When I personally think about platformming games I always think of the early Mario series. It was something that made the Nintendo a huge success over other similar companies. Starting off with Mario One, most of the world got their first shot at Mario trying to rescue the princes, but of course there were times before that where the true Mario was introduced. Back to the original NES game, it had so many ways to jump from world to world, and gain extra lives. It was one of the focal points that had people buy Nintendo’s.

Following in the success of the original game, Mario 2 came out allowing you to choose from several characters like Mario, Luigi, the Princess, and Toad. Each of them had their own little abilities, and each of them was fun to play with. After that Mario 3 came out, and another smash hit was created. A game even enjoyed today came out with unique modifications, allowing for more than just fireballs and growing big, but a plethora of abilities from frog suits, to a becoming a flying raccoon. In engaged a world of gaming, which spilled forward into mass media, like with the Saturday morning show, and even a movie.

Following up on her other visits to videogames she has been introduced to a world of racing, and party games. I bring this up mainly because this is not the first time Peach has been placed into videogames. She has been one of the co-stars of many games along her time, so it is not her first time in the spotlight. This is the first time though that she is all by herself and the only playable character, which does present itself a bit of a unique situation.

I am going to start off by saying that Prince Peach has seen better days. Now do not get me wrong, it does have quite a few interesting features, and this is one of the few games for the Nintendo DS that used the rumble pad. She has been better utilized as the side character in Mario Kart, or the target of Mario’s desires, as he had raced through world after world trying to save her from all of the old Mario games. Here she is in all of her glory, and while she is entertaining, it leaves you wanting more. Personally it sang out to me, crying out for her to be a challenge to deal with, but the game was all too easy.

For starters she has four different powers immediately from the start, and available from the bottom menu at the touch of a stylus. In true sexiest fashion she has the power of emotions. The four powers at her command that may be turned on or off at a mere whim of her consciousness, and one may even call her a tad bit psychotic from her easy transition through all of the world’s major emotions. Starting off with the emotion of joy, she is able to flutter through the air like she has wings on her shoes. She is also able to twirl in cyclone circles knocking away enemies. This ability allows you to float through the air great distances to reach those unreachable areas.

Her second power is her rage. Able to snap at a moment’s notice for no major reason, it allows her to run amuck on her enemies, even if she has no real problem with them. This allows her to walk all over them, causing quick and painful deaths. As she is in this fit of rage, waves of fire radiate off of her in clouds, which allows her to burn bridges, melt ice, or other things... like fill hot air balloons. What can counteract this disaster of a woman? Joy. This allows her to sooth her wounds with the temporary feeling of joy, draining the vibe meter (like all of the other abilities) and filling up her empty hearts, taken away by vicious attacks by her enemies, like the evil goombas, or from her own folly, like falling off of a cloud.

Lastly she is able to turn on the waterworks in an instant, as she covers her final emotion... gloom. This not only allows her to run from danger, but at record speeds. Two streaming jets of water shoot out of both sides of her eyes. In ice levels it allows for it to freeze up entire paths, while in the desert it can knock over sand creatures. That water can do even more, like water plants to make them big and strong. It seems a girl’s tears could even move mountains. Whatever the problem was though, it was quick and easy to find out how to rectify any problem with her powers.

She is not alone in her battle either, as a magic umbrella -- used for most of her attacks -- accompanies her. Not only that, but she also uses the umbrella to fill up her vibe bar. The vibe bar is a squiggly line at the top of the screen that shows how much more she can use her powers before she needs to refill it. I was a bit shocked that given the powers she had, she would not find pieces of chocolate to refill her powers. Once she picked up an enemy with that umbrella she can also absorb it. There is also a set of hearts -- rather than lives -- that allow her to absorb multiple hits. This puts her one up on Mario in being able to take damage, but this hinders the game in difficulty.

In the older styled Mario games you could only take a hit or two before it was all over for your character. This meant that once you had died, you had to make your way back to the Bowser and try and run under him to get to the axe to chop down the bridge. In this game you can absorb up to 10 hits in this game minimum, if you are not using your joy power to refill your life bar. Also there are copious amounts of vibe energy and hearts sent your way to make battle even easier. Furthermore none of the levels are difficult. Some of them take time navigating through the maze of pipes, but you are able to make it to your destination without much worry. And if you fall over a cliff? You start back at the last pipe you used, losing only half of a heart. All of the puzzles are easy to figure out, like how to save all three of the Toad’s per level, or collect all the puzzle pieces and other interesting unlockables.

On your travels you will use all of those powers to navigate to the tops of hills, or even clouds. There are a few other things you can unlock as well, as you later can use the umbrella to slide down zip lines as you shoot across wires towards a goal. You can also unlock a submarine that you will take underwater. What is fairly neat about it is if you blow into the microphone it will shoot out air bubbles, which can defeat a few of the enemies. It does add to the game slightly, but it is not used enough to really scream that it was needing to be put in there, rather it comes off all thrown together.