Super Princess Peach flipped the script, proving that the Mushroom Kingdom’s leading lady was more than just a damsel in distress...
Despite Princess Peach: Showtime! giving Princess Peach the headline she deserves, Super Princess Peach and its debut on the Nintendo DS in 2005 subverted the traditional Super Mario Bro’s narrative and gave the mushroom queen a platform to shine, rescuing a distressed Mario and Luigi from Bowser and putting a refreshing spin on the damsel in distress trope. Despite Peach having an ‘emotion meter’ which swallows up half of the screen (looking back however, this does seem like a very misogynist trope having Peach use emotions as her power rather than the traditional Mario upgrades), the game was exciting, the soundtrack has always stuck with me and Perry the Parasol was the perfect sidekick.
Shaped my view of how women in video-games should be presented
I was around 10 years old when I first played Super Princess Peach and I absolutely adored the concept of a female heroine being at the centre of the narrative. The first boss in the game is Petey Piranha, who wears polka dot pants and bats their venus fly trap-like arms to hover above ground in order to reach you which was quite the interesting combination of character design choices. To beat him, Peach must cry into his open mouth, causing him to swallow her tears, making him vulnerable to damage. As a child, Petey the Piranha was quite the horrifying boss, his stature made him tower over peach and his lack of eyes, which were compromised due to his gigantic mouth, made him all the more terrifying. It did feel very satisfying to beat him and retrieve the toad however. The box art for this game was really appealing to me when I was younger, utilising an array of soft pastel blues, yellows and pinks. These colours really complimented each other and composed an eye-catching box art. The play on the damsel in distress trope was quite impactful to my childhood as someone who played videogames often. Peach deserved her own game, and I am glad that she got a chance to be a ‘Super’ character as it shaped my view of how women in video-games should be presented, which both was (and still is) very important.