Princess Daisy’s Playable Debut In Super Mario Bros. Wonder Is A Long Time Coming
Daisy #Daisy
The queen hath returned – Princess Daisy is back. Despite being a classic Mario character, Princess Daisy has long been disrespected by the series as a whole. She’s nowhere to be seen in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario Strikers: Battle League reduced her to DLC when she’s obviously more sporty than Peach and Rosalina, and Smash has her as a glorified Peach palette swap. It’s tough being the ruler of Sarasaland. But Daisy fans like myself can rejoice – in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Princess Daisy will finally be playable in a mainline Mario game.
It shouldn’t have been this difficult. The series is called ‘Super Mario Bros.’, so that’s Mario and Luigi as your classic player one and player two combo. Ahead of Tony Hawk and Bob Burnquist on the all-time list, those two are classic heroes. Third is Peach, as Mario’s girlfriend and a playable female character. Next, all logic dictates, should be Daisy. She’s a second playable female character and she’s Luigi’s girlfriend. Platforming is the ideal double date. But that isn’t how it has worked.
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Instead Yoshi, Toad, and somehow, the freak of nature that is Nabbit have all been ahead of Daisy in the queue before. It’s a very strange system wherein Daisy has been needlessly relegated. She hasn’t been dropped for greater representation – originally she had darker skin, so could have been Nintendo’s key to an easy win there – nor for popularity. I say again, she was usurped by Nabbit. She just hasn’t been treated with much importance outside of the Party or sports games, and even there, Battle League couldn’t even give her that. But Wonder, oh wondrous wonder that it is, has finally turned it all around.
This is the first time in a mainline Mario game we’ve ever been able to play as Princess Daisy. She’s available as an outfit in Super Mario Maker, and is playable in the mobile game Super Mario Run, but aside from that she has mostly relied on those aforementioned sports and Party titles. It’s because of her personality in these games, bursting from the sidelines as an energetic tomboy who hates to lose, that I and many (well, several) others fell in love with her. She provides a unique texture to the world of Mario, and it’s great that she’s finally getting to bring that to the big leagues. A sports metaphor. She’d love it.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder launches on October 10, and coming up so soon the announcement was packed with gameplay footage and new mechanics, one of which, of course, was Daisy herself. The trailer showed four-player co-op, and emphasised the ability to play as Daisy. We don’t know if she’ll do anything different, but just being there is a victory. There’s still the chance there could be some tomfoolery involved, a requirement to beat levels as Mario first, or to spend hours upon hours gathering enough tokens to unlock Daisy, but there are reasons to be hopeful.
The whole game seems like a refreshing take on Mario, and introducing Daisy back into the fold could be a key part of that. We’re getting a back to basics approach in the artwork, where Mario leaping through the air looks as he did in magazine adverts around the N64 era. Mario’s basic look has remained the same – no edgy, cigar smoking, tattoo-covered phase for the Italian plumber – but the art style itself has shifted with different consoles and design teams. This seems to be Mario in his roots, and having his core cast along for the ride is an important part of that.
That doesn’t mean things seem stale though. In fact, the use of warp pipes and wriggly worms, the clever gameplay via silhouette we saw a glimpse of, and the very weird transformation of Mario into an elephant all point to some creative and fresh ideas. That only begs the further question though – can Daisy transform into an elephant too? It’s literally the only thing I care about now.
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