An innovative and colorful platformer. Plays like a mix between Super Mario Bros. 2 and Yoshi's Island.
User Rating: 8.5 | Super Princess Peach DS
Gameplay: The gameplay in this 2D platformer is suprisingly good. As you may have heard, YES, it's easy. But not because the levels are short or lack creativity. On the contrary, the levels have very similar design to that of Yoshi's Island games, and are quite lengthy and innovative. The levels in SPP are just a tad easier, as there are lots of ways to keep your health. You start out with 3 hearts, but can buy more as you earn money. Each "hit" you take, counts off half a heart. So without replenishing your health, you can take 6 hits at bare minimum to "die" in a level. But, there are also plenty of hearts throughout the levels, and you can use one of your vibes to heal yourself too. (more on vibes in a minute). Even if you accidentally fall in a lava pit, it only takes away half a heart instead of an instant death like other Mario/Yoshi platformers. Peach has an assortment of abilites, mostly all linked to her umbrella, named Perry. She can swipe at them to knock them out. She can scoop them over her head and either throw them, set them down, or by pressing down, swallow them. Swallowing them builds your vibe meter. You can also buy various abilities as you go through the game, including one to make you float longer during jumps, etc. Besides your health meter, Peach relies also on her vibe meter. The touch screen displays Peach's vibe meter while in a level. You can touch on one of 4 different "vibes" to activate special powers for a limited time. One makes peach float very high in a whirlwind of joy. Another surrounds Peach an invincible flame of anger, another makes Peach cry tears of sadness and another simply replenishes Peach's health. Besides the health one, the other 3 are used often to overcome certain obstacles in the levels and boss fights. This makes for great use of the DS touch screen in this game. You'll also utilize the touch screen for entrance to boss fights, as you have to manuever some sort of mini-game. Hardly challenging, yet still fun. As with most Mario-type games nowadays, you can also unlock regular mini-games through the course of the game, to be played at the main menu. These all utilize the touch screen and/or microphone on the DS. Most of em are pretty simple though, and not quite as good as the mini-games found on NSMB. Graphics: The graphics here are very nice and clean for a 2D platformer. As good as you're gonna get in that fashion. Comparable to Yoshi's Island again. But, this is the DS, and it's capable of more, as we saw in NSMB. Sound: Pretty good here. The soundtracks for the levers are cute and kiddy, like most Mario games. The sound effects are also good and appropriate for each in-game action. The great thing is that you can unlock every sound in the game to hear in the game menu at will. For some reason, I appreciate that, maybe because I'm a music person. Value: 5 levels to a world, 8 worlds, equals 40 levels or so. Plus mini-games, plus MANY things to unlock after completing the main story quest. Plus you also must find all 3 mini-toadstools in each level to be able to enter Bowser's castle at the end. (You can complete the levels without finding the Toads). The toads are fairly easy to find and can mostly be done without having to backtrack. After completing the main story mode, those secret toad areas now contain unlockables like songs from the game, and puzzle pieces. Then you can access all the music from the game from the game menu. You can also play a few minigames (which aren't great), and put together Peach puzzles using the touch screen (kinda fun). Tilt: If you enjoyed Yoshi's Island for the GBA or DS, you should enjoy this too. It's style is VERY similar, though this game is much easier. As long as it's fun to play, I don't care how easy or hard games are. And this game is very fun to play and pretty original in it's use of the DS's touch screen. I reccomend this game for any fans of the Mario/Yoshi series and platformers in general. The only people who may not enjoy this game are those gamers who just hate easy games or kiddish ones like these. God bless 
