LogFAQs > #968233182

Princess Peach - Super Smash Bros. Melee

Peach is a really difficult character to get right in a fighting game. This is a character who finds power in traditional femininity, weaponizing the cutesy and the domestic because thats just what she enjoys and still managing (or at least trying) to be powerful in spite of the stereotype around those actions. Smash actually does a really fantastic job of this - Peach doesnt ever feel limited by her stature, she mixes it up with the rest of them with decidedly strong strikes. Her float gives her not just unique combo routes that sets her apart as a really interesting rushdown character, but a regality in how she approaches that makes her beating your face in seem effortless to her. The sound design on her frying pan is fantastic, that thing feels SO satisfying to hit with, and shes so perfectly serene even in the heat of battle that it feels especially humiliating to lose to her. Here are trained fighters, warriors, dark kings, small lost children, weird animals, super fighting robots - all easily dismantled by the graceful strikes of the princess. Peach is portrayed as POWERFUL in Smash in a way that her own series rarely gets to capture. My one major issue with her moveset is Toad. Now, Im happy to see Toad, but I think her signature move being let someone else protect her kiiiind of goes against everything else the moveset is proving: Peach IS capable in her own, absolutely uncompromising way, and shell embarrass the Hell out of you for underestimating her. Plus, the little guy using an ability hes never shown before and, like. Come on. Toad has NEVER protected ANYTHING successfully in his life. I love the guy, but come on, she would be safer if she asked to be kidnapped and tried to run away in the confusion than letting TOAD save her. Also Im a much bigger fan of her Melee moveset than when the hearts and rainbows and sparkles were added - yes it gives her a stronger identity toward that traditional femininity and empowering that, but I kind of liked the subtlety of that coming across in her movement and her smacking the shit out of you anyway. Peach is really solid, though, and while I will never be able to play her, Im very happy shes here. B+

Mario Superstar Baseball Profile: Peach - Peach is perhaps the most cursed player in the entirety of Mario Baseball. Thats not to say shes a bad character - far from it, she actually has many excellent traits - but a combination of multiple factors ensure that she will NEVER see a game unless you really, really like Peach. Her chemistry tree is fairly awful, being low to awful with every single power hitter in the game, except Pianta (who shes average with and is the weakest home run threat) and Bowser Jr (who is not a home run threat except on the Bowser team which Peach is never going to be on), making her a liability on most teams when throwing to the most popular 1st and 2nd basemen and catchers in the game. She has the Quick Throw ability, one of only two characters in the game and is completely outclassed by Daisy in that department. And Daisy is already a niche pick for infield, making Peach, what, the 5th or 6th pick for a dedicated 2nd Basewoman? Her bat isnt horrible, but its hovering around that Diddy and Dixie range of you can make it work, but youre not relying on them to get on base. And being compared to those two is a major problem. Peach is, in theory, a great pitcher, as she has strong curve on her balls. The issue is, she is not a better pitcher than Boo, Dixie, Diddy, or Waluigi, but pitches similarly enough to them that she doesnt have a niche like Dry Bones or Goomba do. Peach offers nothing to your team composition from a chemistry standpoint, and in every single position she could fill, she is 5th or 6th best at best, at which point there is always someone who is better at batting, or has a niche somewhere else, or can play another position well while waiting to be backup pitcher. Peach isnt bad, and in fact feels pretty good to play as when youre just starting to play the game. Shes just unviable.

Best Non-Smash Appearance: Super Mario 3D World - Peach is a weird grab bag of appearances. Shes a great character in Mario RPG but absolutely miserable to play as, simply being a fantastic healer who should never reasonably die in any given playthrough. Mario RPG is an easy game, but Toadstool utterly trivializes it. Shes a lightweight in early Mario Kart which makes her a viable character to play as, but shes gotten lost in the crowd ever since she became a middleweight in Double Dash. Super Princess Peach is fine, I suppose, a slow and casual platformer to breeze through until you have to track down every single Toad to fight Bowser and then youre combing every single stage for secrets. Her Paper Mario appearances tend to be fun diversions, but thats more for the context of what shes doing rather than any input from Peach herself (though her fight against Mimi in Super Paper Mario is quite good for that games standards of boss). Its really the float that enables Peachs gameplay identity to come to the forefront, making Mario 2 and 3D World always her most fun appearances. Being able to casually break levels open is a joy usually reserved for Knuckles and Dixie Kong, but Peach gives you juuuust a taste of that magic, while still requiring a tighter sense of gravity than the DK and Sonic series tend to offer (at least for Knuckles - Classic Sonic and gravity are pretty tight). The speed boost offered to all characters in Bowsers Fury especially really solidifies this, Peach able to absolutely BREAK some levels with fast enough glides, and it feels great straining this game that was clearly not ready for the speed boost, but is dealing with it anyway. So yeah, I guess that one, its fun. Still would like to see her a bit more fully realized as an RPG character, though, thatd be really fun.