Bowser (SSBM)

Bowser in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Universe	Mario
Other playable appearance	in Brawl
Availability	Starter
Tier	G (24)

“

A mighty foe that trades speed for pure power. (Melee's instruction manual)

”

Bowser (クッパ, Kuppa: Koopa), is a character in Super Smash Bros. Melee and is available from the start. Announced at E3 2001, a stronger form of Bowser also appears as the "final" boss in Adventure Mode.

Bowser is currently ranked 24th in the G tier in the current Melee tier list. Among Bowser's positive traits is his difficulty in getting KO'd due to his high weight and rather fast falling speed. Additionally, he has among the most powerful attacks in the game (most notably his forward smash), as well as some very good aerial attacks, most notably his forward and upward aerial. However, he suffers due to his large size and weight and also his large periods of hitstun, making him extremely easy to combo. His moves are also very sluggish, and his approach is among the worst in the game, with laggy aerials, poor jumping ability (leading to an awful SHFFL), a short wavedash, poor projectile and slow, predictable recovery, resulting in largely unfavorable matchups, only three of which are even.

Appearance in Melee

Bowser is one of the few characters who has a different name in the Japanese version of Melee. In the English version, his name is "Bowser", but in the aforementioned Japanese version, his name is "Koopa". The name "Koopa" comes from the fact that in the original Mario series, he evolved from a Koopa Troopa.

Attributes

Bowser is the heaviest and largest character in the game. This means that it takes many hits to KO Bowser, but landing those hits is easy (although having by far the largest shield in the game can help this problem). As one would expect from a large heavyweight, Bowser has very powerful, yet very slow, attacks. In the air, Bowser's forward aerial has great power, and his up aerial is very powerful as well. However, all of his aerial attacks are laggy if not L-canceled. Bowser has decent range and large hitboxes for most of his moves, but his standing grab range is awful (resulting in a terrible shield grab). Bowser's side special move, Koopa Klaw, can grab opponents and throw them with 1.3 times normal throw power, or can slash opponents which throws them into the air. Bowser is relatively slow on both the air and the ground, and his wavedash is very slow and near useless (except when used as a waveland) due to his very slow jumping. Bowser's very slow jumping and landing animation is one of the major, if the not the biggest, reasons he is so slow. Bowser has good edgeguarding tactics (e.g. fire breath), but a lot of his KOs are dependent on his ability to edgeguard opponents, which means they must first be off the edge. Bowser's up special recovery move, Whirling Fortress, is useful and very fast. However, like Donkey Kong's Spinning Kong, it mostly only goes horizontally and has poor vertical recovery. Bowser's neutral special move, Fire Breath, acts as Bowser's projectile. However, Bowser lacks a reliable way to deal with opponents' projectiles.

What really hurts Bowser the most, however, is combos, or susceptibility to thereof. Bowser is one the easiest characters (if not the easiest character) in the game to combo (due to being large, extremely heavy, and falling relatively quickly). He also has very poor combos. The few combos that he has only work on three characters, are not guaranteed (they can be escaped with proper DI), and are generally only two hit combos. Having such problems with combos are truly problematic at high level play.

Moveset

Ground attacks

Normal

• Neutral attack- Bowser scratches with his left claw, and then his right claw. 8%-11% damage when both hits connect. Noticeable killing potential at higher damages.
• Dash attack- Bowser charges forward. Decent knockback, but easily countered due to starting and ending lag. 6%-11%
• Forward tilt- Bowser hits with his knuckle. Has a bit of start up lag and little range, but high priority and fairly good knockback for a tilt. 6%-14%
• Down tilt- Bowser slashes along the ground with his claws. Two hits. First hit doesn't have much knockback, but the second hit is fairly slow. 7%-22%
• Up tilt- Bowser claws upward. Good knockback, good for setting up comboes. 7%-11%

Smashes

• Forward smash- Bowser rears back for a short moment, and hits incredibly hard with his head. Very high damage and knockback, though suffers from a lot of lag in general. It is the Strongest Forward Smash attack in the game and kos at around 15-30%. 24%-32%
• Down smash- Bowser spins around in his shell, doing great damage with multiple hits from his spines. Subpar range, can be DI'd out of, and has noticeable ending lag, but still powerful nonetheless. 1%-27%, depending on number of hits.
• Up smash- Bowser jumps upward, hitting with his spikes. A powerful attack in general. 11%-27%

Other attacks

• Ledge attack- Swings many times inside his shell forwards to the stage. 8% damage
• 100% ledge attack- Gets up and swipes. 10% damage
• Floor attack- A laggy attack, Bowser shortly gets up and swipes in front, then gets back down for a second before thrusting both his feet out. 6% damage.

Aerials

• Neutral aerial- Bowser spins around in his shell. Low knockback, but long duration. 7%-13%
• Forward aerial- Bowser slashes forward in midair. Good knockback and edgeguarding option. 9%-14%
• Back aerial- Bowser hits backward with his shell. Great knockback, good edgeguarding option when used in a SHFFL or ledge hop. 8%-13%
• Down aerial- Bowser spins downwards, hitting with the spikes on his shell. Not much knockback or damage, small hitbox, but releases a shockwave upon hitting the ground. 1%-15%, depending on number of connecting hits.
• Up aerial- Bowser hits upward hard with his head. Very high knockback, but one of Bowser's slower moves. It is the strongest up aerial and one of the most powerful aerials in the game (it is stronger than Ganondorf's down aerial on grounded opponents). 9%-17%

Grabs

• Pummel- Bites foe. 2-3% per pummel.
• Forward throw- Bowser throws his foe forward. Kills at high percentages 5%-10%
• Back throw- Bowser throws his foe backward. 5%-10%
• Up throw- Bowser throws his foe upward a short distance and on his shell, doing damage to the opponent while spinning. Has set knockback and can chaingrab fastfallers. 5%-9%
• Down throw- Bowser throws his foe on the ground and lands on them with tremendous force. 6%-12%

Special moves

Bowser's special moves

Neutral special	Fire Breath
Side special	Koopa Klaw	Flying Slam
Up special	Whirling Fortress
Down special	Bowser Bomb

Taunt

• Roar (0%): Bowser roars while facing upwards.

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

In single-player modes

In Classic Mode

In Classic Mode, Bowser can appear as an ordinary opponent, in a team with Mario, Zelda, Mewtwo or Peach, as a giant opponent, as a metal opponent, or as an ally in the team and giant battles.

In his appearances, Bowser appears on either Battlefield or Princess Peach's Castle. Unusually, if fought as a giant character, he will appear on Fountain of Dreams.

In Adventure Mode

In Adventure Mode, Bowser acts as a final boss of sorts, fought on the last stage, Stage 12: Final Destination. In this appearance, he is larger than usual; KOing him under some circumstances will allow the game to be concluded.

On Normal and higher difficulties, however, Bowser will return to the stage as Giga Bowser, if the player's run has lasted less than 18 minutes, and if they have not used a continue. The player is then faced with one last challenge: defeat Giga Bowser once to clear the game.

In All-Star Mode

In All-Star Mode, Bowser and his allies are fought on Yoshi's Island.

In Event Matches

Bowser makes the following appearances in the following event matches:

• Event 1: Trouble King: Bowser is the first opponent of the event mode. The player plays as Mario, and Mario and Bowser have 2 stock each in an untimed match on the Battlefield stage. KO Bowser twice to win, which is an easy objective because Bowser is lighter than usual and has less competent AI.
• Event 10: All-Star Match 1: Bowser is the last of five opponents the player must fight in this series of staged battles. The player's character battles him on the Rainbow Cruise stage, and their character has 2 stock while Bowser has 1. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him and the other four characters one-by-one with the overall time and life the player has: Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Peach beforehand.
• Event 17: Bounty Hunters: In this original scenario, the player plays as Samus teamed up with Captain Falcon (with Friendly Fire turned off), and the shared opponent is Bowser on the Jungle Japes stage. With everyone receiving one stock and 2:00 as the time limit, the goal is to be the one to KO Bowser. The player fails if Captain Falcon delivers the finishing blow or if Bowser suicides.
• Event 19: Peach's Peril: A scenario designed in homage to the standard plot of traditional Super Mario games of Bowser being after Peach and Mario saving her. The player plays as Mario teamed with Peach, whose AI is set on walking to each end of the stage aimlessly, and they each have 1 stock while the enemy Bowser has infinite stock. Bowser is especially strong and durable in this match, and he will attack either of them in the area on the Final Destination stage. The objective is to last a full minute with both Mario and Peach surviving by the end, and high score is determined by how many times Mario can KO Bowser.
• Event 25: Gargantuans: A scenario designed in homage to old, campy monster movies like Godzilla and King Kong. On the Fourside stage, with unlimited time, the player plays as a giant-sized Bowser (as "Godzilla") with 1 stock against a giant-sized Donkey Kong (as "King Kong") with two stock. Two other characters on the match are a tiny Mario and a tiny Peach, who will be K.O.'d within seconds of the battle between the two main monsters.
• Event 42: Trouble King 2: This tough event takes place in Poké Floats. The player controls Luigi against a giant Bowser in an untimed match where the two of them have a stock of two each.

Ending Images

• 

  Classic Mode.

• 

  Adventure Mode.

• 

  All-Star Mode.

Trophy descriptions

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

Bowser

Bowser has a long history of kidnapping Princess Peach to lure his nemesis, Mario, into traps. He leads an enormous group of mischievous creatures, not the least of which are his seven children. With outrageous strength, flammable breath, and more spikes than you can shake a Star Rod at, Bowser is a constant threat.

Bowser (Smash Red)

In many ways, Bowser is the toughest character around. Not only does he have near-impervious hide, but his great mass makes him almost impossible to hurl offscreen. Of course, his weight also makes him rather slow to maneuver, so when facing him in battle, it's best to press your attack and not give him a chance to counter.

• B: Fire Breath
• Smash B: Koopa Klaw

Bowser (Smash Blue)

Bowser's Fire Breath strikes continuously, but it grows gradually smaller over time until it's barely smoldering. The Koopa Klaw rakes enemies at a distance and pulls nearby foes in close for a good gnawing. Bowser's Whirling Fortress moves laterally over the ground; it works in midair as a recovery. The Bowser Bomb is powerful and paves the way for more attacks.

• Up & B: Whirling Fortress
• Down & B: Bowser Bomb

• 
• 

  Smash Red

• 

  Smash blue

Costumes

Bowser's palette swaps in SSBM

Trivia

• The roar from his taunt hails from Super Mario 64; whenever he was defeated, he would roar like that.
• In the Super Smash Bros. Melee mini movie, Bowser is the only character not to appear with his series. Bowser is from the Mario series and he appears right after Captain Falcon.