Walpeach, or Priech, also known as Wapeach, was a conceptualized rival for Princess Peach who was originally planned to appear in Mario Tennis for Nintendo 64 and Mario Power Tennis for the Nintendo GameCube.
History[]
During development of Mario Tennis for Nintendo 64, there was an idea to include a Warui Peach character to rival Princess Peach, in a similar vein to how Wario rivals Mario. However, Shigeru Miyamoto rejected the concept to avoid similarities to Doronjo and the Doronbo gang from the Yatterman series, as Wario and Waluigi already bore a resemblance to Tonzura and Boyacky.
Another attempt to include Walpeach as a playable character was made during development of Mario Power Tennis for Nintendo GameCube. She was designed by Fumihide Aoki and was considered to be a "Fallen angel" who would have had an intimidating personality when she is angry. Walpeach also has a fondness for cherries similar to Wario's fondness for garlic.
She is depicted as a young descendant to a fallen royal family with round cone-shaped accessories on the sides of her head that would have moved to express emotions. Concept art also shows her holding a large axe and one idea was to give Walpeach a dragon-like Yoshi character possessing horns and wings to interact with.
Aoki designed Walpeach with the intention of "defying everyone's expectations in a good way"; such as her age and how she would have bossed around Wario and Waluigi (which was a tribute the Doronbo gang from Yatterman). Regardless, she went unused in the final product despite having a model made. The reason was apparently due to her lacking a partner of her own when all other characters were in pairs. Her concept would be in the dark until 2023 when Aoki revealed her existence. Afterward though, his instagram account went private.
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Trivia[]
- When Walpeach was rejected by Nintendo in Mario Tennis, they suggested using existing Mario characters such as Birdo or Princess Daisy to fill the spot as Princess Peach's companion. Daisy was chosen for Peach while Birdo was also added to the game as Yoshi's companion.