The Gamer's Quarter

SuperWes

Got Super Princess Peach last night. I'm currently on World 1-5 and I'm really enjoying it so far.

It's actually much closer to a "real" Mario game than I expected, and it's helping me to understand exactly what it is that sets Mario games apart from the breadth of generic 2D platformers that came out back in the day. Mario games are full of semi-secret areas that make you feel smart for finding them. It's a subtle thing, but going down a pipe to find a room with nothing but a few extra coins is really rewarding. Not because of the coins themselves, but because it makes you think, "hey, I found a secret that not everyone would have found." It's similar to the way Sonic makes you feel good for finding your own path to the exit, but much more rewarding in my opinion.

Has anyone else played Super Princess Peach? What do you think? What does or doesn't make it a "true" Mario game?

-Wes
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Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

i got to 1-4..

'tsallright.

its a mario game allright. a bit on the easy side but that's understadable due to the demographics invovled.
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B coma · . Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Posts: 279

I played my import copy pretty extensively before handing it off to Fried Chicken. Let me pull up some thoughts:

I too enjoyed the game, but wouldn't recommend it to everyone necessarily... I think a lot of people are expecting the second coming of SMB 3, and it's most definitely not.

I think a lot of criticism is going to be raised around the fact (heck, plenty already has!) that the game itself is too forgiving. And it is, to the degree that when the difficult sections do come up you'll be very much off guard. I didn't do this on my play through, but if the difficulty is a concern you can do yourself a favor and avoid purchasing as many life/fever meter upgrades as possible. Long story short, the game hardly penalizes you for doing things like taking mutliple dives into bottomless pits! Maybe avoiding the upgrades would balance that out a bit, maybe not. Perhaps they'll make difficulty adjustments for the US version, but I kind of doubt it. However, if you been following and enjoying Mario platformers closely over the years there is a lot to appreciate here, things to be found in the details: seeing Rex from Super Mario World cry, pretty much everything about the new ghost houses, and a most worthy Thwomp sequence near the end of the game.

I realized very quickly that Super Princess Peach is not really a game about platforming challenge per se, even though that occasionally enters the picture. Above all else the game wants you to absorb you in sights and sounds, and a bit of nostalgia as well. You already know what it's like to slide down a hill and take out a couple of Goombas in the second stage of SMB 3 - perhaps it was a bit dangerous the first time - maybe not - but damn, it was still pretty exhilarating. SSP revists this moment not by simply just recreating the mechanic, but by layering several hills on top of each other and piling a clausterphobic amount of Goombas on each of them, edge to edge. It's pretty much no contest for the enemy if you've played SMB 3 at least once, but hell if I didn't enjoy the ass-slidingpocalypse that ensued every time! That's the kind of game this is.

purplechair · . Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 378 Location: in my pants

Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

B coma · . Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Posts: 279

It's like a vacation, aside from all the kidnapping.

dessgeega · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:21 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:40 pm Post subject:

get your penises! red hot penises right here! can't enjoy the internet without one!
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SuperWes · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:

I guess you could call it easy. I havent really been seeing that, but I'll have to admit that it's not really something I look for. I mean, sure, I haven't died, but I have had to put actual thought into how I'm going to get to some of the toads, and to me this is more interesting than getting killed in the same place until you get it.

Have you ever played Wario Land 4? It's a game where it's impossible to die (getting hit will set you on fire, turn you into a zombie, smoosh you, or make you fat, but you won't actually lose HP), but I wouldn't call it easy because you've constantly got to figure out how to get into the next area. This game has hints of that in it.

Suffice to say, I'm really enjoying it. Even with my penis!

-Wes
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dessgeega · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:15 pm Post subject:

SuperWes · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:48 pm Post subject:

Mister Toups · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:46 pm Post subject:

Mister Toups · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:46 pm Post subject:

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friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:42 am Post subject: