Peach (SSBB)

Peach in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Universe	Mario
Other playable appearances	in Melee in SSB4 in Ultimate
Availability	Starter
Final Smash	Peach Blossom
Tier	C- (19)

Peach (ピーチ, Peach) is a starter character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl after returning from Super Smash Bros. Melee. She was announced on the Smash Bros. DOJO!! website on August 17, 2007.

Samantha Kelly, who had voiced Peach from Mario Strikers Charged to Mario & Luigi: Brothership, reprised her role in all regions of Brawl with brand new voice clips, simultaneously emulating and succeeding Jen Taylor's portrayal from Melee; the latter's voice clip used for Peach's taunt in Melee (where she says, "Sweet!") was re-purposed for Peach's Wii Remote selection sound.

Peach is currently ranked 19th out of 38 in the Brawl tier list, in the bottom of the C tier. This is a noticeable drop from her placement of 7th out of 26 in Melee, and is Peach's worst placement in the series. Peach's unique floating ability can be used in a number of ways, such as aiding her recovery, allowing her to use aerials repeatedly without having to land, or letting her attack while holding a throwing item. Floating, combined with the descending properties of her up special, gives her one of the best horizontal recoveries in the game. In addition, her item-based Vegetable projectiles are highly versatile, offering effective means of edgeguarding, zoning, and combos, and with the help of glide tossing, can also aid her approach.

As if to offset the benefits of floating, many of Peach's attributes have bad chemistry and compound each other's downsides. Her below-average weight, very low falling speed, lanky frame, and lack of good momentum canceling options make her easy to KO, especially off the top, without making her hard to hit in return. Peach also has one of the worst ground games, with low dash speed, and thoroughly unimpressive ground normals. Her Vegetables also cover a shorter distance than most projectiles when thrown, which, when combined with her slow movement, allows superior zoners to out-gun and wall her. Despite Brawl's high landing lag and hitstun canceling mechanic strongly discouraging combos and juggling, Peach can still fall victim to them, owing to a tall hurtbox and the worst air dodge in the game. Finally, despite possessing many moves with high KO potential, Peach is hindered by having difficulties in KOing opponents, due to the fact that her kill moves either have inconsistent sweetspots, or are too risky to be practical.

Overall, Peach has decent tournament results thanks to the efforts of players like Kie and SlayerZ, but in spite of this and a couple notable matchups, Peach is not viable in top-level play, and sees little usage because of how the metagame works against her.

Attributes

Peach is suspended somewhere between a light and medium hitter in terms of knockback, but as an in-close brawler, she excels. She has plenty of ways to rack up damage on her opponents, but getting the KOing blow can be difficult. At low damage percentages, Peach is fantastic against her opponents, wielding the deadly combination of her down throw, down aerial, and floating ability to easily build damage on foes. Though Peach does have problems scoring KOs when her opponents reach higher percentages, her best KO move is her forward aerial, and can be easily used in conjunction with her floating to give her the ability to retreat or approach multiple times while using her forward aerial. Though the move has noticeable start-up lag, this can be remedied with timing it properly. Outside of her forward aerial though, Peach does have an issue with attack range, relying on glide tossing Vegetables to approach. Peach's slow dash speed also hurts her approach. Often it is advisable for Peach players to pull turnips throughout the match regardless of attack necessity, simply to increase the chance of pulling a deadly "stitch-face" turnip or any of the other unique items Peach has a chance of summoning, each of which is powerful in various ways. In general, Peach can pull turnips quickly enough to have three in the air at any given time, provided that she throws them straight up, giving her both the chance at better items and providing potential setups for turnip traps, where enemies will bounce off of turnips both falling and being immediately thrown at them.

As mentioned, Peach has a number of attacks with large hitboxes, including her forward aerial crown slap, her down aerial foot stomping, and her high-speed jab, all of which allow her to break through the attacks of many other characters. Like a number of characters in Brawl, Peach doesn't have much of a problem returning to the stage, and can easily use her up special repetitively to stall at the edge, thus making her the only character that can come in and out of her helpless state after using her special jump, as it is difficult to find an opening while she is doing so. Despite having an excellent horizontal recovery, her recovery is very predictable and isn't very good vertically due to having the shortest second jump in the game and the poor vertical distance on Peach Parasol. Should the opponent try to recover, she has the option to use her down smash or the odd hitbox of her down tilt to spike. The down smash will simply stage-spike instead of being an actual meteor smash.

Peach has a few main flaws. Firstly, she has a very poor air defense; her air dodge actually has more lag (30 frames) than invincibility frames (frames 4 to 19). Being light, floaty, and having by far the worst air dodge in the game, she can easily get juggled. Her down aerial can help a bit, but only against attacks with less range. Secondly, she can have problems with KOs. With only her forward aerial to turn to for reliable KOs, and it being a good move in normal combat, Peach has a hard time finding a solution for finishing off her enemies. The knockback of her forward smash varies unpredictably, her down-smash has been downgraded to near uselessness outside of interrupting attacks, and her up smash must be sweet-spotted at the top of her hand to actually send the opponent far. What it comes down to is that enemies will be expecting the forward aerial at high percentages, and thus it is relatively predictable despite being such a good move.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. Melee

Peach was considerably nerfed overall from Melee to Brawl, with several of her once-dominating advantages removed in the transition. Her aerial game has seen various downgrades. Her air speed is slower, and her double jump is drastically lower. She also lost access to double jump canceling and float canceling, and all of her aerials have increased ending lag. Her dash attack and down smash (previously her best grounded moves) have been altered, making them far inferior to their former counterparts. Her grab game has also seen some nerfs. Her forward throw is much weaker, and her up throw can no longer chain grab opponents. Her KO power has been severely reduced, as many of her KO moves have decreased power. The general changes to Brawl's mechanics also hinder her overall. The introduction of hitstun canceling greatly limits her combo potential, while it gives her limited benefits compared to other characters due to her poor air dodge and weak momentum canceling. The removal of crouch canceling also greatly hinders her, especially when combined with the changes to her down smash.

However, she did receive some buffs. Her grounded mobility has overall improved, as she dashes faster and she covers much more distance from a glide toss. Peach now has multiple techniques to further improve the utility of Vegetable alongside her aforementioned glide toss. Despite the nerfs to her aerial game, her aerials did also receive some buffs. All of her aerials have decreased landing lag, somewhat compensating for the removal of L-canceling, and her air acceleration is higher, making it easier for her to weave in and out in the air while floating. As for her individual aerials, she can now connect both hits of neutral/back aerials, forward aerial has increased range and now instantly auto-cancels, and her down aerial connects more reliably, with its final hit being considerably stronger, improving the latter two's spacing potential.

Overall, her buffs do not make up for her nerfs, and the game's new mechanics hinder her overall. Despite this, she still maintains some of her previous strengths and overall remains stronger than various other characters, although she significantly struggles against some of the top tier characters, and her learning curve is rather high in comparison to most other characters.

Aesthetics

• Peach's dress has been updated to match her modern appearance since Super Mario Sunshine, but with a lot more realistic details, such as wrinkles and ruffles. Her hair is also a lighter color.
• Peach's alternate costumes have been altered:
  • The color of the heels on all of her costumes now matches the color of her dress.
  • Her orange costume based on Princess Daisy now has the same skin color as her default costume, and her earrings are now green spheres rather than daisies. Her hair color is also brownish orange rather than brown. The dress itself is more closely based on Daisy's later appearances.
  • Her blue and green costumes are lighter and she now wears pink earrings in her blue costume.
  • Peach no longer wears white stockings in her white costume.
  • Peach has a new red costume which is now used as her Red Team color in Team Battles, replacing her default costume.
• Her parasol design is from Yoshi's Island DS and Super Paper Mario. The color of her parasol also changes color depending on which costume Peach is using.
• Peach also has a new, carefree walk animation where she skips, although her slow walking animation remains unaltered from Melee.
• Peach has a new dash animation where she holds her dress up while she runs.
• Peach has a different animation when carrying heavy items. She now carries them in front of her rather than over her head.
• Like other characters in Brawl, Peach no longer vocalizes when performing a short hop.
• Peach Bomber and her up tilt now release a cloud of hearts.
• Neutral attack and forward throw now produce unique slapping sounds on hit.
• Several of Peach's voice lines have been changed:
  • Peach's previous taunt has been moved to her down taunt. She now says "Uh-huh" rather than "Sweet!". She does, however, say "Sweet!" in her new up taunt, and the voice clip for her Melee taunt is used for her Wii remote selection sound.
  • Peach's voice line in her second and third victory poses has been moved to the first and second poses, respectively; she now says "Peachy!" during her third pose.
  • Peach now shouts "Noooooo!" upon being Star KO'd, in a similar manner to Snake and Sonic.
  • As can be heard in Sound Test, Peach's voice while using Peach Bomber and one of her victory quotes is now actually two separated voices, consisting of "Ha-"/"-tcha!" and "Oh,"/"Did I win?", respectively.
• As on-screen appearances were not present in Melee, Peach now receives one.

Attributes

• As with the returning veterans, Peach's falling speed was reduced (1.5 → 1.05). Compared to the returning veterans, Peach falls slightly slower, going from the 4th lowest to the 2nd lowest.
• Peach's gravity is lower (0.08 → 0.0632).
• Peach walks slightly faster (0.85 → 0.86).
• Peach dashes slightly faster (1.3 → 1.35).
• Peach's air speed is much slower (1.1 → 0.893), now going from the 5th best in Melee to only the 24th highest in Brawl.
• Peach's air acceleration is higher (0.07 → 0.11).
• Peach's midair jump gives significantly less height, going from the fourth highest midair jump in Melee to the lowest in Brawl, greatly hindering her recovery potential and aerial combo game.
• Double jump now functions like a jump, instead of having a scripted upward movement pattern. When combined with the removal of double jump canceling, this hinders Peach's aerial approach.
• Peach's traction is lower (0.1 → 0.068), especially when comparing with the returning veterans, now going from the best in Melee to the 7th highest. This also makes it harder for her to punish out of shield, and due to the removal of wavedashing the benefits she receives from it are outweighed by the cons.
• Peach's forward glide toss travels significantly higher distance improving her grounded approach with Vegetable and other items.
• Spot dodge has a longer duration (frames 2-18 → 2-20) and less ending lag (FAF 28 → 26).
• Back roll has more startup (frame 4 → 5).

Ground attacks

• Neutral attack:
  • Both hits has less startup lag (frame 3 → 2) and deals more damage (2% → 3%).
  • It has more ending lag (FAF 16 → 20 (hit 1), FAF 17 → 23 (hit 2)).
• Forward tilt:
  • Forward tilt has a longer duration (frames 6-7 (clean), 8-13 (late) → 6-8/9-16) and has larger hitboxes.
• Up tilt:
  • Peach has a new up tilt where she extends her arm upward with a pink heart appearing above it.
  • It now has a sweetspot located at the heart which is a disjointed hitbox that does more damage than her old up tilt (12% → 13%) and deals more knockback (48 (base), 72 (scaling) → 60/70.
  • It has more startup (frame 9 → 10) and ending lag (FAF 37 → 38), and is less effective for comboing and juggling.
  • It now has a hitbox at the arm that deals 10% damage.
• Down tilt:
  • Peach now moves forward slightly when performing her down tilt, giving her a pseudo-crawl. If Peach performs any action without touching the control stick after using her down tilt, she will slide backward, giving her an additional mixup/movement option.
  • It deals 2% less damage (12% → 10%), making it weaker as its knockback was unchanged (although this is somewhat compensated by universally decreased falling speeds on stage and the changes to meteor canceling off-stage).
• Dash attack:
  • Dash attack now consists of two hits instead of a clean hit and a late hit.
  • Its new first hit is capable of locking and tripping opponents although its chances of tripping are very rare and it is fairly impractical for locking opponents. Additionally, it has a larger disjointed hitbox in front of Peach.
  • It has a shorter duration (frames 6-20 → 6-9 (hit 1), 17-19 (hit 2)), deals less damage (12%/9% (clean), 8%/7% (late) → 8%) and knockback (70/50/20 (base), 70 (scaling) → 30/50 (hit 1), 50/125 (hit 2). These changes combined with the changes to hitstun reduce its reliability and almost completely removes its combo ability.
• Forward smash:
  • All versions of Peach's forward smash have a longer duration (frames 15-18 → 15-19).
  • The sweetspot of her tennis racket deals more damage (12% → 13%) and drastically higher knockback (35 (base), 75 (scaling) → 40/100).
  • The frying pan deals more damage and is now consistent (15%/17% → 18%).
  • The golf club now deals consistent damage (13% (base), 17% (head) → 15%) and knockback scaling (50 (base), 60 (head) → 70). This makes the base much stronger but makes the head slightly weaker.
• Up smash:
  • Up smash's sweetspot deals less damage (19% → 17%) hindering its KO potential (although it is still one of the strongest up smashes). Also, it has more start-up lag, a shorter duration (frames 13-22 → 14-16 (clean), 17-20 (late)), more ending lag (FAF 40 → 45) and the move now has a weaker late hit dealing less damage (19%/15% → 12%/10%) making the sweetspot harder to land especially the strongest sweetspot.
• Down smash:
  • Down smash has larger hitboxes.
  • It now deals four hits instead of five and each hit deals much less damage (12%/14% → 5%), reducing its overall damage output and no longer being able to KO even in Sudden Death percentages. Each hit also has more startup lag (except the last hit) and the move has a shorter duration (frames 5-6/9-10/13-14/17-18/21-22 → 6-7/11-12/16-17/21-22). Its damage potential is hindered even further by the loss of crouch cancelling. It also has more ending lag (FAF 40 → 44). Overall, the move's utility has been significantly been weakened, and is considered the most drastic nerf from Melee to Brawl no longer being a contender for the best down smash.
  • Peach's legs are no longer intangible during her down smash, hindering its safety.
  • It deals consistent base knockback (35/40 → 38).
  • The attack now produces a slash effect/sound effect, rather than a normal effect.

Aerial attacks

• All of Peach's aerials have less landing lag (17 frames → 11 (neutral), 25 frames → 22 (forward), 15 frames → 9 (back, up, down)).
• All of Peach's aerials have more ending lag (FAF 42 → 50 (neutral), FAF 51 → 55 (forward), FAF 38 → 55 (back), FAF 34 → 36 (up), FAF 36 → 40 (down)) as her aerials are no longer interruptible. This was likely done due to how her float was programmed in Brawl where if her aerials are interruptible, the float will cancel if she performs another aerial.
• Peach can no longer float cancel or double jump cancel her aerials, impairing her approach, shield pressure, and combo options.
  • The removal of double jump cancelling, however, does increase her recovery's safety.
• Neutral aerial:
  • Neutral aerial can now trip opponents, and it is now possible to connect both of its hits, allowing it to potentially deal 23%.
  • Its clean hit deals less damage (14% → 13%) and has less knockback scaling (100 → 90), hindering its KO potential.
• Forward aerial:
  • Forward aerial is a much stronger landing option due to it being able to auto-cancel as soon as its hitbox ends, which also improves its spacing potential as she no longer has to use it while floating right above the ground to cancel all landing lag. It also has increased range (4u/3.2u → 4.4u/3.8u).
  • It auto-cancels earlier (frame 39 → 20), somewhat compensating for the loss of float canceling.
  • It has slightly less knockback growth (70 → 68) and has a shorter duration (frames 16-20 → 16-19). When combined with momentum canceling and the more severe effect of stale-move negation, this significantly hinders her forward aerial's use as a KO option due to it being one of her most important spacing moves.
• Back aerial:
  • If Peach cancels her float after connecting the strong hit of her back aerial, both hits can now connect, increasing the move's overall damage output (14% → 21%). The move also has a new small hitbox in front of Peach which deals 1% less damage slightly increasing its range.
  • It auto-cancels earlier (frame 23 → 20), somewhat compensating for the loss of float canceling.
  • It has a shorter duration (frames 6-22 → 6-19), and the late hit deals less damage (10% → 7%) and knockback (0 (base), 90 (scaling) → 10/70). It also has a longer animation (44 frames → 54), further increasing its ending lag.
  • Its sweetspot's knockback has been altered (0 (base), 100 (scaling) → 30/80). This improves its edgeguarding, potential but hinders its KO potential at center stage.
• Up aerial:
  • Up aerial has slightly more start-up lag (frame 7 → 8) and auto-cancels slightly later (frame 22 → 23).
  • Its sweetspot deals slightly less damage (14% → 13%) and has significantly less knockback scaling (120 → 100). This hinders its KO potential, but improves its combo potential at lower percents.
• Down aerial:
  • Down aerial deals 3% more damage (11 → 14%) due to changes to stale move negation and the final hit is much stronger dealing more damage (3% → 5%) and has increased knockback (12/16 (base), 50 (scaling) → 40/120). This makes down aerial a very strong spacing tool when combined with floating. The first three hits also deal less knockback (12/16 (base), 50 (scaling) → 13/30) making them connect more reliably at higher percents.
  • It auto-cancels earlier (frame 36 → 32), somewhat compensating for the loss of float canceling.
  • Its new final hit prevents it from linking into other aerials at high percentages, removing one of Peach's best options to setup KO moves.

Throws/other attacks

• Grabs:
  • Grabs have a different animation where Peach reaches much further forward, although this does not increase the range of her grabs except for her new pivot grab.
  • Grabs have less startup lag (frame 7 → 6) and ending lag (FAF 31 → 30 (standing), FAF 41 → 40 (dash)). Peach now solely possesses the fastest dash grab in the game.
• Pummel:
  • Pummel has less ending lag (FAF 26 → 19).
  • It deals less damage (3% → 2%).
• Forward throw:
  • Forward throw has higher base knockback (10 → 45), increasing its safety at lower percents.
  • It has much less knockback scaling (160 → 83) and can no longer KO reliably until super high percents. Previously, in Melee, it could KO at around 110%, but it cannot KO until around 160% in Brawl.
• Back throw:
  • Back throw has less base knockback (80 → 70), weakening its already low KO potential.
  • Peach now winks at her opponent while performing back throw.
• Up throw:
  • Up throw can no longer chaingrab fastfallers due to universally decreased falling speeds, while still being too weak to KO until unrealistic percents.
• Down throw:
  • Down throw no longer forces opponents into a tumble at lower percents, and due to DI changes, can now reliably chaingrab at lower percents.
  • It has more knockback scaling (30 → 60), improving its followup potential at lower percents, but hindering its followup potential at higher percents.
• Floor attack:
  • Floor attack from the back deals less damage (6% → 5%).
• Edge attack:
  • Both edge attacks has more set knockback (90 → 110).
  • The hitbox of the under 100% variant has a longer duration (frames 10-14 → 10-16), and both variants have more invincibility (frames 1-6 (under 100%), 1-40 (over 100%) → 1-8/1-48).

Special moves

• Toad:
  • Toad has less startup lag, a longer duration, and deals more knockback (80 (base), 50 (scaling) → 40/180). Peach can also now B-reverse Toad.
  • Peach no longer flashes blue when using Toad. Toad also makes a different sound effect.
  • Its counter frames have more startup lag (frame 10 → 11) and now only hits six times instead of seven, decreasing its maximum damage output despite changes to stale move negation (19% → 18%).
• Peach Bomber:
  • Peach Bomber covers more horizontal distance.
  • Peach Bomber can now sweetspot the edge.
  • Peach can no longer choose between a tilt and smash input when using Peach Bomber. This makes Peach Bomber's knockback consistent, but removes the ability to select a 70° or 55° launch angle with a tilt or smash input respectively.
  • Peach Bomber's launch angle is now a semi-spike (70° (tilt)/55° (smash) → 23°).
  • Peach Bomber deals less damage (16% (tilt)/18% (smash) → 15%) and significantly less base knockback (80 (tilt)/100 (smash) → 50), drastically hindering its KO potential.
  • Peach can no longer rebound off opponents' shields, instead she phases through the shielding opponent.
  • Peach can no longer bounce off walls, preventing her from indefinitely stalling up a wall.
  • Peach Bomber uses a different sound effect and produces an explosion of hearts on hit, rather than using a fiery explosion effect.
• Peach Parasol:
  • Peach Parasol travels more distance.
  • The initial jump of Peach Parasol has a new final hit that deals 4% damage and non-fixed knockback, allowing it to KO opponents without needing to be near the upper blast line.
  • The multihits have a new hitbox located on Peach's arm, covering a blind spot between the hitbox on Peach's body and the hitbox on her parasol.
  • The intial launching hit has more startup lag (frame 6 → 7).
  • The number of hits in the multihits have been reduced from 10 hits to 3 hits. Even with the new final hitbox, the maximum damage output has been reduced (16% → 12%).
  • Peach now has significantly more landing lag if she lands with the parasol closed (4 frames → 39).
  • Peach Parasol makes a different sound effect.
  • The open parasol hitbox now uses a weak punch sound effect rather than a medium slash sound effect on hit, though the visual slash effect remains unchanged.
• Vegetable:
  • Turnips are now immediately generated, meaning that if Peach is hit out of the plucking animation, she will now keep the turnip rather than losing it.
  • When Peach slides off an edge while using Vegetable, it now cancels the plucking animation while still giving her the turnip/item, effectively giving it no ending lag.
  • Peach can now move forward with Vegetable by dashing and performing the move at the same time, improving its approach potential and safety.
  • The increased distance of Peach's glide toss significantly improves her approach potential with turnips or other items.
  • Peach can now catch turnips and other items in the air with her aerials and air dodge.
  • Peach's turnips can deal more damage depending on the item throw (8% maximum increase → 11.9%), allowing all of her turnips to deal up to 3.9% more damage.
  • There is a slightly larger, yet still very low chance of pulling a Beam Sword, Bob-omb, or Mr. Saturn when using Vegetable (1/128 (any item)/1/256 (Mr. Saturn)/1/384 (Bob-omb)/1/768 (Beam Sword) → 1/80/1/160/1/240/1/480).
  • While plucking vegetables, the sound effect for picking up items now plays.
  • If Peach is holding a turnip and she changes in size, the size of the turnip will now scale with her.
  • Peach vocalizes less frequently when Vegetable is spammed, or if Peach is too close to an opponent.
  • The turnips now disappear when hitting a shield or when colliding with another attack, rather than rebound off of it. This means Peach can no longer recycle valuable turnips and hinders her shield pressuring potential.
  • The turnips deal less knockback (25 (base), 60 (scaling) → 30/35), making them less useful for edgeguarding and hindering stitch faced turnip's KO potential.
• Item toss:
  • Forward item toss has less startup lag (frame 10 → 8).
  • Downward item toss has less startup (frame 9 (ground)/10 (air) → 7 (both)) and ending lag (FAF 24 → 22 (ground)/20 (air)).
  • Dash item toss has much less startup lag (frame 12 → 5) and a shorter total duration (FAF 40 → 38).
    • However, its total duration was not fully compensated, giving it more ending lag.
  • Forward item toss has more ending lag (FAF 24 → 27 (ground)/25 (air)).
  • Backward item toss has more startup lag (frame 10 (ground)/9 (air) → 11 (both)) and a longer total duration (FAF 24 → 27 (ground)/25 (air)).
    • However, the aerial version's total duration was not fully compensated, giving it less ending lag.
  • Grounded upward item toss has more ending lag (FAF 24 → 26).
  • Aerial upward item toss has more startup lag (frame 11 → 12).
    • However, its total duration was unchanged, giving it less ending lag.