Super Princess Peach is slow. It's so slow. Peach crawls across the screen and there's nothing you can do about it, short of using occasional slides and extra energy for the crying vibe power to make it a little more bearable. 2D Mario games can do a lot wrong, but they typically make up for it by at least being smooth and snappy enough that the simple act of moving through levels is fun, and they fuck that up here. I like this game and I'm nostalgic for it, but playing through it to the ending as an adult, I can't say it's nearly as good as it is in my memories.

The vibes feel incredibly under-utilized and like they figured cool levels would flow out of them in a way that just never happened. You never feel creative or like you've solved a puzzle, you just stop and press the button on the touch screen that lets you get past the obstacle. It's really a shame, because with this game's slower and more deliberate pace along with more fleshed-out moves...what else are those for, if not new and creative kinds of encounters that require a little more thought? I'm likely going to write another short review if I get around to do the harder levels that unlock in the post-game, but I've seen no real indication that they had any fleshed-out ideas for what to do with Peach's (very cool!) unique abilities. Often it's as if the levels contain doors of four different colors and the player has the incredibly difficult task of tapping on the corresponding color on the second screen.

The feminist objections to Super Princess Peach are maybe what the game is most remembered for nowadays, and though the vibes don't bother me much, the criticism is plenty valid. It's a tone-deaf choice that makes it occupy a strange place in history. It sucks that this whole special game dedicated to Peach is based around extreme emotions. What bothers me more than that, though, is the insulting ease and spoodfeeding that go far beyond Mario norms, even beyond NSMB norms. Every single obstacle has a tutorial block telling the player exactly what to do over and over. These are optional, thank god, but they allow NO room for ambiguous goals or really thought of any kind. This includes bosses, where every single one is preceded by a message describing in-detail how to defeat them. I'm not sure if Nintendo is deliberately talking down to and expecting nothing of the young girls this game was meant for or if their level design was so bad at signalling what to do that they had to stick signs everywhere pointing you around. Either way, it sucks.

Why didn't you tell me I needed to collect every toad? I sped through thinking they were just another collectible but you need every single one, so I ended up having to go back through half the levels in the game just to finish. Painfully easy levels are one thing, but going through them again really soured me on this right at the end. It doesn't help that the bowser fight fucking sucks and doesn't require even the little bits of problem-solving that did exist in the rest of the game.

Obviously I'm frustrated as hell with Super Princess Peach and it's not as good as I remembered, but there still is a lot to like! It looks so cheery and Peach's animations are gorgeous and fluid. Bowser's bi! Peach is a badass, woo! It's a lot of fun seeing her still be a very traditionally feminine princess-type and also whipping everyone's asses with an umbrella. The floating feels good! The little dream sequences between worlds are adorable! This one is still solid, but it's far from the best Mario platformer. But it's another nostalgic childhood game beaten, and that always feels great.

I remember this game getting a lot of criticism, back before I played it, for being a 'walking simulator'. This struck me as a little odd, especially so after I played it. Firstly, you don't normally criticize a game for its type or genre. Like, who has a go at mario for being a jumping simulator? I don't know. Secondly, this is less a walking simulator, and more an archaeological simulator, because you dig through a virtual space to uncover (extremely recent) history. That's fascinating, to me.

It's a short game, but the experience is rich and hugely enjoyable. Also, how did they make it feel so spooky? I always felt like I was about to get jumped! That's wild. Also, have you ever sat and listened to the soundtrack, top to bottom? What a mood.

Nice to get a strong LGBTQ+ story in a game. We're getting more of them as time goes on, but it's still slow going. From what I remember, this was a really big one for proving the potential popularity of games with gay themes.

Really touching game.

Kim Kitsuragi: "Do you remember how when we met Measurehead and I said the next racist will be the really good one?"

You: "Yes."

Kim Kitsuragi: "Well..." He gestures toward Gary as though he were presenting a work of art. "This is that racist."

1. - "Yes! Our lucky racist."
2. - "Will you grant us three wishes, Gary?"

I've quickly developed an intense love for and fascination with this game. Probably the most remarkable thing about it for me is how the world and story can both feel really fleshed out, immersive and engaging, and then some new detail will emerge that shakes up the very foundation of all of this in some big way and yet this space you're engaging with becomes more convincing as a result, not less. It's amazing to me how the game manages to keep redefining your relationship to it in this manner, and yet the effect was always such as to draw me in further rather than push me away.

Somehow for me this process continued even after the game had concluded, with the side materials (https://theark.wiki/w/I_just_got_Ending_E) redefining my relationship with aspects of the game too. The word 'journey' is thrown around a lot, but my experience with this game was quite literally an emotional journey, one that even brought me to tears at points, a journey that continues even after the game has reached its end.

As well as being incredibly well designed from a narrative perspective, the philosophical ideas the game tackles are fascinating, and the way in which the game's structure is built with these in mind is something that is honestly kind of remarkable. My first time completing the game (by which I mean, getting to ending E) was, in this sense too, a journey, but there's also this feeling that there is so much to be unpacked here, and so much that only grows in impact once given full context, that I can see myself continuing to think, feel and explore new emotions, thoughts and ideas on repeat playthroughs. Despite tackling heavy, challenging ideas though, the game is good at managing to not be too heavy except when it needs to be; it has a delightful sense of humour, and is very willing to be silly at the right moments. I can't even begin to imagine the balancing act involved in making all of this work at once.

I have a dear love for these characters, with all their human imperfections and struggles, their hopes and dreams and fears and losses, and the world you explore with them is wonderfully realised. This is both in terms of the detail with which it evokes this dystopia, and also on a technical level of how beautiful these environments are and how well the music compliments them, helping evoke the emotions caught within these locations.

I don't think the game is wholly perfect by any means, though the imperfections rarely annoyed me for any great length of time. The side quests lean a bit too heavily into fairly simple fetch quests, and a handful of the side quests are just frustrating; that said the process of completing side quests feels rewarding with many of them meaningfully contributing either to world-building or the game's philosophical concerns. The base combat can get a bit repetitive after the 20 hour mark or so, and you can easily find yourself over-levelled for the fights you're engaging in; that said there's a gracefulness to the movement in the game that makes the combat generally satisfying, and the game is keen to dip into different genres and styles to try and mix things up and present different experiences.

I could probably list a few more minor complaints like this but it always feels like there's some twist that makes it actually fine, and like ultimately it just doesn't matter because everything else the game is doing in evoking this world, telling this story, and calling forth these emotions, is just so good. I can't remember the last time a game made me care this much, and feel this much.