Bowser and his Boards: An analysis of the Dislike for the Koopa King

[Red Arremer]

So. Bowser is hardly played at all. And therefore, his boards are just as lively as a ghost town. I was thinking about what the reasons are that Bowser is very disliked among other players and how we could solve these problems to bring life into our very lonely character boards. Funny enough, the DK boards suffer a similar problem, but no other boards than the Bowser boards have less views, threads and postings.

Reason 1: Mid-Tier Position
Unlike in Melee, where Bowser was a Low-Tier and liked for that mere reason, Bowser is Mid-Tier in Brawl. Hand in hand with this comes something I will adress next. Now, Bowser is neither High nor Low Tier, but Mid Tier this time around. Mid Tier is huge in Brawl (almost as hueg liek an XBox), so that means he's not really noticed that much.
Generally you may have noticed that many Mid-Tier characters don't recieve as much attention than the Low- and High Tiers. I mean, the Ganondorf boards are far more active than we are. That's almost sad, if you ask me. What people don't realize, though, is that a mid-tier as secondary is not a bad idea, especially when they cover your character's worst matchup. Seeing how Bowser goes even with MK, he is one of the few characters who can prevail in a match vs. Meta Knight without being Meta Knight.
Bowser is without a doubt a good character, but very people don't realize his potential because they never faced a competent Bowser or never faced one at all.

Solution to Problem 1: Make Bowser's strengths and his even matchup with MK more public. People need to realize that Bowser is worth playing despite his many 40:60-MUs and despite the fact his big - which I will adress, as well...


Reason 2: No Famous Players
As dumb as it sounds, it's true. MK has Mew2King, Kirby has ChuDat, Diddy has NinjaLink. The list goes on. Bowser lost his most famous player, Gimpyfish, with the change from Melee to Brawl. Now left are Sliq and Vex - both without a doubt great and respected players - but unfortunately they aren't famous. And aren't as present on tournaments. The Bowser boards have noone who represents them and wins tournaments or at least places high regularly. We have no famous name, which is one of the reasons that the Smash community doesn't see Bowser's potential.

Solution to Problem 2: There is no real solution for this, other than that we try to get famous players interested in Bowser. I have no idea how that would work, but meh. The other thing is of course going to more tournament and placing regularly. I know easier said than done. <_<


Reason 3: Assumptions of Non-Bowser Players
"Bowser is heavy, so he lives long, but he is slow, fat and his recovery sucks. He's easy to beat."
As we all know, outside of the Bowser boards, this is the common opinion of people to the King of Koopas. One of the reasons for that is probably Melee Bowser's spirit still lingering around in the seasoned players' memories, and noone showing what Bowser really can do.
People also have to realize and see that Bowser is in fact neither slow nor that his recovery is bad. Many don't even know of the Klaw Hop or worse - the invincibility frames on the Fortress. It's sad that we have to say the same things over and over again because noone knows Bowser.
The fact Dedede has an infinite on us doesn't make it easier - maybe you may have noticed how the 5 characters suffering from that are among the least played except for Luigi.

Solution to Problem 3: I guess it's the same as the solution to Problem 1... We have to make people realize that Bowser isn't Bottom Tier and has even Match Ups with MK, and 40:60 ones with almost every other character.


So... overall, our problem is a circle of doom: We need more players representing him to fill out our lack of players. That's pretty bad. All we can do is advertise Bowser's even MU with MK and hope more people come into our boards... that's all.
I know this doesn't help at all, but I felt like putting down what I think our boards suffer from.

 

[MrEh]

Bowser has several crippling problems that make him very unpopular as a character. Popular characters usually have 1 or more of the following 3 attributes. Bowser has none of them.


1. The character is visually appealing
Many people use Ike and Marth because "they have a sword and they're pretty." The same thing can be said for characters like Pikachu or Kirby, because they look cute. Or for characters like Falcon and Dorf, who are flat out manly. All of these characters are visually appealing to people who pick them up. Bowser is not. He's an oversized turtle monster. Most players tend to stay away from that sort of character, since he's really not a sight for sore eyes.


2. The character has a large fanbase
Characters with large fanbases will be more popular characters. The Mario franchise in general is viewed by most people as generic and really unexciting compared to all the other series in the game. When I bought Smash 64 10 years ago, I didn't buy it to use Mario. I bought it to make Link and Pikachu beat the crap out of each other. Case in point, the Mario franchise is very unpopular when it comes to Smash, because people are probably just bored with it already. Nintendo has over saturated the Mario franchise, which is why most people don't find Mario or Luigi extremely exciting to use as their character. Bowser suffers from the same problem, and it's even worse for him because he's the villain. No one likes Bowser, that's a fact.


3. The character is actually good
Most people who play smash want to win, and what better way to do that then to use a good character? Characters like Dedede and Gdub are used a lot not because of a large fanbase or because they look cool. (It's debatable about Dedede though. I think he looks freaking hilarious. ^^) They're used a lot because they're good characters, and they offer a good chance at winning. Bowser is not a bad character, but the problem with him is that he's apparently bad to most inexperienced or new players to the game. If you ask anyone who hasn't had much experience playing Brawl, I'm pretty sure they'll say that Bowser is one of the worst, if not the worst character in the game. Bowser gets ***** at lower levels of play because he's so difficult to get used to. His disadvantages seem to outweigh his strengths, and he pretty much appears to be a bag a crap. Because of the learning curve and his apparent crappiness, many players pretty much assume that Bowser sucks. That's also a reason why a lot of people don't pick him up as a character.

If you look at all the characters from Melee that have been improved, you'll see something interesting. Characters like Gdub, Kirby, and Pikachu were all pretty bad in Melee. However, they got massive improvements in Brawl. These changes were massively apparent, which is why people now accept that these characters are now good in Brawl. Bowser was improved as well, but his changes seem so subtle to anyone who doesn't main him. Compared to Gdub, Kirby, and Pikachu, Bowser seems to be unchanged from his Melee counterpart in the eyes of most players, which is why a lot of them assume he sucks just as bad as he does in Melee.

 

[Red Arremer]

Yea. As said, his Melee Spirit still lingers around. =/

Also, interesting point of view for the "coolness" of the character, something I haven't really thought of.

 

[Bragi]

MrEh, points 2 and 3 are very valid, but I'd have to disagree with the first one. I'd have to say that Bowser's unbelievably sexy carapace and devilish good looks would be great incentives to play the character.

 

[Flayl]

Is this thread really necessary?

 

[Red Arremer]

I don't know if it's really "necessary". I just felt that I had to put my thoughts down. Sorry if I offended you or something.. <<"

 

[KRDsonic]

I personally think that the fact that Bowser doesn't have many of those "I'm pretty much guarenteed to win this match" matchups is why he isn't used much as an alt by people, and yeah, Bowser doesn't have much popularity as far as he goes, in character, which is why I guess not many people main him too. (Sorry if my grammer was bad in that sentence, I just got home so I'm tired x.x)

I've only seen one Bowser main in Houston tournys, and he's only been to one tourny (that I've seen), and the only other time I've seen Bowser used in a Houston tourny was when I used him against a Meta, in one match.

Bowser is fun to use, and he's a good character, but he just feels like a really unsafe character to use.

 

[B!squick]

When I first started, Bowser wasn't my main. I thought Game & Watch was epic now and his moves didn't know the meaning of the word lag, I liked him alot. DeDeDe is giant peguin with a hammer and when he crouches he just shows off his sexy body (and if you're holding a Smart Bomb when you do this, he punches himself in the face XD). Also, Kirby's Dreamland for the Game Boy was the first game I ever beat, so nastalgia kinda played into it too. And I knew MK was godly since the very first time I tryed playing him. Wario was also considered. Did you know he pokes you in the crotch with his grab attack? o.o Finally learning IC was thought about.

I think at some point I looked down and said to myself, "you know, I don't think anyone really plays Bowser and he's probably low tier in this game..." Sympathy on my mind, I played around with Bowser, lurked around this board for about a month and presto, I'm a Bowser main.

You know, it probably doesn't help that Bowser isn't even really the villian anymore. In Paper Mario and SM RPG, and the countless party games, Bowser isn't even a bad guy, so his coolness kinda drops when, say, you witness him crying in RPG.

And think he's dam sexy, MrEh.

 

[Hyrus]

Bowser is fun to use, and he's a good character, but he just feels like a really unsafe character to use.

"Fun" really doesn't work it for me. Bowser is a cool monster, but playing him in Smash is another beast entirely.

His game is based around reacting to an opponent. While UpB is his best move, it is the least "cool" looking/feeling of his B moves. DownB can be intimidating when grabbing the ledge, but it is anything but foolproof and grossly impractical for its would-be intended use on stage. NeutralB, a seemingly unique pressure option, is a self-KO in disguise against certain characters.

Bowser can be hit at the tip of his knuckle during a Ftilt from a disjointed hitbox, making him relatively bigger than he normally is. Aside from his jab, Bowser has few attacks that are relatively safe to just toss out there... his attacks in general only hit a small area around the character, often giving him some glaring blindspots that smaller characters don't have to contend with. This is why Bowser has trouble approaching and getting out of bad momentum.

His sideB is an amazing attack, but pretty predictable. While his grab release shenanigans make him good, like the ice-climbers/D3/Diddy, i'd rather play against an opponent and not the controller.

I still play him from time to time, but I just feel like he's a character without much room for creativity. [IMO] - redirect nerdrage elsewhere.

 

[B!squick]

No IMO's required. I completely agree that he doesn't leave much room creativity. Here's the list of moves you'll generally see Bowser use:

UpB
SideB
UpTilt
FTilt
Jab
FAir
Grab
Shield

Everything else is a bit more situational. He doesn't have any on stage gimicks (i.e.: Snake, Diddy, D3, Olimar, etc). He plays best when being approached (usually, Sonic is one of the few chars I'd rather not see coming at me when the person knows what they're doing), but either someone has a projectile, an infinite on Bowser, has a ground game to rival Bowser's, a move that can't be punished when used right (DK and Wolf's BAir), or some combination there of. Theoretically, the "perfect" Bowser would most likely lose to a "perfect" of any other given character.

Anyways, I agree with alot of what you said Hyrus. I think you're not giving the range of his moves enough credit, but then I have to remember that most of the cast has at least one move that outranges everything Bowser has, not counting Firebreath.

 

[MrEh]

MrEh, points 2 and 3 are very valid, but I'd have to disagree with the first one. I'd have to say that Bowser's unbelievably sexy carapace and devilish good looks would be great incentives to play the character.

For the record, I think Bowser is a sexy piece of man meat. Rivaled only by Wario, Falcon, and Dorf.


However, most people don't think that Bowser is cool. People no longer want their characters looking like this:

Nowadays, they want their characters looking like this:

Sad, but true.

 

[B!squick]

That is the most awesome and metal picture of Bowser I've ever seen and thank you so much for finding it!

 

[KRDsonic]

That picture makes me so glad that I've alted Bowser since Melee :o

I've never really used him much, but I do use him quite a bit juts because of the fact that he's Bowser. I don't see how anyone would dislike using a giant turtle/dragon thing with a spiked shell that breathes fire.

Edit: I think another reason why I like using Bowser so much is because of the fact that he doesn't have multiple options for everything, so he's more simple to use than most characters I use.

I just wish I knew who all to use Bowser against. So far I just use him to fight Sonic...

 

[MrEh]

I just wish I knew who all to use Bowser against. So far I just use him to fight Sonic...

You main IC correct?

Then use Bowser to beat up MK. ^^

 

[B!squick]

You use him to fight Sonic? D: What am I doing wrong? Did I just play a really good Sonic that day randomly... O.o?

 

[Red Arremer]

It's always like that. If you face an opponent using a character you aren't used too, they only need to be slightly good with them.
Yesterday I was ripped apart by someone's Ganondorf, and he's not even that good with Ganon. =P

That was mainly because I didn't know what would happen. XD

 

[KRDsonic]

You main IC correct?

Then use Bowser to beat up MK. ^^

Unfortunately we have some really good MKs here like Dojo and Infinity x.x

I guess I should learn the Bowser vs. MK matchup though, since IC and Sheik will never save me against them ^^'

I guess the reason I was discouraged against using Bowser against them is because I had to fight a realy good MK on Halberd, which sucked x.x

 

[Ussi]

What happens is, when people want to use a heavyweight, they look at DK, DDD, Bowser, Ike, Snake, etc and compare them.

Bowser is the weakest heavyweight.. No one likes that.. People use heavyweights cause they are strong.

 

[Red Arremer]

I wouldn't call Wario or ROB too strong, either, and they are heavyweights, too. =x

 

[Ussi]

Wario is a lightweight who is weight confused. ROB is a robot, people think he looks cool already. Plus when they see ROB They see opposite of heavyweight, recovery...

might as well address Yoshi, he's.... weird. No one likes Yoshi anyways, he doesn't look manly/tough

 

[Red Arremer]

lol. Nice counter. =P

But seriously, I wouldn't call Bowser weak nor unpopular because he isn't as powerful as Ganon or Ike.

Edit:
As for the recovery line, De3 has one of the best recoveries in the game, so that argument doesn't count too, lol. Same goes for Wario.

 

[Ussi]

D3's recovery is a bit above average. Punishable though, like it should be. Wario's is one of the best ;o but like I said, he's a lightweight whose weight confused.

Bowser ain't weak, but compared to heavyweights his moves don't have as much force. But slamming your head with all you're might is mad fun Just needs more Umpf