Princess Peach's Castle

For the similarly-named stage in Super Smash Bros., see Peach's Castle

Announced at E3 2001, 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.

In All-Star mode, this stage is played on when you face Peach and any of her teammates.

Artistic Design

The art of Princess Peach's Castle is on par with other SSBM level standards. The roof is detailed with a nice shingle texture. In the middle and a little down, there is the stained glass profile of Princess Peach holding roses (a motif which can be seen in Super Mario 64). The center piece of the castle is a small spire. It has regal spikes (which do not affect characters) and painted windows. The background is a beautiful green meadow with rolling hills dappled with a few evergreen trees. Beyond the meadow are some larger hills resembling 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 is blue with a few stationary clouds hung around the left and right sides.