Princess Peach (SSBM)

Princess Peach
Princess Peach
Universe	Mario
Appears in	SSBM SSBB
Availability	Starter
Tier	High (5)

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This article is about Peach's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. For other uses, see Princess Peach.

Princess Peach (ピーチ姫, Pīchi-Hime), Princess Toadstool, or often simply Peach, created by Shigeru Miyamoto, had her first appearance in Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom System (Nintendo Entertainment System) in 1985, albeit not as a playable character--not even until the very last level of the game. She was not playable until Super Mario Bros. 2, though she still wasn't playable in the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, as the non-Japanese version was in fact Doki Doki Panic with new sprites. Peach has since frequently appeared as a playable character in the Mario sports titles. She received the first game of her own, Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS, in 2006.

Announced at E3 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee was Peach's first appearance as a combatant in the Super Smash Bros. series, although she appeared as a fighter once before in Super Mario RPG. Like many of the new characters, she is very good for tournament play. Peach is a character with a very distinct playstyle; if one plans on using her well, one must thus prepare to practice often with her character-specific techniques, most notably the Float Cancel and her Vegetable (Turnip) attack. Both make her formidable and unique; both are also necessary for high-level play.

Peach is available at the start of the game as one of the game's 14 default characters.

Normal Moves

A-Attacks

• A: Royal Slap 1-3%
• A (Second): Double Royal Slap 1-2%
• Dash A: Lady Push 3-12%
• F-Tilt: Can-Can Kick 3-13%
• U-Tilt: Crown Bash 6-12%
• D-Tilt: Elegant Sweep 6-12%
• Forward Smash: "Peach Swing" 12-23% (see below)
• Up Smash: Pirouette 8-25% †
• Down Smash: Double-Edged Gown 6-95%

Aerial Attacks

• Aerial A: Princess Twirl 4-14%
• Aerial Forward A: Crown Smack 8-15%
• Aerial Back A: Flying Hip 5-14%
• Aerial Up A: Floating High Kick 7-14%
• Aerial Down A: Stiletto Kick 1-11%

Grab and Throws

• Pummel: Heel Stomp 1-3%
• Forward Throw: Royal Slap 1-10% †
• Back Throw: Iron Hip 6-11%
• Up Throw: Gut Punch 4-9%
• Down Throw: The Royal Treatment 3-7% †

Forward Smash (Peach Swing)

• Frying Pan 17-23%
• Tennis Racket 12-16%
• Golf Club 13-17%

Turnips (Vegetable)

• Normal 6%
• Circle Eyes 6%
• Line Eyes 6%
• Carrot Eyes 6%
• Eyebrow Eyes 6%
• Wink 10%
• Dot Eyes 16%
• Stitch Face 34%
• Peach can also pull out a Bob-omb, Beam Sword or Mr. Saturn, although the odds of doing so are 1:600.

Special Moves

• Neutral B: Toad
• Smash B: Peach Bomber
• Up B: Peach Parasol
• Down B: Vegetable

Pros & Cons

File:Peach.jpg

Pros

• Remarkably long horizontal recovery if her float is intact
• Quick, effective close-up game
• Down smash has great range, strength, and damage building abilities
• Little lag for aerials with float cancels
• Amazing edgeguarder
• Powerful forward throw
• Can chain throw space animals
• Turnips excellent for camping, lead ins, and edgeguarding
• Capable of Double-Jump Cancelling, allowing for very quick ground aerials.
• Can pull Beam Swords, Mr. Saturns and Bob-Bombs out instead of a turnip, even when those items are turned off.
• Has 5 jumps. (Two mid-air, her float, her Peach Bomber, then her Peach Parasol.)
• Has farthest jump out of any character.

Cons

• Generally slow-moving
• Dies vertically at relatively low percents
• Out ranged by most characters, making it hard to get inside range.
• Her options when recovering from a ledge grab are limited because of her laggy aerials and double jump
• No KO Move (move that kills at low percentages, eg. spikes, Falcon's Knee)
• Lacks easily connectible attacks that send at a low angle or straight up, making KOs difficult against players with good DI
• Wavedash is among the shortest in game
• Recovery is effective but slow, leaving her vulnerable to attack before landing

VS. Melee strategies

Recovery

Peach's recovery is very versatile due to the fact that she can manipulate her movement in many ways. When hit off of the stage, she will still have a double jump, a triple jump (Up B and air dodge), and her float. You'll want to either go over your opponent (usually with a double jump and float) or sweet spot the ledge with her Up B, just be aware that you can be edgehogged if you sweet spot. The Peach Parasol has amazing range, and this disjointed hitbox can easily edgehog opponents with a sweetspot, unlike Marth who will not do damage with a sweetspotted Up B. If you do not use the Up B, you can air dodge; if so, you can use this aerial evasion to cancel your second jump. If you do use the Up B, you are still not out of options because you can open and close the parasol in order to avoid being hit.

Wall Bombing

Wall Bombing is more difficult than it may readily appear. Firstly, you cannot be too close to the stage to initiate the Wall Bomb. Secondly, the Peach Bomber must be Smashed each time or you will simply be unable to reach the stage. Thirdly, to initiate the follow-up Wall Bomb, you must start it immediately after you recover from the previous Peach Bomber. Using this tactic is very risky in tournament play and should be only used as a last resort. Though it is possible to perform on any stage with a thick bottom, you will usually only see this technique employed on Final Destination.

Stalling

Peach is one of the few characters that can do any sort of lengthy stalling; you can stall with her float, her Up B, her Neutral B, or by using her Side B (Peach Bomber) to hit the wall of the stage. With the Peach Bomber, you can actually move up a wall or stall indefinitely; this tactic (Wall Bombing to stall) is banned in tournament play.

Floating and Float Canceling

For strategies for using Peach's Float, including Auto-floating and Float Canceling, see Float

Turnips

For uses of turnips in competitive play, see Turnips.

Advanced Techniques

• Chainthrowing - Peach, like most characters in the game, can chainthrow fastfallers. She can do it by Up-Throwing them between 23-30% and 80-90% and then re-grabbing them. [Note: The lower percents apply to Fox/Falco, while Chainthrowing Captain Falcon requires him to be closer to 30%] Beyond 80-something% for Fox and Captain Falcon and closer to 90% for Falco, the opponent can DI, wiggle, and/or Shine out of the chain. Peach can also chainthrow non-fastfallers--unless they have 125-something%--by Down-Throwing them (if they are DI-ing upwards), turning around, and re-grabbing them.
• Downthrow into ... - If opponents DI upward (expecting a Forward Throw) when Down-Thrown, Peach can either turn around and re-grab them, F-Tilt them, Dash Attack them (regardless of DI), Neutral Air them, or Up Smash them. Characters with little stun can DI, wiggle, and Neutral Air out of this, though, and the best Peach will be able to do is to trade hits with them. WARNING: Do not Down-Throw Luigi at all unless you are prepared to make a run for it in order to dodge his inevitable Neutral Air!
• If you Dash Attack a fastfaller at 40-60-ish%, you can follow his or her DI--if there is any--with a grab, which can be turned into a chaingrab!
• When an opponent is grabbed by another character, you can make his or her victim suffer the torturous damage of an entire Down Smash by spacing it so that every single hit of the Down Smash hits the victim but not the person grabbing him or her.
• Peach's double-jump allows her to Double-Jump Cancel, sacrificing her second jump but immediately moving toward the ground by first jumping (or at least being airborne), starting an aerial and immediately jumping again. This subsequently allows her to:
• Double-Jump Land - Because Peach's double-jump makes her dip downward slightly before moving upward, she can DJC and DJL. To DJL, hit jump and then, during the 4-or-5 start-up frames (depending upon whether it was a Short Hop or a full jump), hit jump again. Peach will do a little jerk as if jumping; the sound effect of her double-jump will play and she will immediately go into her landing animation. By doing this repeatedly, Peach will do a series of funny rapid jerks, thus allowing you to mindgame your opponent.
• When people are recovering from a small distance away slightly below the edge, you can, while hanging onto the ledge, hit Back to drop and perform a falling Back Air. Once it is over, double-jump immediately into an Up B to grab the ledge again. Anyone hit by the Back Air will be unable to recover--unless, of course, the opponent is Samus, Jigglypuff, or Link/Young Link on a stage with a low surface into which they can Hookshot.

Yuna's Guide to Edgeguarding

• Against the Space Animals, try to predict how they are going to recover. For example, if you think they will try to Forward B (Fox Illusion/Falco Phantasm) back onto the edge, float or jump into a Neutral Air, or float or jump backwards to space and perform a Forward Air. You can also intercept their Up B's (Fire Fox/Fire Bird) with any one of your aerials, though some of them require great timing.
• Against Sheik, it is very useful--evil, even--to edgehog her by forcing her to Up B (Vanish) back onto the stage, timing your "get up" animation (normal "get up" by pressing Forward) so that if she tries to sweetspot the edge, she will still be edgehogged by the extra lag of an edgehog, running up to her (dash-canceling if necessary) and Down-Smashing her. Because of the send-off angle of the Down Smash, if it hits someone with its front, it will send him or her flying off behind Peach. By doing this, you will make Sheik fly off the edge again and you can rinse and repeat. Skilled Sheiks will try to beat this by crouch-canceling the first part of the Down Smash, thus suffering greater damage and, sometimes, knockback. Though this is highly effective on Sheik because of the nature of her recovery, it also proves effective against characters like Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Fox/Falco (against their Forward B's), and anyone else who has a laggy recovery move.
• Against Marth, Roy and many other characters, hitting them with one or two turnips while they are recovering will prevent them from ever making it back--or at least force them to either have to Up B back or sweetspot, which is easily countered by edgehogging and the above tactic.
• Peach cannot edgeguard herself very well.
• Captain Falcon and Ganondorf's Up B's make them go slightly above the ledge even when sweetspotting, though Ganondorf's makes him go higher above the ledge, which allows Peach to Ground Float slightly off the ledge and Down Air their recoveries into, for instance, a Neutral Air (or against Captain Falcon, she can just Down Air, land, float out again and repeat to build up extra damage), wait for them to recover (especially Ganondorf), and then do it again. This requires a bit of timing, though.
• Ice Climbers are a pain to edgeguard if they are both still alive as their Up B (Belay) has ridiculous priority and takes them quite far. Try to turnip them when they are off the ledge and separate them for edgeguarding. A Popo separated from his Nana off the ledge will often run out to try to save her. Either bait him into it and edgeguard him from there or keep him occupied at all costs, effectively killing Nana. When a lone Ice Climber remains, intercept his Forward B's.
• Samus is a bother to edgeguard. Try to hit her with turnips when she is off the stage to make her go to far away and too low to recover. Aim for the bombs and not Samus herself.
• Doctor Mario, Mario and Luigi are a bother to edgeguard with Peach as well. Try floating out with aerials, turnipping them without them being able to cape it back, and using the ledgedropped Back Air.
• Jigglypuff cannot be properly edgeguarded by Peach. The only options are building a pillar of turnips by Up-Throwing them at the edge to try to force her to take the hit from at least one when recovering, baiting her to pound your shield (and then either Neutral Air or Up Smash out of your shield) or try to turnip her (though her Forward B (Pound) will easily deflect them and she can still just Rising Pound if she gets hit by your turnips, so it takes quite a few of them).
• Link can be edgeguarded with ledge-dropped Back Airs (though it's tricky) when he is either DI:'ing toward the stage or Spin Attacking, or by trying to nail him with turnips while he is DI'ing toward the stage to either Up B (Spin Attack) or Hookshot the stage. The same goes with Young Link. Mindgaming him into going for a sweetspotted Spin Attack and edgehogging him works, too, as does edgehogging someone hanging from a Hookshot to mindgame him into landing on the stage and getting up to Down Smash them.
• Because of their crappy horizontal recoveries, if they are coming from ledge-level, below or a bit far away, Donkey Kong and Bowser are easily edgehogged. Turnipping them for extra distance is also desirable.
• Pikachu and Pichu are hard to edgeguard unless they are really far away from the ledge. If they land on the stage after an Up B, they will suffer major lag unless they cancel it by ending the Up B just slightly above the ground. Use this opportunity to attack them! Otherwise, the only good tactic is to intercept their Up B's with an Up Smash.
• Peach is one of the worst characters with whom one could edgeguard Yoshi because none of her aerials go through his second jump's stun-invincibility. The best she can do is to try to turnip him and to intercept his second jump.
• Peach can, to a certain extent, use the Sheik-edgeguard against Zelda, but as the latter's Up B (Farore's Wind) makes her go quite a bit further than Sheik, though it has slightly more lag, she is unable to rinse and repeat. Since Zelda dies easier than Sheik, however, try to punish her Up B early on with a Neutral Air or an Up Air.
• Mr. Game & Watch is another tricky character to edgeguard because his Up B has ridiculous priority, a hitbox which stays out for ages, and is able to take him quite far. Use general edgeguarding strategies against him--in other words, wing it.
• If Ness's PK Thunder is either hit by an attack or absorbed by someone or something--say, a turnip--he will be stuck in his initial PK Thunder animation (where he has his hands on his head) and slowly fall down to the ground. He also lags a bit afterward when he lands, so capitalize on that flaw.
• Mewtwo's airdodge and Up B are instantaneous and have no lag at all. He is one of the hardest characters in the game to edgeguard effectively.

Vidjo-dropping and Vidjo-canceling

It had been known for years that Peach could drop a turnip while floating, maintain her float, throw a turnip as soon as a floated aerial ended, and stop floating but it was not until late 2005 that American Peach Vidjogamer discovered how this was done. For this, Australian Peach Quetzalcoatl named it the Vidjo-cancel and relayed the information to, among others, Swedish Peach Yuna, who coined the term "Vidjo-drop" and explored the use of both.

In order to understand the Vidjo-drop and the Vidjo-cancel, one must have an understanding of Interruptable As Soon As Frames. While floating, perform an aerial and then hit either Z during the IASA frames of said aerial to do a Vidjo-drop or A (direction options) for a Vidjo-cancel.

Vidjo-dropping will allow the user to do things such as Down-Airing into a Kamikaze Vidjo-drop bomb-drop or turnip-drop into another aerial; likewise, performing a Vidjo-cancel will allow the user to do things such as Neutral-Airing into a turnip throw or Down-Airing into a turnip throw. (The latter is especially useful if the vegetable in question is a grandfather/stitchface turnip). You can also Down Air while barely hitting the opponent, perform a Vidjo-drop bomb-drop and immediately airdodge to avoid the ensuing explosion (though this technique is easily countered by airdodging by people who often airdodge after a Down Air from Peach in the hopes that she mistimes the follow-up or that they can simply shield it if they are on the ground).

The Vidjo-drop and Vidjo-cancel do have their limitations, however. Because of the (nonexistent) amount of stun in Peach's attacks, a Down Air into a Vidjo-cancel or even a Vidjo-drop can be shielded as long as the person hit by the Down Air is not launched off the ground by it--which, unfortunately, requires high percentages. Vidjo-dropping will also allow characters with little stun (all of the floaty characters) to Neutral Air out of stun or just airdodge.

Character-Specific Strategies

Fox

Fox is one of Peach's oddest matchups as they are effectively counter-characters to one another, with Fox having a slight advantage. Her Down Smash, the chain grab, and edgeguarding are Peach's best friends, but Fox's shine combos and vertical kills are Fox's best friends. For Peach to win, she must take the offensive; Peach has to play very cautiously and Smash-DI his UAirs/Shines if she hopes to win.

Falco

Falco vs. Peach is a slightly advantageous matchup for the princess. Her Down Smash and grab combos can rip Falco apart. Compounded with Falco's reliance on horizontal kills rather than Fox's vertical kills effectively negates the advantages Fox had for this cousin space animal. Add to that her ability to chase Falco's recovery off the edge, and she is probably the only true counter to Falco.

Sheik

Against Sheik, Peach is at an inherent disadvantage; however, this is by no means an easy win for Sheik. Peach's crouch cancel, Dash Attack and Down Tilt counter Sheik's spaced Forward Tilt), allowing Peach to keep up with her. Sheik also has a harder time killing Peach than she does anyone else--save Samus, perhaps.

Marth

Marth matches are absolutely frightening in beginner-level play, but learning the lagtime in between Marth's sword swings evens out this match, leaving Marth with only a marginal advantage. Spot-dodging his grabs/FSmash are essential to landing blows as Marth's spacing game makes it impossible to charge headfirst. Turnip spamming may work for intermediate-level play but in Advanced play, Marth's run speed and ability for his sword to bat away projectiles forces Peach to think more intuitively about turnip usage.

Ice Climbers

This is a very easy matchup for Peach. Be sure you don't get grabbed which is very easy if you spam the down smash. The down smash is really your friend here. Also do a lot of low floats about the Ice Climbers it will be more difficult for them to grab you and you can spam dairs and naris.

External Links and Credits

IGN, for the Break the Targets pictures
Nintendorks' Page on Peach (and the picture at the top)
Sskeeto for Home Run Contest strategies

Nintendude1189 for 10 Man Melee Strategy

Footnotes

In single player modes, by using Peach's UP+B Move, Parasol, at the end of a match will award the player with the "Parasol Finish" bonus (1600pts). This beats "Fighter Stance" (500pts) by 1100 pts. Also, her trophy shows her panties, if you angle it right, and is very sexy.