Princess Peach's Castle

Stage Design

Princess Peach's Castle is a level in SSBM; it is the top of the castle seen in Super Mario 64. The level itself is comprised of three parts: The left side, the right side, and the middle. The right and left side are flat platforms with edges and a small floating stand that rises when a character stands on it. The middle section is comprised of two layers; the bottom layer is a risen, sloped (around 30 degree) platform with another similar platform on top. The stage also has an array of pressure activated buttons littered across it. There are two types of buttons. The first kind are small and circular; these buttons activate new platforms on the stage when they are depressed. The other kind are rectangular exclamation points; these buttons release items when a character walks over them (only when items are enabled, however).

Every one to five minutes a large Banzai Bill will shoot from the sky. The bullet appears from a random side of the screen and goes in a straight path until it crashes into the castle. After approximately four seconds, it explodes and deals around 30-45 damage with very large knockback. The explosion is so strong that most fabrics (like Mario's cape or the flags on the stage) shake when it occurs. A possible tactic is to throw or hit an opponent into the explosion. The Banzai Bill itself also does light damage if you touch it before it explodes, and it has a similarly soft knockback.

Artistic Design

The art of Princess Peach's Castle is par to SSBM standards. It is extremely easy to tell that you are on a roof, with shingles of a castle. In the middle and a little down, there is the stained glass profile of Princess Peach holding roses as can be seen in Super Mario 64. The center piece of the caste is the small spire that makes up the middle section. It has regal spikes (they don't affect you) and painted windows, just as a place for locking up a damsel in distress should have. The background is a beautiful green meadow with rolling hills and a few evergreen trees. Beyond the meadow are some larger hills, what could be considered foothills for mountains. To the left of the meadow is a slow moving river that bends and then drops to a graceful, slow-moving, waterfall. The water fall pours out into a lake that looks as calm as the waterfall and reaches all the way to the opposite side of the stage. The sky above it all is blue as blue can be with a few clouds to the left and right sides that don't move, but are pretty to look at.