Bowser (PM)

Bowser in Project M and Project+
Universe	Mario
Base game appearance	Brawl
Moveset inspiration	Bowser (SSBM), Bowser (SSBB)
Alternate costume	Dry Bowser

Hailing from the Mario universe, Bowser is a playable character in the Brawl mod Project M and Project+. His moveset in Project M comes from a combination of his Brawl and Melee movesets, though with heavy buffs.

Bowser is currently ranked 41st out of 41 characters on the official Project M tier list, ranking himself as the worst character on the tier list, equivalent to his Melee placement, ranking 26th out of 26 characters, and a somewhat larger drop from his Brawl placement of 33rd out of 38. In the official Project+ tier list, he places higher, ranking 35th out of 42 characters, which is a slight rise over his placement in Brawl and a moderate improvement over his last place ranking in Melee.

Attributes

In Project M, Bowser keeps most of his characteristics from Brawl and Melee. He is both the largest and heaviest character, but still has a somewhat high dash speed for his size, and his powerful attacks are offset somewhat by lag or awkward animations. His only recovery move, Whirling Fortress, maintains its strong horizontal capabilities while still being weak vertically. However, in Project M, Bowser's offense has been greatly buffed, giving him better damage, armor, additional shield damage, and less lag on many of his moves, making him excellent at dealing burst damage and, consequently, a terrifyingly dangerous force when he's in control of the match. Bowser's armor mechanic allows him to absorb the knockback and flinch effects from attacks of various strengths while performing certain moves, as well as during his dash, crouch, and crawl. As a result, Bowser can nullify what would otherwise be a potentially combo starting move, or simply plow straight through an attack intended to stop Bowser from advancing. Additionally, the damage buffs on his attacks now allow Bowser to outprioritize stronger attacks if his armored moves aren't appropriate. Even though he is a slower character, Bowser has high speed in some areas: besides his above-average dashing speed, Bowser Bomb can be cancelled before Bowser reaches its peak, allowing for quick follow-ups into the air that are impossible to achieve with his normal jumps.

The keystone of Bowser's combo potential is Koopa Klaw, which returns from Melee with some reworking. Instead of providing Bowser with a pummel, Koopa Klaw is now purely a grab, and now gives Bowser a down-throw option which spikes when used in the air while knocking grounded foes down, setting up a highly advantageous tech-chase. Bowser can use his down-smash or the quake hitbox on his up-smash to hit foes attempting to roll into him; the latter can keep foes close for another Koopa Klaw. Foes attempting to get up in place can easily be hit with a forward-smash, and its lingering hitbox and armor can easily circumvent the invincibility and weak hitboxes on get-up attacks. Meanwhile, foes who roll away from Bowser can be chased down thanks to his surprisingly high dash speed, which can outpace all but the quickest and farthest rolls. The versatility and numerous setups Bowser has off of this tech-chasing option, combined with his armor, shield-damaging capabilities, and highly damaging attacks, allow Bowser to easily dominate opponents who attempt to play defensively in close quarters with him. The forward- and back-throws off of Koopa Klaw, while nowhere near as useful as the down-throw, can set up an edgeguard when used from the ground, and at low percentages, lead well into all of his aerials. While Bowser's ordinary jump is often too slow to serve this purpose, using a cancelled Bowser Bomb can let Bowser quickly chase foes into the air at low heights.

Bowser has other setups at his disposal. Whirling Fortress remains a stellar out-of-shield option that can let him get the upper hand out of a defensive situation, and its first hit has lower knockback to keep damaged foes close enough for a combo. Fire Breath keeps its buffs from Brawl and remains a great tool for trapping foes too far away for melee attacks. It also now has a bite hitbox in its ending animation, punishing foes who attempt to DI close to him to punish the ending lag. Bowser Bomb is now a much safer move; in addition to its new cancelling capabilities, it is more damaging, it is armored (especially during its descent), and upon landing, it produces a shockwave that serves the same purpose as Fire Breath's bite, making the move harder to punish from the ground. The shockwave can lead into most aerials, an up-tilt, or a down- or up-smash.

However, Bowser's high gravity, large size (almost double that of his Brawl counterpart), and high weight make him susceptible to attacks and combos. Despite his speed in some aspects, he remains easy to outmaneuver, as he has relatively poor air speed. In addition, Bowser possesses one of the longest jump squats of the cast, leaving him with one of the slowest wavedashes in the game, though not the shortest. While it is difficult to send Bowser far due to his weight and moves with armor frames, it is fairly easy to send him off the bottom of a stage or gimp him, as he suffers from a predictable recovery that does not cover much vertical distance.

With his new buffs alongside his old weaknesses, Bowser is played best when used offensively enough to get in close range to opponents, but defensively enough to punish a foe instead of trying to start a combo himself. Bowser's new offensive tools can allow him to get KOs more easily than ever off of an opponent's mistakes, but his increased size and poor recovery necessitate that the player keep from making mistakes themselves.

Changes from Melee to PM

Likely as result of his poor competitive dominance in the previous games, Bowser has been heavily buffed in the transition to Project M. Many of his attacks are both quicker and more powerful. He has received widespread armor of varying levels depending on the move, and in addition some of his favorable traits from Melee such as the Koopa Klaw and Fortress Hogging return.

While his tournament viability is only moderate, his results are better than ever before.

Aesthetics

• Bowser now roars during his on-screen appearance.
• Bowser's third idle pose from Brawl now replaces his down taunt, and he additionally emits a roar from his Super Mario 64 incarnation, which is also his Wii Remote selection sound in Brawl. Giga Bowser also has this taunt, but instead uses his own roar.
• Bowser now has a unique victory theme, which is a rock version of the prelude to his final battle theme in Super Mario 64.
• Bowser now has his own series symbol consisting of an icon of his face usually associated with him in the Mario series.

Attributes

• Bowser is approximately twice as large as he was in Brawl; this gives him more reach in his attacks, but also makes him more vulnerable.
• Bowser retains his longer arms from Brawl, giving his arm attacks more reach.
• Bowser is slightly heavier (117 → 118), increasing his endurance but making him more susceptible to combos.
• Several of Bowser's moves and animations now have varying levels of armor; his crouch, crawl, and dash attack give him light armor while his neutral aerial grants him medium armor and Bowser Bomb gives him medium and heavy armor. All of his smash attacks grant variable armor from light to super armor depending on how long they are charged.
• Many of Bowser's attacks do much more damage and knockback than either of his past incarnations and now deal shield damage.
• Bowser's jump squat is reduced (8 frames → 6).
• Spot dodge keeps its long duration but has more invincibility frames, dodging attacks more effectively.

Ground Attacks

• Neutral attack has less start-up and ending lag.
• Jab damage has been swapped, with the first hit now dealing the most damage.
• Forward tilt's clean hits deals 4% more damage and has slightly less ending lag. It also retains its longer reach from Brawl.
• Forward tilt's late hit deals 4% less damage.
• Up tilt has a longer hitbox duration and significantly less ending lag.
• Up tilt now has a clean and late hitbox, with the latter dealing 5% less damage.
• Down tilt has less start-up and the second hit, now optional and activated by a second button press, deals 2% more damage; this allows Bowser to either launch the foe with a single hit to then follow on, or punish shielding or crouch canceling foes with a second hit.
• Dash attack deals 1% more damage and has slightly less ending lag. It also now has light armor during its start-up and initial hit (frames 1-12).
• Forward smash has less start-up, a 1 frame longer hitbox, and deals 2% more damage and knockback, making it the strongest side smash in Project M. It has medium armor when charging on frames 0-19, heavy armor on frames 20-38, and super armor on 39-60.
• Forward smash has slightly more ending lag.
• Forward smash now deals flame damage and an explosive effect on hit.
• Up smash has less start-up and ending lag, and the second hit has a longer hitbox duration. The second hit also now meteor smashes and can hit opponents on ledges.
• Down smash has less start-up and ending lag.
• Down smash's final hitbox deals 4% less damage.
• Up smash and down smash now have light armor when charging on frames 0-19, medium armor on frames 20-38, heavy armor on frames 39-57, and super armor on frames 58-60.

Aerial Attacks

• Neutral aerial has less start-up and landing lag, slightly less ending lag, and auto-cancels earlier. It also now has medium armor on frames 5-8.
• Forward aerial retains the slashing trail from Brawl indicative of its sweetspot. The sweetspot also deals 2% more damage and knockback, while the sourspot deals 1% more. It also interrupts earlier.
• Up aerial deals 6% more damage and has less start-up, albeit slightly slower than in Brawl.
• Back aerial's clean hit deals 4% more damage while the late hit deals 1% more. It also has a significantly longer hitbox duration and auto-cancels earlier.
• Down aerial has faster start-up and significantly less ending lag.
• Down aerial deals 3% less total damage.

Grabs and Throws

• Pummel deals 1% more damage (3% → 4%).
  • Pummel is now a bite similar to the Koopa Klaw pummel.
• Forward and back throws have stronger knockback.
• Down throw deals 4% more damage (12% → 16%).

Special Moves

• Fire Breath retains its ability to be angled from Brawl. Bowser now also bites in front of him when the move is stopped, hitting foes attempting to punish the move's ending lag.
• Flame canceling has been removed.
• Back throw with Koopa Klaw is much more powerful, dealing 4% more damage and KOing near edges more reliably. Bowser can now also perform a down throw with it which meteor smashes foes when used on the ground, allowing him to tech-chase with it on the ground and KO foes when used over an edge; when performed in midair, it will spike opponents.
• Koopa Klaw can no longer bite opponents, weakening its damage potential. It can also no longer be held indefinitely; Bowser will automatically perform the forward throw a few seconds after grabbing the opponent.
• Forward throw with Koopa Klaw is now a head smash.
• Whirling Fortress has much less knockback on its first hitbox.
• Bowser Bomb's descending hit deals 4% more damage is much stronger, and can be canceled with a jump before the apex when used from the ground, letting Bowser perform followups on foes knocked into the air. It can still grab ledges from both sides as in Brawl so it can be reliably used from the stage to then be edge-canceled, equipping Bowser with a deadly edgeguard in this move. The landing hitbox deals 2% more damage, and the move now produces a large shockwave on Bowser's sides, making its landing harder to punish. It also now has medium armor on start-up and landing, and heavy armor when Bowser begins to descend.

Giga Bowser

Giga Bowser's alternate costume.

Giga Bowser remains Bowser's Final Smash in Project M. However, by holding a shield button at the character selection screen, it is possible for Bowser to start and participate as Giga Bowser permanently during the match, similar to how Zero Suit Samus was playable in Brawl. Starting from v3.0, Giga Bowser can now receive knockback in addition to damage, as well as now being vulnerable to status ailments like sleeping or getting buried, though his moveset has been improved to compensate for this, and he still cannot be grabbed. In 3.6, he gained the ability to pick up items and use the majority of them. Giga Bowser's main flaw is that he is extremely prone to combos because of his size and weight. His duration when summoned via Final Smash was also increased to almost twice as long. In addition to receiving most of Bowser's changes, some changes to Giga Bowser include:

• Dashing now produces hitboxes in front of Giga Bowser's feet, which repeatedly inflict 3% damage while weakly pushing enemies forward. His heavy landing also produces a 6% damage hitbox that sends any close grounded opponents straight up.
• Koopa Klaw forward throw deals 5% more damage (15% → 20%).
• Landing with Bowser Bomb produces an enormous quake hitbox that affects all grounded opponents (no matter the platform in which they are standing) near him, similar to Venusaur's Earthquake in Melee.
• Bowser Bomb hits opponents powerfully in different directions depending on when they get hit; at the apex of Bowser Bomb, they are sent upwards; while Giga Bowser is falling at any other point of the attack, they are spiked; if they are on the ground and directly below Giga Bowser, they are buried and then sent horizontally.
• Down throw now involves Giga Bowser forcefully slamming his opponent into the ground, which is faster than the original throw, and hits nearby characters.
• Down throw deals 2% less damage (16% → 14%).
• Vulnerability to knockback now leaves Giga Bowser heavily susceptible against combos due to his large size, especially against juggling.
• Whirling Fortress is not intangible during startup, instead granting Giga Bowser heavy armor.
• Giga Bowser has his own on-screen appearance, where he roars while bathed in flames.
• Ending the match as Giga Bowser will now make him appear that way on the results screen, using the same victory poses and clapping motion as the regular Bowser. His name is now properly displayed on the jumbotron on the Pokémon Stadium stages and the results screen if he wins. The announcer also has a separate voice clip for Giga Bowser's name.
• Giga Bowser has two new victory poses, replacing Bowser's roar and claw swipes. One of them has him in a crouching position. The other has him biting rapidly similar to his side taunt.

Changes from PM to P+

Term clarification:

FAF: First Actionable Frame

IASA: Interrupted as soon as

BKB: Base Knockback

KBG: Knockback Growth

v2.0

(Taken from https://projectplusgame.com/changes/2.0)

• Attributes:
  • Weight: 118 → 113
  • Jump Startup Time: 6 → 5
  • Empty Landing Time: 6 → 5

• Jab 1 & 2:
  • Jab 1: Adjusted animation so that the first frame of hitboxes hit in front of him rather than completely to the side.
  • Jab 2: Startup 8 → 6

• Up Tilt:
  • Added 3rd hitbox to sweet spot to match sour spot. Matches sourspot’s KB but retains sweetspot’s angle.
  • Up Tilt interpolation glitch has been fixed.

• Down Tilt: Armor removed.
• Forward Smash: Armor comes out 3 frames earlier.
• Up Smash:
  • Landing Hitbox active frames 22-25 → 22-23
  • IASA 40 → 42

• Down Smash:
  • Hitboxes no longer clank
  • Low Hitboxes pulled in slightly, X Offset -9.4/11.2 → -8/9.8

• Up Air: Damage 23 → 22
• Standing Grab: Startup 9 → 7, Total animation frames 36 → 31
• Grab boxes:
  • Outer Grab box X Offset: 14.175 → 15.8
  • Middle Grab box X Offset: 11.7 → 10.0
  • Inner Grab box X Offset: 7.2 → 6.2
  • Size 2.73 → 3.23
• Dash Grab:
  • Inner grab box size increased in size to fix dead zone
  • IASA 52 → 48
• Up Throw: KBG 110 → 118

• Neutral Special (Firebreath → Fireball):
  • Firebreath replaced with Fireball (similar to Yoshi's fireballs during his final smash, Super Dragon). Fireball takes roughly 13 seconds to fully recharge, is lost on death, and does not recharge on the respawn platform.
  • While uncharged, Bowser has access to a bite attack.

• Side Special (Koopa Klaw):
  • Fixed a bug where character actions wouldn’t update if thrown from a buffered Koopa Klaw throw. As a result, this slows down the fastest possible throw by 2 frames.
  • Grounded Version: Cleaned up GFX timing.

• Aerial Side Special:
  • Down Variant: IASA 51 → 45
  • Down Variant: BKB 40 → 20
  • If you hold the B button upon punching, Bowser will gain a small boost of momentum in the opposite direction of the punch.
  • Fixed a bug where it could not do damage to opponents that were too close to the ground.

• Up Special (Whirling Fortress): Grounded initial hit KBG 85 → 80

• Other:
  • Ledge Jump IASA 4 → 7
  • Crawl and Crouch armor reduced from 80/52.333 → 50/33
  • Bowser’s armor while charging smashes now works properly.
  • Missed tech rolls given slightly more distance.

• Costumes & Aesthetics:
  • New Dash and Run animations
  • Dry Bowser alt costumes now have blue fire effects.
  • Eye animation adjustments made on back air, up air, and forward air.
  • Sound quality of voice clip used for down taunt improved.

v2.0 - v2.28

No Changes

Revisions

v2.1

• Bowser fits properly on the Training pause screen.

v2.5b

• Bowser's crawl speed has been increased.
• Bowser's knockback armor strength was increased slightly on dash attack's startup, up smash's charge, down air, and up throw to correspond with the tumble threshold.
• Neutral air adjusted in animation and timing to be autocancelable in a short hop.
• Down air hitboxes adjusted to be more like Melee in positioning, but pull opponents into the hits much better.
• Whirling Fortress can properly meteor cancel.
• Bowser's spot dodge animation and invulnerability adjusted.
• Bowser's sound effects cleaned up on first jab.
• Down air causes more shield damage on the landing hit, but less shield damage on the multihits.

v2.6b

• Dash attack now hits a second time; when Bowser lands on the ground .
• Dash attack's cooldown reduced.
• Back aerial autocancels notably sooner.
• Dash grab has Bowser lunge notably further.
• Dash grab's startup was changed to look identical to the dash attack's one.
• Pivot grab range increased.
• Grounded Bowser Bomb's horizontal drift can now be controlled slightly during the jump cancel window - Bowser can gain or lose a distance of about a width equal to himself.
• Bowser Bomb's quake hitboxes were slightly increased in size.
• Corrected a mistake where crawl armor was much stronger than light armor when not moving.
• Removed armor on Whirling Fortress, back aerial, and down aerial.
• Neutral aerial timings and cooldown reverted to those of v2.1.
• Forward aerial knockback base greatly reduced; its knockback growth was compensated for percents over 115%, but not sufficiently.
• Back aerial knockback slightly reduced.
• Giga Bowser significantly revamped.
• Bowser's armor matched to the Project M standard of Light, Medium, and Heavy armor. The majority of Bowser's Armor was already adhered to this standard, and remained unchanged.
• Converted Bowser's crawl armor to light armor.
• Forward tilt's startup homogenized between angles.
• Forward tilt knockback base reduced, but knockback growth compensated for percents over 115%.
• Back aerial's hitboxes repositioned and resized to closer match Melee's placements.
• Up aerial's knockback angle slightly lowered.
• Ledge attack knockback reverted to set knockback (v2.1's knockback).
• Fire Breath reaches slightly further, but drains faster to a much smaller minimum range, and recharges a bit slower.
• Grounded Whirling Fortress's initial hitboxes reduced in size. To compensate, the hitboxes' damage degrades slightly slower, and the hitboxes enlarge briefly when it does so.
• Bowser Bomb's landing graphics enlarged to match the new hitboxes.

v3.0

• Up tilt initial knockback stats increased to match Melee's. Frame timing adjusted so that the move degrades sooner, when Bowser is swiping above his head.
• Forward aerial's hitboxes restructured into a tipper format. The inner “flub” hitboxes have damage and knockback approximating Melee's hitboxes, while the tipper hitbox has damage and comparable knockback to PM v2.5's forward air.
• Fire Breath's hitboxes redone. They now start with lower damage but gain damage as they travel, being strongest at the tip, so it's better to use the move from a distance. Grounded foes are now pushed down and out of the flames.
• Dash length very slightly shortened.
• Dash grab reverted to pre-2.6 animation and tweaked for readability. Bowser grabs slightly later, but grab range should now match animation properly.
• Neutral aerial's knockback stats reduced to be closer to Melee's.
• Back aerial's IASA timings delayed to match Melee's.
• Whirling Fortress edgehog behavior changed to no longer auto-snap to ledges; it requires more finesse to fortress hog now.
• Grounded Whirling Fortress initial hitboxes further shrunk and later hitbox coverage restructured to match the animation better.
• Aerial Koopa Klaw has slightly less horizontal movement.
• Forward aerial now has a claw trail that traces the sweetspot's arc.
• Aerial Whirling Fortress hitboxes redone to reduce vertical coverage but slightly increase horizontal reach.
• Whirling Fortress animation has slight tweaks for polish.
• Aerial Fire Breath hitboxes have unaltered knockback behavior, but have the scaling damage of the grounded version and no longer flinch at the tip.
• Giga Bowser can now be damaged normally. As compensation, his moveset was improved and his Final Smash duration almost doubled.