Battle! Bowser vs. Ganondorf

Arena: Drowned Ruins - The monstrous corpse of an ancient castle. Partially destroyed walls, hole-riddled floors, five stories of eroded stone. Partially submerged in water. Surrounded on all sides by swampland of varying depth.

In the Red Corner, armed with devastating fire breath, a body covered in lethal spikes and an extremely repetitive tendency to kidnap the same damned Princess every friggin' game! The King of the Koopas, the brutish dinosaur, from the Mario Series: Bowser!!!

And in the Blue Coner, equipped with a wide variety of destructive magic, a mastery of vicious swords and the hands-down creepiest set of eyebrows in the world! The King of Evil, the master of the Triforce of Power, from the Zelda series: Ganondorf!!!

The earth rumbles slightly and rythmically, like the sound of massive footsteps growing closer. The stone of the Sunken Ruins shakes, sending dust to the ground below. The shaking grows and grows, and then suddenly stops. A moment later, Bowser, the monstrous King of Koopas slams into the ground just at the base of the ruins. Standing at the ruins' apex is a figure dressed in dark garb, clutching a massive blade. He leaps to the ground below and we see that it is Ganondorf, Lord of the Gerudo Tribe and King of Evil. The two demons size one-another up, Bowser hitches in a large breath, preparing his flame attack, as Ganondorf summons a ball of writhing energy into his other hand. Their eyes lock with sheer fury, and the battle begins...

The Master of Disaster himself in a collage of kickassedness, Bowser!

And don't forget about his formiddable foe, Ganondorf!

This one is bound to go to Ganondorf, now i just have to spend some time figuring out why.

Bowser is immobile, and only has close range shit. Ganandorf is practically loaded, being a Triforce member. Which Bowser are we going with? If it's SSBM Bowser, he's a slow-ass tank, and can be easily destroyed. Ganondorf wins the battle.

Every Bowser. I'll explain why Bowser is a much more formidable opponent than you realize a little later.

Uh..

FALCOWN! PUWNCH!

Yeah well...

"Show me your moves!"

Anyway, Bowser. You're all being a little too quick to write Bowser off as a sluggish dope, but in reality, he's got a lot more up his sleeves to call upon.

First, examine his SSBM capabilities. First and foremost, he's a tank. He can take abhorrent amounts of damage and not even feel it. On top of that, he's not much slower than Ganondorf, and he's significantly more powerful. At his disposal he can use fire breath at close-to-medium range, his Claw Swipe allows him to grab his enemies so firmly that they can't esacpe allowing him to dig into them with his teeth, his Bowser Fortress attack makes him imprevious to damage while dealing mass amounts of it in return and his Bowser Slam moves exceptionally quick and is very hard to dodge, especially with a slower character like Ganondorf.

Not only that, But Bowser has a lot of other techniques to call upon as well. In Super Mario RPG he was capable of summoning a Big Boo which would scare all enemies on screen, lowering all of their combat parameters. He could also summon a cloud of poisonous gas which would cause a continuous loss of life to the poisoned enemies. His Crusher attack would cause a giant stone spire to eject from the ground below an opponent, causing a ton of damage. Finally, his Bowser Crush attack would summon a massive Mecha-Koopa to stomp the life out of everything in it's path.

On top of that, Bowser has special abilities and attacks from any of the various Mario bros. games that he can use. He's got that weird clown-copter thing that he can toss Mecha-Koopas from, which would add a ton of mobility to his strategy, making up for how slowly he moves.

And finally, my favorite additional ability, as a last resort Bowser can transform into Giga-Bowser, as is evidenced by Super Smash Bros. Melee. Check him out, he kicks mondo ass.





He's about ten times larger than normal Bowser, he takes about five times as much damage to kill. All of his attacks are the same, only much larger and much more powerful. Heh heh heh.

Wouldn't that be considered a special situation somewhat similar to Samus using the super-uber-gun at the end of Super Metroid (which was not allowed)?

I think you are right Bob, but I'm not 1337, so we will see.

Eh, maybe. That sort of decision isn't up to me anymore, though. Personally, no, I wouldn't consider it the same. Why? Because all he's recieving is an increase in size and strength, not some wholly new instant-kill special attack that comes at no real cost. In order to become Giga Bowser, he has to get his ass kicked pretty badly.

I'd consider Bowser turning into Giga Bowser more acceptable than Ganondorf transforming into Ganon. In his demonic warthog form, Ganon recieves a whole assload of new attacks and abilities, in addition to a size and strength increase.

Or what about Dante transfroming into Devil Trigger mode? That was allowed in the last tournament, and Dante recieves all kinds of badass extra attacks in that form.

So, no, if it was still my call, I'd let Bowser have his Giga form.

the picture says it all.

the picture says it all.

Arena: Drowned Ruins - The monstrous corpse of an ancient castle. Partially destroyed walls, hole-riddled floors, five stories of eroded stone. Partially submerged in water. Surrounded on all sides by swampland of varying depth.

Bowsers fire breath will incinerate ganondorf in 2 seconds, but if ganondorf could just get behind him and grab his tail he could throw him of the building hoping it would do some damage to bowser, which unfortunatly for ganondorf is not the case because just like in super mario 64 he's capable of falling of platforms above botomless pits and jump back in a matter of seconds without getting hurt whatsoever.

why'd you have to ruin it? i was just making a joke.

Zombie brings up a good point, though. Bowser is capable of enduring some heavy firepower. His biggest disadvantage is mobility, and in that area, Ganondorf has got Bowser pretty much beat, considering he has levitation capabilities as is evidenced by Ocarina of Time.

I still have to say Bowser would take the win. He's just got a lot more abilities at his disposal, he can take enormous amounts of damage and he deals a wicked amount in return.

although, i'd like bowser to win, ganondorf also has a sword. all ganondorf would have to do would be to paralyze bowser with one of those dark energy balls from Oot, and then hack away with his sword. rinse and repeat. i say ganondorf is the stronger one.

Puberty on a stick, the bell has rung and the match has been decided. Please make your way to the Bracket Thread for details.

As always, some insight into the minds of our judges in a new Reasons Thread would certainly be nice!