Peach's Castle
Princess Peach’s Castle, also referred to as Mushroom Castle, is the residence of the Mushroom Kingdom's Ruler and some some of the royal staff. Located near Toad Town, it is an icon of the Kingdom as a whole. It is often renovated, mostly because of damages sustained during invasions, though sometimes just for fun.
History
Ancient History
At some point in the Mushroom Kingdom's history, the castle was established (likely deliberatly) near Shooting Star Summit, becoming the residence of the royal family of the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach's ancestors.
Rosalina grew up in Mushroom castle. Even back then, it had a recognizable design, with its silhouette having two pairs of towers with a much taller tower in the center. Of course, Rosalina's family also lived in the castle, being the royal family.
Yoshi's Island DS
While sleeping on the tallest tower of the castle, Baby Peach was suddenly taken away by a Toadie to the distress of whoever her caretaker was.
Despite only being seen from one angle, a lot can be gleaned from the castle's design. The castle was likely surrounded by a ring of water, the walls keeping the outer ground made likely out of some type of stone. The wooden bridge leading to the entrance are paired with small towers designed after the castle's own towers.
In terms of colors, the walls are bricked yellow with the conical roofs being plated with pink fish scale tiles. Outside of that, large shrubbery outside of the castle can also be seen growing.
Some time later, Baby Peach was brought back home after a long adventure.
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Past)
During a scuffle between Baby Mario and Baby Bowser, their fight was suddenly cut off due to the sudden invasion of the Shroobs, an alien race that began their invasion by attacking the castle and turning it into Shroob Castle.
A full frontal look of the castle shows that the castle's triangular flags on top of the towers are a red-toned mushroom. Speaking of towers, there are 7 of them; 4 lower ones close to the center, 2 medium-height with windows on the conical roof facing away from eachother, and a central tower with the window on the roof facing forward. The latter three towers hold the aforementioned flags.
Below the central tower is another rectangular building with three arched windows with pink accents surrounding them. The pink fish scale plating is present, but only on the roof of that rectangular building as the same bricking method used on the walls is shared with the conical roofs of the towers themselves. An area with what looks like a green carpet can be seen in front of the building that connects to the two medium-height tower's openings.
To the front of the castle, below that path holds another protrusion with a pink gable roof and an arched window in front of it. Finally, surrounding the castle itself are tall pink walls filled with greenery such as shrubs and trees, with another opening in the front leading to Toad Town.
The interior of the castle itself is not shy of mushroom iconography, with mushrooms outlining the purple in the red-yellow-purple-orange carpets, double-doors shaped like a mushroom with mushroom reliefs carved around those doors, the white marble's pattern hiding a mushroom, mushroom-shaped windows in the throne room, and mushroom-shaped lamps surrounding the pillar stands surrounding the throne room.
The throne itself also can't stop referencing mushrooms, with the center icon of this yellow seat being a mushroom, and above it a pair of blue mushrooms with a center yellow one placed just above the throne.
When invaded by the Shroobs, the castle was completely overhauled with Shroob imagery and decor. Their defeat at the hands of the Mario Bros. of present and future lead to the repair of the castle back to how it once was.
Super Mario Bros. 3
While not seen in the NES original, the interior of the castle was seen in Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. The walls and pillars were again pink, with a more simplified rectangular window and the floor being orange. Between each pillar is a tapestry with a simple orange-yellow diamond pattern with white accents outside the tapestry, and red curtains on the top.
Super Mario RPG
Mario's return from Bandit's Way saw the Mushroom Castle overtaken by the Smithy Gang's own Claymorton.
The castle gained a complete visual overhaul. Still retaining the fish scale tiling on the roofs, but they were now blue instead of the usual pink. And yellow flags hung over a number of the towers, of which there were now 9.
The style of the castle forgoes the mushroom imagery to look even more like a European castle than before, with grey bricks layered underneath pristine white brick patterning. The windows turned more gothic, with pointed arch windows replacing the more soft arched endings. The support beams decorating is a spiral, its garnet coloring shared with the wooden support lined up in each room.
What's been newly established in this iteration of the castle is Peach's Room, a white bedroom with a gold-accented fireplace and a pink frilly bed with a blue chair with golden accents, a guest room with another fireplace and a blue simpler bed, and a vault room with just three treasure chests.
The throne room is built for the throne itself to be placed high above the subjects, the throne itself simply being a golden chair with blue cushioning and a lot of royal accenting and decorations.
Turtle Bridge (Modern)
What's most likely the Mushroom Castle appears in this event wherein Toad must deliver presents from Mario to Princess Peach.
The realistic bricking pattern of the walls has turned from a white color to a pure black
Chef (Modern)
For the first time, the castle of the castle can be seen. The walls have now been changed to a yellow coloring, with red supports now lining up the walls. The window curtains are now a yellow coloring. And the floor is in a green-light green checkerboard pattern.
As for what might be the exterior, it's shown the roofs are now a mansard red one and the exterior bricks have turned white. Rectangular windows with tinier windows above are seen lined up along the walls and towers, of which three can be seen and are of equal height. The only exception to this rectangular window patterning is the center entrance protrusion due to the windows ending on a more circular top.
Fire (Modern)
This area of the castle was under attack by a raging fire inside, with the people inside needing to evacuate. Luckily, Mario & Luigi has their trampolines to safely escort those in danger inside the care stationed outside.
This area of the castle is once again lined up with white brick walls with a square opening with round edges at the entrance. The more orange tint of the conical roofs can also be seen accenting the walkable extensions of the towers.
Oddly enough, the farthest tower seen has a cupola-like dome roof on the end, though it's grey while the surrounding walls are orange.
Mario's Tennis
The castle can be seen as the court background piece at the end of a tournament.
The castle has been simplified back into being a pair of towers with the central one hanging the tallest. Flags on each tower can also be seen. It also appears that the entrance to the castle is superseded by a climb upwards a flight of stairs.
Mario Party 2
Despite not being the castle itself, what looks to be a replica of the castle can be seen in Mario Land's Mystery Land area.
The iconic pair of low-hanging towers with a taller tower can certainly be seen despite the fog and trees covering up most of the detail.
Wrecking Crew '98
Peach's Castle can clearly be seen from the front and has seen a full renovation.
While keeping the white bricking, the main building now supports a pair of bartizan towers with orange triangular roofs with white triangular flags that ends with a red triangle at the end point. The main building is a mansard roof, with a tower in the middle with at least two layers, each layer getting a smaller tower with another orange roof and a window. The patterning on the roof has also changed, now using a triangular tile pattern rather than fish scale ones.
Speaking of the wooden windows, they're now nearly circular, with a light bump underneath. A pair of four windows can be seen on the main building, with one window being set on each bartizan.
The newest thing added to the castle is a gabled pentagon-shaped extension showing a stained glass portrait of Princess Peach herself. The painting was created as a response to the repeated absence of Princess Peach, with the new portrait bringing comfort to the Mushroom Kingdom citizens whenever the Princess wasn't around.[1]
Finally, the castle itself seems to be surrounded by water, with the bridge itself being made of stone. The outside area is surrounded by a wooden fence, with a dirt road visible close to the castle.
Mario Party 3
Another angle of the castle can be seen and, while the windows are seen to have protruding depth, and bivets are placed on the bridge, a waterfall on the left side can be seen streaming into the moat surrounding the castle. Trees with bulbous clumps of leafs can also be seen.
During the simplification of the world as a result of the fake Millennium Star's magic, the amount of windows on Peach's Castle reduced significantly. Zooming out, it's clearly seen how the moat surrounding Peach's Castle spreads into the lake to the right.
Behind the castle is a large mountainous rock with carvings of those who became the Superstars of this Mario Party. It's possible this is translated into Hole 3 of Peach's Castle Gardens in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour.
Paper Mario
The exterior of the castle gained an extravagant make-over, with a simple waterfall to the right of the castle. The trees surrounding the castle are now square-like with thin bodies. The path to the castle itself is now some type of processed dirt, with a waist-high fench and golden highlights on the top.
The castle has upgraded to include 4 towers surrounding the main building. The roofs have also returned to its fish scale tiling pattern, and the flags on top of the four towers is blue with a mushroom ontop. The stained glass portrait has also been replaced by a sepia-toned mushroom. The amount of windows have also been reduced to just three; on the front side towers and the center tower. The moat has been replaced by a river that flows in front of the castle, underneath the processed path and to Shooting Star Mountain to the right.
The brown entrance to the castle is emblazoned with a star in the middle.
The interior has also seen a full renovation, with black-white checkerboard tiling and red carpets highlighted with yellow. Flowers hang over the supports of the fences while blue curtains hang over the blue walls painted to resemble clouds.
The first floor holds three rooms; the left one leads to a room that's still under renovation due to the rolled-up carpets, plans of wood, and unfinished blue curtains; the middle-right room is a kitchen with appropriate ovens, ingredients, and cooking appliances; and the right room is some sort of guest room with a closet, round green carpet, and one-person bed.
Going up the stairs and heading into the center double-door, the second floor holds 5 more rooms. From left to right; a desk room with a mechanism designed to be connected to Peach's room; a two-story library; a storage room with furniture such as mirrors, chairs, and a magical chest that's been gifted to the Mushroom Kingdom royal family from the Stars that's been passed down for many generations; a quaint dining room with a clock hanging on the wall; and Peach's room which hides the aforementioned hidden mechanism, Peach's dresses, and her giant bed adorned with cloud-like decorations on the sides of it. Peach's room also has a balcony she can look out of.
Going up either of the pair of stairs leading into the center door, a long hallway with orange spiral support beams can be seen. The door after taking the hallway's stairs leads to another hallway. The door after that leads to a flight of stairs, and taking those leads to a path outside of the castle via the hidden 5th tower placed behind the center tower.
Going through that path and taking the spiral staircase eventually leads to the central tower's balcony, adorned with yellow and orange flowers to the sides.
This castle was upheaved from Toad Town by the flying Bowser's Castle during a party Peach has invited everyone for. After Bowser's defeat at the hands of Mario and his gained allies, Peach's Castle had been restored back to where it once was.
Super Mario 64
The castle returned its design to how it looked during Wrecking Crew '98; surrounded by a moat, a pair of four windows in the main building, and triangular tiling as the roof. What survived the revert were the additional two towers on the back of the castle.
The design of the interior stayed the same, despite the simplification of the clouds and hills that the painted walls now represent. What didn't stay the same were the contents of the rooms, and more rooms were added on each floor, of which there are now 3, and the basement.
While most of the rooms on the first floor don't have anything noteworthy, safe for the paintings leading into different parts of the Mushroom Kingdom, the room leading to Dire, Dire Docks seems to be an aquarium with fish seen on the four windows of the room. The main room itself sees a sun decal on the indentation of the tiling.
The basement hallways are lined with teal bricks, with torches hanging over the dark paths. Some parts of the hallways are flooded due to the moat flowing underneath the castle. A far deeper pool of water can be seen in rooms further ahead, but someone smashed the two pillars close to the underground entrance to the castle leading to the moat being drained of water.
The castle's outside courtyard is completely fortified with light red brick walling and trihex paving. The trees planted here are more conical in nature, with grass placed more on the sides. The centerpiece of this area is a fountain with a statue of a star with something scribbled on the base of the statue.
Heading up a spiral staircase via the center door of the first floor, and the second floor is a circular floor surrounded by even more paintings and a pair of rooms, one of them being a window that spreads beyond the wall itself.
Heading up the stairs of this floor, the wall paint has changed to a starry night to symbolically coincide with how high this floor is. The most striking iconography is the giant clock artificially designed to resemble a tree. The pair of stairs in this room leads to another.
This castle was invaded by Bowser and his minions, who took the Power Stars of this castle and trapped everyone, including the Princess, inside the castle's walls. The paintings were used as portals to distant locations, where Bowser ordered his minions to hide them. Although Mario, Luigi, and Wario first arrived to save the day, they too were trapped inside the portals.
It wasn't until Yoshi entered the castle afterward that he kickstarted the slow process of restoring the Power of the Stars to the castle. Mario's final defeat of Bowser and nabbing the Jumbo Star that came out of him, Peach was freed and everyone celebrated with newly-baked cake.
Mario Kart 64
The castle virtually remains the same, though it's revealed this track takes place in front of Royal Raceway.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Peach's Castle can be seen on Peach's Circuit and GBA Battle Course 3.
This design very heavily resembles the design from Paper Mario. Once again, the roof tiling is a large, wavey, fish-scale-like design, the flags on top of the surrounding towers have a blue coloring, the lack of windows on the central building, and the trapezium-shaped extension between the central tower balcony and entrance are all exclusive to its design to its design during Paper Mario.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
The roof tilings have a fish scale pattern again.
The castle has undergone another overhaul, now situated on grass again instead of a moat. It seems that all of the roofs have turned conical, not just the towers exclusively, with the four side towers having a yellow highlight lining underneath it. They've also combined the windows on the roofs, exclusively only seen during Partners in Time (Past) at first, with the windows on the wall towers creating two windows on each tower.
The stained glass portrait of Princess Peach is still visible, though it's caused the white accents of the central building roof to create a semi-gothic arc to move around the portrait. The reason for this circumvention is the castle being much shorter than previous designs, only having enough space for two pairs of windows on each side of the central building.
The bridge leading to the castle remains bricked white, though with a curve and stars on the stands of the beginning end of the bridge. The triangular flags on each tower, including the center, are now pink with yellow highlights on the side.
The only interior room we can see is the throne room. White support beams with yellow rings surrounding parts of the base and stem can be seen. The carpet is an intricate design with what may be the Mushroom Kingdom's Coat of Arms. Those same designs can also be seen on the flags hanging off of those support towers.
The throne itself is a detailed golden with pink cushioning and a mushroom icon behind it. The curtains hanging above the ceiling and behind the throne itself are also pink, with yellow highlights as well. Behind the throne is an expressionist stained glass painting of red, yellow, blue, and pink.
During a meeting with the ambassador of the Beanbean Kingdom, it turns out the ambassador was Cackletta in disguise, intending to steal Princess Peach's voice to awaken the Beanstar. The explosive vocabulary as a result of this voice theft destroyed some parts of the throne room.
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
The castle returned to its design from when Peach was a baby, all the way back since Partners in time (Past), so all the design philosophies that applies to the exterior and interior reapply here. It's unknown why this revert in design happen, though perhaps the unveiling of the Professor E. Gadd's time machine leading to the past sparked a nostalgia for this design.
The rest of the castle is visible, though, meaning more rooms can be seen.
To the far south of the throne room is a garden with patched grass spread throughout. Heading to the left of the garden are two pairs of guest rooms. The bottom room is a more brown one-person designed for gardening due to the pottery and mini garden present, and the upper room is a starry-themed guest room with two beds. Both beds have star-shaped pillows.
From the east of the throne room is a food and badge shop. Both the west and east side of the throne room have a fleet of stairs bricked in blue that leads to the second floor of the castle.
The first immediate room on the second floor is the large library with several scattered bookshelves spread throughout the room. Beyond the library is a large outdoors series of hallways. The closest room is the right doorless opening, which leads to Peach's room, once again a big pink fluffy bed but with pink translucent drapes hanging over it.
The middle opening is an absurdly large fleet of stairs that leads to the bottom balcony of the castle. It's the left opening that actually leads to the third floor of the castle.
The third floor holds nothing remarkable, safe for the balcony and the 6 bronze statues of Peach praying.
During the events of Partners in Time, large time holes opened up throughout the castle's rooms, opening up a bridge between the present and the past. It was a long back-and-forth adventure between the Mario Bros. of present and past, but Peach was safely recovered and the time holes closed up not soon after.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis
Although not seen, one of the attractions in Super Mini Mario World uses the likeness of one of Peach's Castle, more specifically its iteration during Super Mario 64. The decal of the exterior gives the roof and walls a pink tint. There also also now two pairs of 6 windows on the main building.
The attraction based on the interior of Peach's Castle has more pink walls and support beams. What looks like the second story uses a blurple-white checkerboard pattern. The most striking design element are the three-arched windows with stained glass paintings of roses.
The banners on the ceiling are also orange and yellow, though they're now separated by color unlike how the interior of Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 showed the banners.
Mario Golf (N64)
A Mini-Golf course titled Peach's Castle is definitely there, but the castle itself does not appear at all throughout this golf course. Instead, it's an outdoor area with bushy white-blue striped trees surrounding it.
Mario Golf (GBC)
The castle's on a cloud this time.
Peach's Castle makes its physical appearance known and, from its exterior, it's returned to its "two-tower high-tower" design, though the roofs notably use a crenellation style rather than being conical. The center tower is the only one holding a flag as well.
The outside of the castle is a lot more different, with brick tiling on grass and crenellation-style walls on the first layers of the castle walls. There's also a doormat.
Mario Tennis (GBC)
The interior of the castle can now be seen. While the bottom area has a pink-white checkerboard pattern, the main area uses exclusively pink tiles. The main area holds a sun decal first seen in its rendition in Super Mario 64. The star statues, of which there was originally one in the Courtyard, have now doubled by two and stand next to the sun decal.
The tapestry hanging on the wall is of a heart with protrusions resembling a sun. This iconography is shared with the castle's other room: the private tennis court. While it's seen on that court's tapestry, the court itself has a different use for the heart, now having it sprout sharp wings instead.
Mario Party 4
The exterior of the castle is shared with how it looked during Mario Party 3 due to the protrusions of the window accents.
The castle itself is situated in the middle of a very empty, flat forest.
Appearance
Despite frequently changing appearance, some aspects of the castle remain intact, keeping it recognizable.
Placement
The entrance to Peach's Castle is always geographically placed south, so any map using Peach's Castle must abide to this consistency.
- Toad Town is always placed in front of the castle's entrance.
- World 1 of New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario 3D Land, and New Super Mario Bros. 2 are placed southeast of the castle. However, NSMB, NSMBW, and NSMB2 all depict a unique distance away from the castle according to the world map, creating an order of distance from closest to farthest:
- World 1 of New Super Mario Bros. 2, as the path from the castle to 1-1 is a straight line.
- World 1 of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, as the path from the castle to 1-1 has a sharp curve now.
- World 1 of New Super Mario Bros., as that's where the castle is the furthest away, accentuated by the shrubbery between the castle and the path.
- According to the rooftops stage of Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again, Super Mini Mario World is close to Peach's Castle.
- Hole 8 of Peach's Castle Grounds in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour is meant to resemble Bob-omb Battlefield, putting the two locations close together.
- Mario Tennis: Power Tour reveals the Peach Dome to be close to Peach's Castle. At the same time, its airport is also located close to the castle.
References
- ↑ A Lovely Portrait in Glass: "Because Princess Peach is so often absent from her kingdom, her citizens took it upon themselves to create a stained-glass portrait of her on the castle balcony. While a pale reflection of the genuine article, the portrait brings comfort to the citizenry when their princess can't be with them.", Super Mario Odyssey
