Peach (Super Smash Bros. Melee)

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

Peach
Universe	Mario
Also appears in	SSBM SSBB
Availability	Starter
Tier	A (6)

Announced at E3 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee was Peach (ピーチ, Pīchi)'s first appearance as a combatant in the Super Smash Bros. series. Peach is a character with a very spam-happy 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, as well as the Down Smash. All three make her formidable and unique, and are also necessary for high-level play.

Currently, she is ranked 6th in the tier list, located in the A Tier. This is due to her moderately powerful attacks, formidable recovery, amazing aerial game, good ground game, and overall good moves. She has some flaws (e.g, lacks an aerial Meteor Smash, slow dash speed, being a tall floaty character, etc.) that prevent her from being top-tier.

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

Attributes

One of the most well-known features of Peach is likely the fact that she has incredible horizontal recovery. With fast air speed, a long second jump, the ability to float, the ability to use Peach Bomber to cover horizontal distance, and the ability to use Peach Parasol to cover vertical distance, Peach can recover from just about anywhere off of the stage. Peach also has a great air game, because she has little lag for aerials with float cancels, and she is capable of Double jump canceling, allowing for very quick ground aerials. Her projectile, the Turnip, is excellent for camping, lead-ins, and edgeguarding. She can defend herself from opponents' projectiles using Toad as a pop-up, similar to Marth and Roy's Counter. Peach is also able to chain grab fast-fallers with her Up Throw from around 40% damage to 100% damage.

However, Peach has very slow dash speed. She dies vertically at relatively low percents due to her being floaty, somewhat light, and having a bad vertical recovery. Her wavedash is among the shortest in the game. When it comes to KOing, her Forward Throw is powerful. Her Down Smash is also powerful, and has great priority, speed, range, and anti-shield properties with a strong likelihood of shield-poking, but Peach still lacks a move that KOs at low percentages, which forces her to rack up damage and edgeguard for kills.

Moveset

Ground Attacks

Normal

• Neutral Attack - Slaps the opponent twice, though the first hit is usually used to start combos. 1-3% damage first hit, 1-2% damage second hit.
• Dash Attack - Lunges forward and splits her hands apart. 3-12% damage.
• Forward Tilt - Does an 180 degree kick. 3-13% damage.
• Up Tilt - Bashes her crown upwards. 6-12% damage.
• Down Tilt - Sweeps the ground with her arm. It Meteor Smashes if the opponent hits her forearm. 6-12% damage.

Smash Attacks

• Forward Smash - "Peach Swing", swings the following in order:
  • Frying Pan. Extremeley large knockback. Shortest range out of all her moves. Hits slightly behind her. 17-23% damage.
  • Tennis Racket. Very weak. Only has horizontal knockback, and very little vertical knockback. 12-16% damage.
  • Golf Club. Chucks the foe at a 45 degree angle. Huge range. Quite powerful when hit at the tip. Capable of killing at low percents. 13%-23% damage.
• Up Smash - Quick upwards slap. One of the Strongest Up Smashes in the game. 8-25% damage.
• Down Smash - Spins around to the ground, multiple hits, and also acts as a semi-spike. Most damaging move in all series. If near an edge, and all hits connect, can instant kill. This move can also block the strongest attacks in the game, as well as block projectiles. Arguably considered the best Down Smash in the game. 6-95% damage.

Other attacks

• Ledge Attack - Launches herself off the ledge to a short distance on the stage, rear first. 6% damage.
• 100% Ledge Attack - Slowly gets up and swirls her foot in a 360° motion in front of herself, similar to Mario's Down Smash, only much weaker and with less range. 10% damage.
• Floor Attack - Swirls herself around in a similar fashion to Mario's Down Smash. 6% damage.

Aerial Attacks

• Neutral Aerial - Twirls in the air. 4-14% damage.
• Forward Aerial - Bashes her crown in front of her for huge knockback. 8-15% damage.
• Back Aerial - Bashes her hip backwards for good knockback. 5-14% damage.
• Up Aerial - A quick kick at an upwards angle. 7-14% damage.
• Down Aerial - Kicks downward four times. 1-11% damage.

Grab and Throws

• Pummel - Stomps opponent with foot. 1-3% damage.
• Forward Throw - Throws her foe in front of her for big knockback. Strongest Forward Throw in the game. 1-10% damage.
• Back Throw - Puts opponent behind her and hits them with her hip. 6-11% damage.
• Up Throw - Punches foe in the gut, forcing them up. Often used for chain grabbing. 4-9% damage.
• Down Throw - Puts opponent down and sits on them. 3-7% damage.

Special Moves

Peach's Special Moves
	Melee	Brawl	3DS/Wii U	Ultimate
Standard Special	Toad
Side Special	Peach Bomber
Up Special	Peach Parasol
Down Special	Vegetable
Final Smash	—	Peach Blossom

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

VS. Melee strategies

Recovery

Peach's recovery is very versatile due to the fact that she can manipulate her movement in many ways. When normally hit off-stage, she will still have a double jump, a third jump or air dodge, and her float. The player will want to either go over the opponent (usually with a double jump and float) or sweet spot the ledge with her Up B - this method being vulnerable to edgehogs. The Peach Parasol has amazing range, and its disjointed hitbox can easily edgehog many opponents, unlike Marth, who will usually not do damage with a sweetspotted Up B. If the player does not use the Up B, they can air dodge and if so, they can use this aerial evasion to cancel your second jump. If the player does use the Up B, they are still not out of options because the player can open and close the parasol to drastically alter falling speed in order to avoid being hit.

Wall Bombing

To initiate the Wall Bombing, the player must start it immediately after they 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 base, the player will usually only see this technique employed on Final Destination. The follow-up Wall Bomb is more difficult than it may readily appear. The player can't be too close to the stage to initiate the Wall Bomb and the Peach Bomber must be Smashed each time or they will simply be unable to reach the stage.

Peach is one of the few characters that can do any sort of lengthy stalling; the player 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, the player can actually move up a wall or stall indefinitely; this tactic (Wall Bombing to stall) is banned in tournament play.

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% for Fox and Captain Falcon, and closer to 90% for Falco. The opponent can DI, wiggle, and/or Shine out of the chain.
• Downthrow into ... - If an opponent DI's upward, expecting a Forward Throw, the player can chain grab them with their Down Throw, they can even chain more floaty characters with it. Peach can also has many more options out of her Down Throw, she can F-Tilt them, Dash Attack them regardless of DI, Neutral Air them, or even Up Smash them. Characters with little stun can DI, wiggle, and Neutral Air out of this, though, but usually, the player can just trade hits with them, with attack of their own. It is however, dangerous to Down Throw characters like Luigi, who have very strong, high priority Neutral Airs.
• If the player Dash Attacks a fast-falling character at around 40-60%, they can follow his or her DI--if there is any--with a grab, which can be followed up into a chaingrab.
• When an opponent is grabbed by another character, the player 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 along with Yoshi. 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 the player to mindgame the opponent.
  • When people are recovering from a small distance away slightly below the edge, the player 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.

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. The player 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.

Trophy descriptions

In addition to the normal trophy about Peach as a character, there are two trophies about her as a fighter, unlocked by completing the Adventure and All-Star modes respectively with Peach on any difficulty:

Peach

Princess Peach presides over the Mushroom Kingdom from her huge castle. Her loyal subject Toad does his best to protect her but always seems to fail spectacularly. Besides her royal duties, Peach is interested in both tennis and golf; since she's so magnanimous, she'll even deign to play a few matches with the evil Bowser.

• Super Mario Bros., 10/85

Peach (Smash Red)

Peach's ability to float is invaluable in Super Smash Bros. Melee, as she can return from incredible distances. Balancing this talent, though, is the fact that she's quite light and can be sent flying with a single powerful attack. Her attacks are fairly weak, so you'll have to hang around to win.

• B: Toad
• Smash B: Peach Bomber

Peach (Smash Blue)

Peach's Smash A attack will set her swinging with either a frying pan, tennis racket, or golf club. These bludgeoning devices appear randomly and have different reaches and power levels. The princess uses Toad to absorb attacks, and he counters by sending spores out at attackers. Don't worry about the little guy, though; he takes his job seriously.

• Up & B: Peach Parasol
• Down & B: Vegetable

Character trophy

Smash Red

Smash Blue

Costume Gallery

Peach's alternate costumes in SSBM

Trivia

• If a player pauses the game and rotates the camera when Peach's dress is open, bloomers in the color of her current outfit can be seen. However, if looked at just the right spot, there'll be no waistline.
• When Peach uses the Parasol item, her Up B animation still remains the same, but with the Parasol item in her hand instead.
• Peach, Marth, and Roy are the only characters in Melee with a special move that can counter.
• Peach is only character that can reuse her Up B move, with a simple tilt up and down.
• If Peach taunts on the Icicle Mountain stage when it is moving upwards, her dress will fly up, easily revealing her bloomers.

External Links

• Nintendorks' Page on Peach (and the picture at the top)
• Sskeeto for Home Run Contest strategies