Game: Super Princess Peach
Genre: Platformer
Developer: Tose
Publisher: Nintendo
System: Nintendo DS
Release date: 2005
It doesn't happen often, but every once in while I ignore the bad buzz surrounding a game and buy it anyway--simply because there's
something about said game that makes me believe (hope) that it has to be better than everybody says it is. As I'm sure you can imagine, sometimes that works out well and sometimes it doesn't.
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light is a good example of the former, while this game, released in Japan in 2005 and elsewhere in 2006, is a good example of the latter. That's too bad, because
Super Princess Peach could have been a worthy addition to the ever-growing, Nintendo-dominated list of "world's best platformers." It certainly looks like it belongs on that list, at least to an extent. Yes, its graphics have that generic sheen typical of developer
Tose, but they're also colorful and well drawn. It also controls well and features quite a few interesting and unique gameplay quirks--the most noteworthy being that Peach can use her chatty parasol to protect herself and to dispatch foes in a plethora of ways--that separate it from the platformer pack. Unfortunately, all of those positives are let down by the game's negatives, which include boring, derivative and uninspired level design and nearly non-existant difficulty.
See also: Previous 'Great Gaymathon' posts