For this critical play, I tried out Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS, though I played it emulated using DeSmuME emulator on PC. The game is an action platformer developed by Japanese game studio Tose in 2005 and published by Nintendo. The game is officially rated E for Everyone, but considering its reversal of the “damsel in distress” trope, low difficulty, and traditionally feminine bubbly aesthetic, the game does seem to be marketed towards younger girls, between the ages of around 6-12.
The game has players control Peach through Vibe Island to rescue Mario, freeing captured Toads along the way. Peach can defeat enemies using Perry the Parasol, or by using her four “Vibes.” These “Vibes” – joy, rage, calm, and gloom – can be selected on the bottom screen and give Peach temporary emotion-based abilities she can use to fight or solve puzzles.
Though the game and Princess Peach herself are heavily treated as traditionally feminine, the subversive narrative, animations, and combat-centered gameplay ensure that this femininity is never equated towards weakness or helplessness. The emotion-based power system has been something that has received a large amount of criticism from the community for its perpetuation of negative stereotypes, but I argue that the context in which the powerups are used – both as combat tools and as puzzle-solving ones – reflects a more nuanced representation of emotive power.
From the beginnings of the Mario franchise, Peach as a character was designed solely to fill a damsel in distress role and was thus characterized and designed to be hyper-feminine and have that femininity equate to helplessness. This means the game is put in a difficult situation where it must make Peach capable enough to act as the protagonist without throwing out the established design and characterization that make her recognizable.
The narrative is the first step the game takes to address this. When Mario is captured and her kingdom is sent into chaos by Bowser’s “Vibe Staff,” it is important to note that Peach willingly and proactively leaps into action, spurred on by a sense of responsibility. This narrative setup does a great job of leaning more into an existing but often overlooked part of Peach’s character established by previous Mario games– her role as a leader of the Mushroom Kingdom. This keeps her characterization consistent with previous games while also displaying a side of Peach that represents her competence much more effectively.
This is further apparent in Peach’s animations and moveset within the game. Many of her animations like running or falling exemplify the concept of docile body, being constrained and delicate. While accurate to the character’s past portrayals, it potentially gives the impression of weakness to the player. To address this, Peach has numerous active and powerful animations interspersed between her feminine ones. She is able to shoulder-bash enemies, or do a running-slide to navigate tight spaces. All these moveset additions make Peach feel more agile and durable, which in turn creates a sense of agency and power for the player.
The game’s balancing further serves to make the player feel powerful playing as Peach. Your parasol attack defeats most enemies in one hit, you are able to take 6 hits before dying as opposed to the more unforgiving tiered damage model in other Mario games, and your emotion powerups are effectively unlimited because you can swallow enemies to replenish your meter. However, this power and player agency makes the game substantially easier, which was likely also intentional due to the designers’ concern that female players would have less gaming experience. While the low difficulty lowers the barrier to entry, it does exclude players who are seeking a feminine-styled game that also poses a reasonable challenge. An easy way to address this is with an adaptive system like difficulty settings, giving players agency of their play experience.
Thus, narrative, aesthetics, and gameplay come together to give the player a sense of agency. The narrative creates the context – Peach is the hero, and nobody can do it but her – which opens up the opportunity for the player to play an active role in the story. The gameplay gives the player the means to influence the story, providing both an aesthetic and mechanical sense of power that immerses the player in their ability to influence the game world.
It is important to mention that much exists much feminist discourse around this game regarding the emotion powerups. The argument is as follows: due to the fantastically exaggerated nature of the 4 emotion powerups as well as the player being able to switch between them on a whim, the mechanic seems to perpetuate a stereotype of women having volatile and hysterical emotions, especially as a means of forceful and immature coercion.
I find that this argument would hold stronger if the Vibes were solely used to fight, but the abilities are also commonly used to solve puzzles and interact with the world. Thus, the read is less that the game is treating emotive power as a way of forcefully or selfishly getting what you want, but rather that emotive power is a genuine tool for resolving problems peacefully and productively.
The latest Princess Peach-centered game, Princess Peach: Showtime!, seems to have a similar issue, playing into consumption stereotypes by giving her powerups based on outfit changes. However, those outfits are collected throughout the game by the player’s own achievements. That combined with each outfit making you stronger turns something stereotypical into something that creates player agency and satisfaction.
I believe the Vibes system in Super Princess Peach should have done something similar. If you could unlock more emotions as you progress, or if the emotions could be upgraded, the stereotype would be weakened since the mechanic would be directly tied to the empowerment of the player’s agency.
