Giga Bowser (SSBM)

Giga Bowser, is an unplayable character in Super Smash Bros. Melee and only playable via hacking. He has no voice actor, but uses pitched-down versions of 's voice clips from Mario Kart 64.

When playable, Giga Bowser is considered to be one of the strongest characters in the game, expressed as such by notable players like. This is primarily because of his Whirling Fortress equivalent being intangible from frame 1 to 26 which, with extremely strong KO potential, makes it very difficult to pressure him. He notably has a better jumpsquat than Bowser, jumps higher, is invulnerable to being grabbed, and has vastly better hitboxes. However, with extremely high weight, once launched, Giga Bowser can struggle mightily against characters like, in this case being one of the easiest characters to land Rest against in the game. He also has a very poor wavedash and has such slow aerials that conventional techniques like SHFFLing and l-canceling don't really benefit him that much.

In the event of winning in VS Mode or Special Smash, without additional modifications, Giga Bowser crashes the game upon the results screen being reached, due to lacking a winning animation. Losing allows the game to progress, where the game erroneously calls him.

Codes
Giga Bowser can be played as using the following Action Replay codes and choosing any character on the Character select screen. Alternatively, he can be enabled with Debug mode.

Attributes
Giga Bowser is the heaviest character in Melee, with zero contest. Thus, he is the best beneficiary of crouch canceling, and this allows him to make use of his frame 1 intangible Whirling Fortress with relative impunity. This makes numerous combos fail against him while giving him supreme out of shield game. It's even boosted by his 20 units of knockback-based armor, making weak hits glance off and allow for a quick punish. Giga Bowser's gigantic size also gives him incredible reach, even with his average movement capabilities. Thus, Giga Bowser can keep opponents at more than an arm's reach with ease, allowing for edge guarding without even going off-stage. Furthermore, it is notable that Giga Bowser possesses all the tricks that give his modicum of playability: He is capable of Fortress hogging just like the original, giving him bursts of movement, the ability to retreat to ledge, and, of course, ledgehogging to prevent recovery. This culminates into a strong defensive character that's difficult to contest in any capacity.

While forced into a defensive game plan, Giga Bowser's KO power is no joke, with his up tilt, Koopa Klaw back throw, and up smash all having incredible damage and knockback growth. Furthermore, Koopa Klaw's forward throw can confirm a devastating up aerial for some early percentage combo utility and swift KO confirms. With his massive threat zone, it's fair to call Giga Bowser very explosive.

Due to Giga Bowser's low base knockback on his attacks, as well as iffy frame data, his combos are limited. This makes building damage somewhat difficult, often goading him into a war of attrition to start out. However, what's truly the Achilles's Heel of Giga Bowser is his frame data. While Whirling Fortress is his fastest move at frame 1 and has intangibility, it also has 40 frames of endlag after its last hitbox goes away, leaving him fairly open to punishes if he can't fortress hog. Outside of this, his fastest moves are a frame 7 up tilt and jab, the latter of which isn't always safe on hit. All of his aerials are sluggish, with 45 landing lag (22 with l-canceling), leaving his fastest aerial from the ground being a neutral or forward aerial at frame 14. Ergo, Giga Bowser is extremely punishable if the opponent can get in, and once launched, due to this, his size, and extreme weight, he's not difficult to combo. His vertical recovery, much like the original Bowser, remains weak, capped out by his high double jump and Whirling Fortress, the former of which is easily taken away.

Ultimately, Giga Bowser is a very strong character, often overwhelming characters by virtue of his extreme statistics that make him almost impossible to launch and more than capable of retaliating in turn. Whirling Fortress thoroughly centralizes his kit and makes for, true to his size, a gigantic improvement to the original Bowser.

Version history
NTSC 1.02

PAL

Moveset
For a gallery of Giga Bowser's hitboxes, see here.

Announcer calls
Giga Bowser has English and Japanese unused announcer calls, which can be accessed if made selectable on the character select screen.

Crowd cheer
Giga Bowser will use Bowser's crowd cheers.

In competitive play
Fighters only playable through hacking are generally banned in competitive play, and Giga Bowser is no exception. As with all unplayable characters of this nature, in the past, for Giga Bowser to be played on a wide scale, it required every setup to have cheats installed. Given the game is susceptible to crashing if Giga Bowser wins, it would require re-enabling these cheats with every reset, delaying the set and the event as a whole. While this has been alleviated with advancements in Melee modding, the requirement for mods to be installed on every setup presents logistical issues that tournament organisers have to handle in addition to technology like UCF, which isn't always affordable.

Logistical issues aside, Giga Bowser is seen as the poster child for banned characters due to his overwhelming characteristics, namely Whirling Fortress's spammable nature and it being nigh impossible to punish. Possessing full-body invincibility frames, easily travelling to the ledge, and having a huge hitbox, it is very difficult for most characters to even contend with the move. The inability to grab Giga Bowser also makes his shield game extremely potent, not only forcing engagement with Whirling Fortress, but also making for one-sided matchups against characters like and. These two traits come together to make Giga Bowser's matchups extremely linear, boiling down to how well a character can pressure his shield before the situation resets. However, some players argue that Giga Bowser would be balanced, with and  arguably mauling him. Additionally, some players cite Giga Bowser's poor performance at a disadvantage, chiefly his huge size and weight, make him much more balanced than he appears.

Nevertheless, coupled with the extent to which Giga Bowser could negatively affect the Melee metagame, the difficulty in modding setups is not considered to be worth it by tournament organisers. Ergo, Giga Bowser is an extremely rare sight in competitive play.

Despite the ban, out of all unplayable characters in the franchise, Giga Bowser has seen some of the highest levels of experimentation and discussion regarding a potential unban, with content creators like covering the debate in recent times. Giga Bowser has been playable in some lower-level tournaments, such as Man on a Ledge #322 by and East Coast Smash Sundays #10 by. Giga Bowser also saw unintentional appearances in early versions of Project Slippi's ranked mode through hacking, but this was eventually patched out.

In Adventure Mode
In Adventure Mode, Giga Bowser initially appears as Giant Bowser, fought on the last stage, Stage 12: Final Destination. If the player defeats Giant Bowser on Normal difficulty or higher, after seeing Classic Bowser's trophy fall off the stage, it will rise again, be struck by lightning, and transform into Giga Bowser. He must be defeated, wherein his trophy will fall off-stage once more and break apart on the floor.

In Event Matches
Giga Bowser makes the following appearances in the following event matches:
 * Event 51: The Showdown: In the game's final Event Match, the player has to square off against Giga Bowser,, and on a team. With no time limit, the player is tasked with defeat all three, and everyone is given three stocks.

Trivia

 * Giga Bowser is as large as a Giant, while with a Poison Mushroom effect, he is as large as a regular Bowser.