"Male gamers can certainly enjoy this game!"

I was bored. I had nothing else to do. I hadn't brought any new games recently, but my little sister got Super Princess Peach. So I thought, why not? It might be a girls game, and is most probably crap, but I have nothing else to do. I played it, and I was wrong. Okay, so it is for girls, but it definitely isn't crap. You start the game, and your treated to the cut-scene of Mario and Luigi being captured. Bummer. So its up to Peach, and her magical umbrella, to save Mario and Luigi. Thats right, a magical umbrella. Unless its normal to have an Umbrella which is alive. Then we get onto the game.

First impressions are that the graphics aren't the best on DS. This is good and bad in some ways. First off, they are cartoon style, cel shaded levels, and characters. It's all pretty cute, and there are a lot of bright colours. It's all cute, and simple. The animation is good as well, not being the most complex thing with only a couple of frames for each animation. Overall its not that bad. But obviously they could of been much better. But the good thing is that because the graphics aren't too complicated, and thus your battery power won't go down as much. Then you realise that this is classic platforming. You run from left to right, jumping around platforms, jumping on top of most enemies heads, until you realise you can't on some of them. Instead you bash them with your umbrella. There are a lot of little help boxes to help you on your way. Eventually, you will finish the level, jumping through a hoop, and stopping something, which will give you a certain amount of coins. You leave the level, and onto the map.

You enter the shop, curious. You can buy some new abilities for your umbrella friend, so you buy some, then leave. Thats a nice addition, thats why you should collect every single coin you see. You enter the next level. Sooner or later, your going to be needing to use your emotions. Peach has four different emotions, joy, rage, gloom and calm. Joy will make a giant cyclone appear around Peach, and she will be able to float. Rage sets Peach on fire, and you can set things alight, and kill enemies. Gloom will make Peach cry, and you can use her tears to put out fires, or make plants grow. Calm will restore Peaches HP gradually. No, this isn't an RPG. You don't level up. Instead of the classic, die in one hit unless Mario has ate a magic mushroom, and thinks he is the big man. You have three hearts, and if your hit, you lose half of one the minimum. This is your HP. But you also kind of have the MP bar as well. Called your Vibe meter, when using one of your emotions, this will slowly go down. When its at the end, you can't use your emotions any more. Collecting crystals will increase this bar. Although a nice feature, the emotions only get used for collecting the secret items.

Across the many levels, you will be doing more then going from left to right. You can find puzzle pieces, mini-games, music to listen to, and Toads. There are three toads trapped across the level, inside a little pink box. Hit this with Perry (your umbrellas name) and you will set them free. Obviously you will be wanting to find all three on every stage. Thats a little something else to do, although you can unlock some levels by doing this as well. Apart from that, the game is more or less the same. There aren't really any hard bits. Apart from the bosses. The bosses, although very easy, are most probably the hardest parts on Super Princess Peach. They get harder as you go along too. After finishing all five stages in an area, you come to the boss. First, you will play some sort of touch screen mini-game, finally it gets used for something else then selecting Peaches different emotions. You will have to do different things, get rid of some boos, some rocks, or boost Peach up to the next platform. It's pretty basic stuff, but some can be hard. Once you have done this, you will fight the boss, which is the only time you will most probably ever die. The bosses are pretty simple too, check out the information box before you start fighting it, that gives you help. Fighting a boss usually needs a certain emotion. For example, fighting the Wiggler. Your on a long platform, going from left to right. Along these platforms are little springs. Step onto a spring, and use your rage emotion, and the spring will go down. Time it right, and you can make it spring back up, hitting the Wriggler, and he gets stuck on his back. Now, just jump onto the flashing part of his body. But there is more to it. Now he is angry, there is no point in trying to hit him. Instead, wait it out. Some rocks will fall, hit them, and you can restore your vibe bar. Get hit by them, your best off restoring your health, using calm. Now, once you hit him enough times, he will poison the air with some smoke. This will eventually hurt Peach, so you need to use Joy to get rid of it. Pretty clever, although you will already know all this from past levels.

The game isn't very long though. It's not as long as say, Super Mario World, with a whopping 96 (or so) levels to complete, that game took weeks and weeks to master, and it was bloody fun all the way. Super Princess Peach isn't as long, although it still is pretty good, you might as well collect all the special items and abilities. Another thing about SMW, is that it was easy at first, and got harder and harder. Super Princess Peach is really easy at the start, and gets harder and harder. But the problem is, its still not that hard, and its an insult to girl gamers saying that games for them should be really easy. So then, it doesn't take very long to complete at all.

Super Princess Peach is a good game though. It's fun, and really good. But its a bit easy, for example, there's a big arrow of coins pointing to an already obvious secret area, making it really easy to find. Add this with the emotion puzzles, they aren't very hard, and the games help boxes basically tell you. "I don't know what those red switches are for, but this area is all red, maybe rage would do something..." So you step on, use rage, and voila, the switch goes down. It's pretty easy, with the only time you will ever die most probably being on the bosses. If you fall off the level, you only lose half a heart of health. Not much of a penalty. If you do die, you start the level again. But all the Toads you found will still of been found, so you can just rush back to where you was and carry on easy. Overall, Super Princess Peach is a great game, and is worth getting for your daughter or something like that. Or, if your a Mario fan, its great fun too. And if you have a little sister that wants it, buy it for them, as an excuse to play it. Or, just buy it yourself, even though its a girl game, boys and girls can both enjoy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/27/06