach is cute, there is simply no other word for it, and you will not regret playing this game.

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Contributor:	Lisa

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