Does anyone else remember Super Princess Peach, or am I the only one? It doesn't really matter, because our favorite blonde (no, not Barbie) is getting her chance to shine in the spotlight again after almost 20 years!
Yesterday, Nintendo released their financial results for 2023 thus far, and the document also includes release plans for their upcoming games. And you guessed it from the title – it looks like Princess Peach will be staring in a new game for the Switch.
What We Know About Princess Peach's New Game
Honestly, not that much.
If you haven't been living under a rock these last few months, you've probably also seen the new Super Mario Bros. Movie. So far, over 168 million people have seen the movie worldwide, making it a box office success. And in that, Princess Peach is one of the main protagonists alongside Mario. Her depiction in the film was received well amongst fans, gaining more attention for the princess that had been moving further into the background these last few years.
Her acclaim was probably a good sign for Nintendo to move forward with their plans to have Peach star in her own game, once again. Yeah, you heard me right, again.
We'll get to that later.
Anyway, it seems as though Nintendo is planning on bringing back Princess Peach to the front of the tiny digital screen in the near future (unlike Metroid Prime 4, which is also on the list but still has a TBA release date. Come on, Nintendo, give us something, please?).
All we know at the moment is that the game is listed in their release schedule as "Princess Peach will star as the main character in a brand-new game (temp.)". The launch date for the Nintendo Switch game will be sometime in 2024.
So, no name, no exact date, but at least we know that Princess Peach will be back as the protagonist of our handheld devices! Why did she disappear for so long though?
Reasons For Peach's 20-Year Hibernation As A Protagonist
Four score and seven year... Wait, no, scratch that, wrong text.
Almost one score, namely almost 20 years ago, Princess Peach set off on her very first solo adventure. Super Princess Peach, that's the title of the DS game, was the first and so far only game with Princess Peach as its main protagonist.
Together with Perry, the talking umbrella, Peach set off on an adventure in 2005, pretty similar to those of the Super Mario Brothers. Except this time, instead of Mario running off to save Peach, she sets off to save Mario and his brother Luigi from Vibe Island.
Like the Super Mario Bros. games, Super Princess Peach is a platform video game with unique features such as the Emotion Meter, which players could use to regulate Peach's vibe powers.
Unlike the New Super Mario Bros. DS game, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide, Super Princess Peach only sold 1.7 million copies.
Although critics reviewed the game quite positively, the sales numbers didn't really reflect well on the game.
So, even though Peach still continued to be a part of other games in the Mario World, it probably took a lot of positive reception of Peach in the public eye for Nintendo to give her some of her own adventures again. Which we will hopefully be seeing very soon!