After all these years, Peach is changing (Picture: Nintendo/Metro.co.uk)
Box art for Princess Peach: Showtime! has been altered so that Peachy looks more like her appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
It my not have been a great film but The Super Mario Bros. Movie was hugely successful, and we don’t envy anyone the task of trying to turn a video game series with virtually no plot into an accessible film that anyone can enjoy.
Everyone knows who characters like Mario and Peach are but in the games they usually have little or no dialogue, and their visual designs are almost impossible to take seriously.
The film did a good job of making them work though, without changing anything substantial, and it seems Nintendo is so happy with the results that they will influence future game designs, starting with next year’s Princess Peach: Showtime!
When Showtime! was first unveiled Peach had her traditional look, although the game’s main gimmick revolves around her putting on different outfits – from cook to kung fu master – that give her different abilities.
The key art for the game showed her with her usual narrow mouth and oval eyes, but an eagle-eyed fan has noticed that the design has subsequently been changed, to something closer to the movie.
Only the facial features have been altered, but the kung fu outfit also has an angrier face and the swordfighter is also very subtly different.
Whether Nintendo would’ve done things completely different if they were starting the image from scratch is hard to say, but it’s going to be interesting to see if she’s characterised more like Peach in the movie – who was considerably more feisty than usual.
Alternatively, this could just be an example of Nintendo of American making its characters look angrier in its box art than those for Japan or Europe. That’s something that’s been going on for decades and Kirby, in particular, is always treated that way, so maybe this is just an extension of that.
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There doesn’t seem to be any influence from the movie in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder, for Peach, Mario, or any of the others, but there may not have been enough time for that, given the game was probably substantially finished by the time the film came out.
The character that had the biggest redesign was Donkey Kong, with Nintendo implying that his new design, which is a mix of his old and post-Rare look, would be used for new games going forward.
There’s no attempt to use it in the Mario Vs. Donkey Kong remake but other than that there hasn’t been a new Donkey Kong game in years, with Nintendo completely ignoring his 40th anniversary and rumours of a new 3D game so far not coming to pass.
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Box art for Princess Peach: Showtime! has been altered so that Peachy looks more like her appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.