Super Mario 64 DS was one of the best games that I ever played as a young teenager. There was just something about the open world environment and the ability to play as different characters with different play styles and abilities that really resonated with me. I also loved the addition of two modes to the single player game, VS mode and mini game mode. Vs mode was phenomenal, and I played it a lot with my dad and cousin. The minigames in the Rec Room were entertaining as well. To this day I believe that some of the best made games should have at least a VS mode and a mini game mode in addition to the main single player campaign. The game cemented my love for the lovable dinosaur Yoshi, which you can probably already tell from this website!
Awww, good times :)
However, my childhood nostalgia aside, there was one hidden gem that I never knew existed at all in the remake to the revolutionary Super Mario 64 game. Hidden deep in the game’s files are in fact unused animations for Princess Peach. While the character does in fact appear in the game, it’s only as an NPC, and you can’t play as her unfortunately. It’s funny because there were always rumors of a fifth unlockable character for players to play as in Super Mario 64 DS. Most of those rumors considered Waluigi to be the final character to be unlocked. However, I always thought that Peach would in fact be the character you could play as if you could beat the game. The ending cutscene of the game, the Peach figurine on her birthday cake in the ending, and all of the extra stars and secrets rooms in Peach’s castle convinced me that we could play as the world famous video game princess. Unfortunately that never panned out, but it’s interesting that unused animations of Peach exist in the game’s code. While it’s not officially confirmed that this meant Peach was meant to be a playable character, it does raise questions as to the purpose of these animations in the first place.
The animations themselves involve Peach jumping, walking, running and standing idly. All of these actions seem unnecessary if she was just going to be an NPC in the final game. It does make more sense that Peach was actually going to be a playable character in the game, maybe as the final fifth character that would be unlocked after some condition was met in the game, such as collecting all of the stars or beating the game multiple times.
Personal Thoughts
I personally think that not only was Peach definitely going to be a playable character with this information in mind, but I think that they should have added her to the game! Think about it, you manage to collect all of the Power Stars and then you unlock the cute princess. You can then use her new abilities such as floating with her dress a la Super Mario Bros. 2, using her parasol for recovering and/or combat, gaining a new Power Flower ability, and beating up the big bad Bowser once and for all! Okay, maybe I got a little carried away there, but it is something to think about. I think that the real question we should be asking Nintendo is why they removed her from being playable in the first place. We all know that Peach would eventually star in numerous games in the future, such as Super Princess Peach, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Princess Peach: Showtime! She was also playable in the much older Super Mario Bros. 2 as I mentioned earlier. So why was she absent as a playable character in this game? We may never know the exact answer, unless someone asks the developers of the game. It could’ve just been something as simple as time restraints, which is a very common thing in the video game industry. A less nicer option, shall we say, could also be that the developers just didn’t like the idea of Peach being playable for whatever reason and scrapped the concept, though that would still put into question why they put in all of the effort to create her models and animations anyway. Us loyal Nintendo and Mario fans may never know the truth, but we were certainly close to playing as everyone’s favorite mushroom princess in a 3D Mario game!
Sources
https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Super_Mario_64_DS_pre-release_and_unused_content
https://tcrf.net/Super_Mario_64_DS
The Hidden Vault 
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