Super Princess Peach

[RabidYak]

Got this in the post today and thought i'd do a quick write up.

The plot is that Bowser has found somesort of magic rod on an island and has used it to capture Mario and the gang, aisde from The Princess who was out on a walk. The Princess then meets a talking umbrella (I shit ye not) and they set off around the island to free the mushroom folks and rescue Mario.

The game itself is along similar sort of lines to a regular 2D Mario game. Character movement is more or less the same, you use pipes and doors to travel around different parts of levels, you can jump on enemies to knock them out and you have blocks that contain coins. There are some major differences though.

The first is that you can take a certain number of hits before you die like in the 3D Mario games, althougth there are no actuall lives in the game and you just get thrown out of the level with no penalty beyond having to start it again. You don't have to complete a level to retain stuff you collected in it either, you can quit the level at any time regurdless of whether you've finished it before or not and theres no time limits. This makes the game pretty easy and more of a leisurely stroll througth the levels rather then the sort of running challenge that you normally get.

Secondly, you are armed with the afformentioned talking umbrella in a similar sort of way to Parasol Stars. You can use it to hit things, throw stuff, float in water and all sorts of other actions that are unlocked as you play.

Thirdly, you have the much-derided emotion feature where you have 3 emotional states for The Princess that are selected by buttons on the touchscreen. Each of them gives you special abilities that you use to activate things in levels, take out enemies or reach places you can't normally get to. Making her sad will shoot water and increase your speed, making her angry creates fire and making her happy spins her around and lets you fly. You have an energy bar that limits how much you can use these, which can be replenshed in-level with pickups and by feeding enemies to your umbrella.

The game structure is similar to Yoshi's Island. You get a series of levels in groups that you complete in a fixed order to progess, with a boss fight at the end of each group and the option of playing previous levels again whenever you want. Theres stuff to find in the levels and you get bonuses and extras for finding it, but you don't need to find them to move onto the next level.

The levels themselves are a bit more explorable then they are in an average Mario game as well. The start and end points are always fixed and theres usually just one way to get between them, but the pickups are frequently in areas that branch off a bit (sometimes allot) from the main route and there is also the ocasional alternate path as well.

Theres also a shop where you can use the coins you collect in the levels to unlock new moves, get longer energy bars and collect bonus stuff. You can unlock some mini games along the way as well, which seem to be obligatory in all Mario related games thesedays.

Overall its pretty easy and theres not much original about it, but its worth playing and its passing the time here until the new Mario game comes out next month. Its obviously designed to appeal the female audience that the DS has managed to pick up with the likes of Nintendogs, but that wont stop you from getting entertainment out of it as long as you like Mario games and don't go into it expecting much of a challenge. You might even be able to use it to keep the missus occupied if you have one that occasionaly plays games.

Obviously its a bit difficult to take screenies with a DS, so here a link to some at Gamespot...
http://uk.gamespot.com/ds/action/superprincesspeach/screenindex.html

...and some marginally better ones at a big Mario site.
http://www.themushroomkingdom.net/spp_ss.shtml

[adidas]

sounds like a decent mario-ish game, though I have no DS

Spent all my money on the notebook PC

[were]

talking umbrella..gotta love that lol

[Silverhaze]

Yeah I thought this game looked a bit iffy from the previews I read btu from what you've said it sounds like an average mario affair.

I might pick it up if I see it cheap somewhere, I can let the missus play it although to be perfectly honest shes a stereotypical female puzzle gamer.

She bloody loves that stuff!! If it involves matching colours, beads, shapes and whatever else they all seem to get you doing then she loves it! The only one to have taken my fancy so far is Zuma and before that Puzzle Bobble but not her hahaha.

When the DS lite comes out and I give her my old DS I think I might get her that Meteos game or the new mario puzzle one coming out soon.

Oh Yak, I saw New Super Mario Bros in a shop the other day. Its out in Japan so import versions are available. I'll be waiting for the euro release though. ALso, I want this damn paper mario game too!! When is that bloody thing due out?!

[were]

notice that all euro games comes out 2 m-3 months later after the release of the u.s. counterpart game.maybe red tape?

[Class316]

The princess has to rescue Mario and Luigi? That's a twist

[RabidYak]

I've brought Pheonix Wright and Trauma Centre recently as well, but didn't bother posting about them since they do exactly what it says on the tin and whether you'll like them or not depends entirely on what you think of the concept.

My intention to buy Tetris DS went out the window as soon as I read that its another load of soft shite like Tetris Worlds. I decided to give the new Rainbow Islands a miss as well after reading that the controls are poor. Kirby is on my list, but I probably wont pick it up for a while since Mario is on the way and i'm seriously mulling over a XB360.

When the DS lite comes out and I give her my old DS I think I might get her that Meteos game or the new mario puzzle one coming out soon.

Zoo Kepper might be up her alley and it should be piss cheap by now if its still on shelves.

Oh Yak, I saw New Super Mario Bros in a shop the other day. Its out in Japan so import versions are available. I'll be waiting for the euro release though. ALso, I want this damn paper mario game too!! When is that bloody thing due out?!

I can wait for NSMB, its not worth another tenner or so just to get it a month early. I've seen Paper Mario placed in both September and October, so gawd knows exactly when its going to turn up.

notice that all euro games comes out 2 m-3 months later after the release of the u.s. counterpart game.maybe red tape?

No real reason, Nintendo Europe are just a load of cocks.

[Silverhaze]

Trauma Centre eh?

Can you give us a brief overview if you get a moment. Ive seen that on the ads on TV and thought it may look interesting but not especially deep.

Also what kirby game are you talking about? Is there a new one coming out or do you mean Power Paintbrush?

As for NSMB I can wait for that too. I dont personally want to ever pay over £30 for a DS game.

Those £50 Xbox360 games turn my stomach, I wait for second hand on those ones. Oblivion was worth it but PGR3 definitely is not.

[RabidYak]

Trauma Centre is a novelty game where you use the stylus to perform surgery on patients using a set of tools (scalpel, stiching, gel, forceps etc..) that you select with icons at the edge of the screen. You have to complete the operations within a set time limit and before the patient's health runs out, otherwise they die and you have to try again. You start off with regular things like removing tumors but later on you have to fight engineered super viruses that do things like putting small creatures in the patient. Its basically an advanced video game version of Operation. Theres a few days entertainment in it and its probably worth getting if you can find it cheap, but theres not much more to it then what i've just said.

Power Paintbrush is the Kirby game i'm talking about, its been out for a while but i've just not got round to picking it up yet.

Live Arcade is whats selling me on the 360. Obviously theres the element of having a machine to pick up all the third party multi platform stuff that the Nintendo isn't going to get, but its the fact that its got an outlet for small outfits to publish the sort of games that the big companys won't touch anymore thats got me interested.

[Silverhaze]

Oh right yeah Power Paintbrush was one of the first games I bought for my DS and I completed a ton of it!! Gets tough in the later challenge stages though.

Dont think I'll bother with trauma centre, Im never one for doing things against time limits. Exactly the reason I took Pikmin and Blinx back the day after I bought them. Im an explorer.

XBLive Arcade is good although at the moment theres pretty much fuck all on there if Im being honest. I bought Gauntlet and Smash TV and a couple of other games like Marble Blast Ultra and perhaps one other puzzle game....cant remember now. They are expensive though at almost £8 for SmahTV. I wouldnt have bothered but its nice to be able to play it on a proper TV and not have to fart about with emulators. I think they should have given these games a lick of paint though like they have done with some of the other titles.

I might have to get myself some more M$ points actually because I think I want the 3D Pool game and Zuma is sadly addictive, the missus would appreciate that too. Also, if they ever get off their arses and sort SF2 out I might be tempted by that.