Bowser

Is there a better gaming villain than Bowser? The King of the Koopas has style and power. His evil plans are filled with creativity and humor, but they are not evil to the level of destroying the world or something of that sort. Bowser tries to kidnap Princess Peach (or even some other princesses) to… hm… What do those villains usually do with princesses? Anyways, Bowser regularly comes up with tricky kidnapping plans and regularly fails. It’s probably time to start suspecting he is not really focused on the result but rather enjoys the process (maybe he just likes to have fun with his best pal Mario).

You can meet Bowser in almost every Mario game. He’s been playing the role of the main antagonist since the legendary 8-bit platformer Super Mario Bros. (1985). The players see Bowser at the end of this game — he keeps Princess Peach in his faraway castle and makes turtle-like Koopas and mushroom-like Goombas do the job of creating obstacles for the main hero.

Bowser himself is of the Koopa kind. But that could be different — the author of the Mario franchise, Shigeru Miyamoto, planned to make Bowser an ox, similar to the Ox-King from the film Alakazam the Great. A bit later, he and the game designer Takashi Tezuka decided that Bowser looks more like a turtle.

Bowser might seem to be a bad guy, but without him, there would be no reason for Mario to start an adventure, so there would be no Mario games. To entertain the gaming community, Bowser kidnaps princesses in such games as:

• Super Mario Land (1989)

• Super Mario 64 (1996)

• New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009)

• Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010)

• Super Mario Odyssey

• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (2021)

It must be boring to sit all day in a castle, doing nothing (even if Peach is there, waiting for the rescue mission). That’s why Bowser loves playing various games. He is a character of many spin-off Mario series, such as Party, Kart, Golf, and Tennis.

Bowser in the Smash series

The King of the Koopas is a natural fighter, and it was a clever decision of Nintendo to bring this creature into their fighting game series.

Bowser is part of the roster starting from the Super Smash Bros. Melee. There are rumors out there in the wild that Bowser was planned to be in the first game SSB 64, but due to some technical limitations of the Nintendo 64 system, he was excluded.

Since Melee, Bowser has been entering every following Smash game.

In his mega dangerous form of Giga Bowser, this character is the main boss in SSB Melee.

Bowser as a playable character in SSBU

This character is traditionally a super heavyweight fighter with very powerful attacks. Bowser is rather slow on the ground, but he can be surprisingly fast in the air. Many players take advantage of Bowser’s high falling speed and fast dash.

It is really hard to launch Bowser in the air and KO him. Lightweight opponents should use their speed for the hit-and-run strategy, preventing Bowser from landing his mighty blows. Bowser is not good at long combos, but his four-five attacks linked into each other may deal super significant damage. 

Bowser is a pretty beginner-friendly character. His attacks are straightforward, so if you like the heavyweight style, give the King of the Koopas a chance.

To unlock Bowser in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:

• In VS Matches reach the 3rd unlockable character. That will be Bowser
• Bowser appears first in the Classic Mode if you play Donkey Kong
• Get Bowser in the story mode World of Light by defeating Giga Bowser