March 23, 2008

SSBB Character Analysis: Bowser

Hey look everyone it's our favorite lovable giant dinosaur/reptile thingy. No its not Barney, it's Bowser! Hooray Bowser!!! Please don't kill us.....

Alright then, this giant not so purple and not so lovable dinosaur is the "tank" of SSBB. Second heaviest character in the entire game (King DeeDeeDee is the first) and one of the strongest of the power characters, Bowser is an intimidating foe who takes advantage of his large weight and awesome strength to pummel his opponents to death.





Pros:
-Very heavy
-Fairly fast for a power character
-Powerful smash attacks
-Works very well in team battles
-Does well against many balance characters

Cons:
-Big target
-Bad recovery
-Vulnerable to projectiles
-Has a hard time fighting anyone faster than him
-Very vulnerable to edge guarding

I really like Bowser in Brawl. In melee he was among one of the worst characters, to slow to be useful and not as strong as the other power characters. Now in Brawl he is much faster and stronger with a lot more combo options.

In case you can't tell, Bowser is a very big and powerful character. One well placed smash can sending you flying across the screen into oblivion. Bowser does well in team battles by acting as a meat shield while his ally does monster amounts of damage to the opponents, Bowser himself is also useful because of his size. His attack can usually hit two people at once, even if they are on different platforms. And as far as power characters go, this guy is has pretty average speed when attacking, but not so much when dashing. I would say Bowser has his biggest advantage over the average to slower speed balance characters like Luigi and Jigglypuff.

Being big is useful, but it is also a weakness. Bowser can be hit from anywhere on the stage because of his size. His size also makes him vulnerable to edge guarding where his opponents can easily hop down and smack him into oblivion. The last thing that Bowser size puts him at a disadvantage is that he is very vulnerable to projectiles, especially on flat stages where he really can't do anything but try to shield himself and dodge. The fat fire breathing turtle really struggles with anyone faster than him, he can't land smashes against faster characters easily which takes away his power advantage. The most frustrating part about playing Bowser is that he can take a lot of damage, but when he finally gets hit of the stage he has a horrible recovery! In the end bowser is a better character than he was in melee. This doesn't mean he is a top tier character however, he has simply moved up from the horrible character level, to a decent playable character level.

Summary: A giant, powerful, turtle monster who can easily destroy lighter slower foes but struggles against faster ones. His size is his greatest advantage and weakness.

Counter with: Wolf, Fox, Olimar, Captain Falcon

Not recommend to use against: Jigglypuff, Mario, Lugi, Peach

Final Review:

Learning Curve: 2- Bowser is one of the easiest characters to master

Power: 9.5- the only one stronger than him is Gannondorf, I still prefer Bowser over him though

Speed: 2- Pretty slow dasher, but an average speed attacker.

Recovery
: 1.5- Absolutely horrible

Throws: 4- They are actually really weak for a power character

Overall: 6.5





2 comments:

  1. Bowser is faster, yes, but I think you're completely over exaggerating. First of all, Dedede is definitely faster. I believe Gannon is too, though he seems slower now. I still think Bowser is the slowest character, but he's still faster than he was.

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  2. N-man is correct, after playing Bowser again i realized he is not definitely average speed. It was probably just a misconception since the change in his speed was so dramatic from melee to brawl. However, his dashing speed is still slow, but his attack speed in my opinion is much faster about at an average level. Yes gannon might be a little bit faster with dashing but gannon is a slower attacker. Deeedeedee however is faster in attack and dashing speed. All changes have been applied to the review.

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