Super Princess Peach: The best DS game you don’t remember

Princess Peach is coming back in style. Nintendo recently announced the release of pastel pink joy-cons which will accompany the launch of Princess Peach: Showtime! in March. This announcement is a huge win for the pink-loving, Animal Crossing playing girlies, and may very well launch a Princess Peach-issance. However, we should never forget our roots.

In this case, my roots being Super Princess Peach, the forgotten 2006 classic on the Nintendo DS. Don't feel bad if you've never seen or don't remember this now rare platformer.

If you owned a light pink Nintendo DS as a child then you already know Super Princess Peach. If not, then allow me to enlighten you.

Super Princess Peach is a platformer (obvs) like many a Super Mario game before it, in which you have to rescue a kidnapped love interest. But, there’s a twist! This time Bowser takes Mario. That’s right, Princess Peach in this game is tasked with rescuing Mario. Bowser kidnaps Mario, Luigi, and various Toads while Princess Peach is out of the castle. 

The plot of this kidnapping is that Bowser and his henchmen have discovered the Vibe Scepter. The Scepter is a magical staff that controls emotions, and they want to use it to take down the Mario siblings. However, after Mario and Luigi have been successfully kidnapped, Bowser loses control of the Scepter and everyone’s emotions go haywire.

One of the main features of Super Princess Peach are the emotions. Princess Peach must utilize her four emotions--rage, gloom, joy, and calm--to defeat Bowser’s underlings and Bowser himself. Each emotion is used to solve unique puzzles. A common one in-game is crying on a plant to make it grow so Peach can climb up. Enemies are affected by their rogue emotions, like Koopas that stomp about and Goombas that weep and run around.

In retrospect, it is slightly weird to have one of the only games headlined by a female “Super Mario” character revolve around her emotions. But we’re just going to slide right past that, because nostalgia.

What’s important about Super Princess Peach is that it’s fun. The game features excellent gameplay and characters, which does include a magical talking umbrella named Perry. And this isn’t just nostalgia talking! Super Princess Peach scored a 75% on Metacritic and a 72% on the Official Nintendo Magazine. 

What’s sad is that Super Princess Peach has mostly been forgotten. The game is lost amidst the late aughts, an era of Webkinz, Razor scooters, and numerous Silly Bandz. Peach’s game was a flash in the pan for the character, who has mostly sat in the background until recently.

And the secondary game market hasn't helped matters any. A niche game becomes as sought-after as a Charizard Pocket Monster card, shooting the price of the cartridge up to double the original MSRP.

The release of Princess Peach: Showtime! will be the first time since Super Princess Peach came out that the titular princess will serve as protagonist. A full 18 years have passed since then, so it’s certainly been a long time coming. 

From the trailer, its clear that Showtime will have a lot of similarites to Super Princess Peach. On the surface level, both games are sidescrollers. Additionally, Stella, the star companion will fulfill a similar role to Perry. Both characters are part of Peach's outfit and have similar magical powers.

Alongside Princess Peach: Showtime is the release of the pastel pink Joy-Cons. We can practically guarantee that these will be targeted by scalpers, since the release is limited and the pink girlies will go absolutely rabid for them. Perhaps if Nintendo shouldn’t have snuffed out Princess Peach content for almost the last two decades, since the desire from fans is clearly there.

Hopefully Princess Peach: Showtime! will live up to the legacy of Super Princess Peach, which despite its (kinda sexist) flaws, remains one of the best games of the Nintendo DS era. Princess Peach now! Princess Peach forever!

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