The original creator behind Waluigi shows off the concept art and design for an evil version of Princess Peach that was rejected during development.
The creator and designer behind Waluigi recently revealed some concept art regarding a rejected pitch for an evil version of Princess Peach from the Super Mario franchise. Nintendo’s Mario and Luigi are usually accosted by their evil, greedy mirrors in various spin-off titles, Wario and Waluigi. Despite them mainly appearing in spin-offs instead of mainline Mario platformers, both of Mario’s rival characters have a passionate fanbase. Waluigi, in particular, has become a beloved character in his own right.
During the development of Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64, Camelot had designed Waluigi as a complementary partner to Wario, since the game had a doubles mode and there weren’t many characters that would be able to work with him. While reception to Waluigi was pretty cold at the time, he still ended up being brought onto the playable roster of other console spin-offs like Mario Party 3 and Mario Kart: Double Dash as Wario’s partner. Before the release of Camelot’s Mario Power Tennis on the GameCube, the developer wanted to pitch a Wario-like evil version of Princess Peach to fill out the roster, though this was rejected by Shigeru Miyamoto himself.
