4/5 ★ – craiglezzz's review of Super Princess Peach.

This game has been on my radar for a while - a game where Peach has to be the one to save Mario and she has to do it with the power of vibes? How could this game NOT be incredible? Well, for the most part, this game is really great. Starting with the good stuff, this game's presentation is immaculate. I've always been a sucker for 2D sprites in gaming, and this one is no exception. The colors are vibrant, the character and enemy animations are charming, and there is just so much life in each level of this game. Peach herself is also beautifully animated, with a shocking amount of different expressions and body languages for a 2D sprite on a small DS screen. The true winner here, however, is the vibe system, which makes this game much different than a traditional Mario platformer. Peach essentially has 4 vibes in the front of anger, calmness, joy, and sadness, and they all grant different abilities based on which one is equipped at a given time. This allows for such a unique flow to the game, and it provided a nice spin on enemy combat and puzzle solving. Many of the enemies also take on different vibes, which make them play slightly differently from other enemies of the same type, and this kept the combat varied and unpredictable. As with any Mario game, the level design is crisp and top-tier. The bosses in this game were also really fun, with the exception of the final boss's last stage (more on that shortly). With that being said, I do wish that there had been more variety in the different areas. This game, while introducing so many interesting mechanics, still stuck to the classic Mario level themes of Grass, Desert, Ice, etc, which really brought the originality down a peg in my book. If there were two things that I was absolutely not a fan of, it was the over-utilization of the DS's touch screen/microphone and the last stage of the final Bowser boss fight. I get that many DS games tried to take advantage of its unique features at the time, but having to do a touch screen section at the start of every area's boss fight was really annoying. The final part of the ending Bowser fight relied on throwing Bob-ombs up to hit Bowser's face, but the mechanics of this just came off as finicky and clunky, with several that I threw looking like they hit without registering properly. Overall, though, Super Princess Peach is definitely a winner and a worthy solo outing for our favorite princess!