Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 41 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the 41st issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Concerned about Bowser's Health

The Super Mario Maker series is built around the idea that most objects can interact with each other, which enables a richness of gameplay interactions known in game development vocabulary as "emergence". 

Emergent behavior means that although only the individual behavior of e.g. each enemy in a stack is programmed, the entire stack can act in a way not foreseen by the developers and enable new gameplay experiences. For example, each enemy in a stack is programmed to change its facing direction a frame after the one below it; while this has no immediate effect in the vast majority of scenarios, if used with a tall stack of enemies for whom facing direction is relevant, it can lead to unforeseen mechanics such as undulating waves of facing angles to create towers of cannons that shoot in random directions. It is doubtful that the developers foresaw this interaction, and yet it emerged nevertheless.

With how many interactions there are, there are also many ways of defeating an enemy. One of the few bosses programmed into the games is Bowser, who was even more prominent in the first Super Mario Maker due to fewer alternatives, but still appears very frequently in Super Mario Maker 2. If you have ever played any Super Mario Maker game, you may have noticed that Bowser takes different numbers of hits to defeat based on what is used to attack him; in fact, sometimes the number of hits he takes is something counterintuitive like 14. 

In this article, I will list every way of defeating Bowser (in Super Mario Maker 2; but every mechanic also present in Super Mario Maker will work the same way there, as well) and how many times he must be hit using the method in question to be defeated. While on the surface this may seem trivial, there is actually a surprisingly large number of ways to attack him, and not all of them may take an intuitive amount of hits.

While many of these ways of defeating Bowser will be familiar to those who have played the Super Mario Maker games for long enough, I hope that this article will show at least a few surprising details or interactions to everyone regardless of their skill level in the games.

First, about the way Bowser keeps track of his health. Unlike regular enemies, who take damage in discrete amounts of "hits", with each attack taking away one hit no matter the kind of attack, Bowser (and other bosses) has a HP, or health point, system. Attacks that hit Bowser take away a set amount of HP depending on the attack, and once Bowser's HP hits 0, he is defeated. I will group attacks by how much HP of damage they deal to Bowser, while providing commentary. For this article, I have used both my own experimental observations and some information collected by reddit.com user "MrL1193"; in addition, I provide some animated .GIFs I have recorded of select scenarios.

Bowser has two forms, regular Bowser and Big Bowser (the official name for him, as seen in Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS, is "big Bowser" with the "big" not being capitalized; I will capitalize it to make it more clear that it is a proper noun). Bowser has 20 HP, while Big Bowser has 40 HP. No attack does a fraction of a HP of damage to Bowser, so the weakest attacks can defeat Big Bowser in at most 40 hits. 

Attacks that deal 1 HP of damage

-The most common way of attacking Bowser is with fireballs, which deal 1 HP of damage. There are several types of fireballs: ones shot by Fire Mario, ones spat out by Red Yoshi, and ones shot by the Fire Koopa Clown Cars if they are both small and not charged. Despite the Red Yoshi fireballs looking larger than the other two, they all deal 1 point of damage. 

Here is footage of Big Bowser being defeated with 40 fireballs, which I shoot in series of 3, 3, 3, 1 for easier counting:

For some pieces of footage, the best way to count how many times Bowser has been hit is to count how many times he flashes red. However, this is not always accurate if he is being attacked by many objects simultaneously: having e.g. a Bob-omb explode on each side of Bowser at the same time deals twice as much damage as a single explosion but only makes him flash red once. Bowser always takes damage from each object or attack that hits him separately; so e.g. several fireballs shot from several players in multiplayer mode hitting him on the same frame will still each deal their own damage and not be overridden by each other, or negated by some manner of cooldown/damage invincibility timer. The only exception is hitting Meowser with more than one POW block at once, which will be discussed below.

-Yoshi's fire or poison spit also deals 1 point of damage (fire spit is activated by eating a Lava Bubble, a fireball from a Fire Bar, a shot fireball from anything that shoots them, or a Fire Piranha Plant, while poison spit is activated by eating a Cheep Cheep that has been dipped in poison in the nighttime Forest theme). Poison in general works almost the same as fire with the only exception being that it is unable to melt Frozen Coin Blocks.

-Bouncing on Bowser's head with any foot-protecting item such as a Goomba's Shoe or Dry Bones Shell. This is suprisingly true even for Big Goomba's Shoes and Big Goomba's Stilettos, which look as though they should deal more damage.

This footage shows defeating Big Bowser by bouncing on him 40 times.

-The Superball shot by Superball Mario also deals only 1 damage, which makes defeating Bowser with it extremely tedious since no more than one Superball can ever be shot at one time.

-Link's arrow attack in the Super Mario Bros. style deals 1 damage as well.

Note the 20 shots it takes to take down regular Bowser.

-In the Super Mario Bros. 3 style, Raccoon Mario's tail spin attack also deals 1 damage to Bowser, although this is so risky that a typical course would never demand the player to defeat him that way, at least not without an infinite number of replacement items.

-The same goes for Cape Mario's cape spin in the Super Mario World style.

Here is a very interesting interaction that would almost never come up unless Bowser is on the other side of a One-Way Wall:

If Raccoon Mario or Cape Mario are under the effect of a Super Star, then their attacks kill Bowser instantly as though they had touched him directly. 

-Cat Mario's scratch attack also deals 1 damage to Meowser (who also has 20 HP as Meowser and 40 HP as Big Meowser; I will only refer to Meowser if the attack in question only exists in the Super Mario 3D World style or Meowser responds differently to it than Bowser).

-Finally, the ghost-like smoke clouds emanated from the Ground Pound attack of the Big Goomba's Stiletto also deal 1 damage to Bowser.

Attacks that deal 2 HP of damage

Very surprisingly, there are only 2 attacks in the entire game that deal exactly 2 damage to Bowser, and both of them are somewhat obscure. This means that if you want to include a Bowser battle that takes exactly 10 hits, you are forced to use this specific one (as the second one also gives the ability to do more damage):

-Throwing snowballs as Bowser deals 2 damage. This works both with environmental snowballs and ones Super Mario Bros. 2 Mario can pick from the ground in the Snow theme:

-The other way to deal 2 damage to him is by shooting a large fireball. The only ways to produce a large fireball are shooting an uncharged fireball from a large Fire Koopa Clown Car or have Green Yoshi eat such a fireball and then spit it back.

Fire Koopa Clown Cars can be made large by riding them as Big Mario (the Super Mario Bros. style power-up, not Super Mario who is often colloquially referred to as "Big Mario"), riding them while inside any big type of Goomba's Shoe, or riding them while also riding a Yoshi.  

Attacks that deal 3 HP of damage

This includes almost all kinds of small things being thrown at Bowser; a common theme is that if the regular-sized version of something deals 3 damage to him, the big version of the same object will deal 5 damage. These often result in the feeling that Bowser does not have a round number of hits, as hitting Bowser with them will make him go down in 7 hits, while Big Bowser will go down in 14 hits, which is an unusual number of hits for a boss to take in the Mario series.

-Any type of regular-sized shell (i.e. Koopa Troopa, Buzzy Beetle, Spiny or Dry Bones) being thrown at, or shot at Bowser. It does not matter if Mario throws it and in what direction (sideways or upwards); or if it is somehow shot at Bowser from some other point (interestingly, there is no damage difference between shells shot from regular Bullet Bill Blasters and fast-moving shells shot from red Bull's Eye Bill Blasters).

-Any sort of interaction with a regular Bob-omb, surprisingly, deals 3 HP of damage, meaning that throwing a Bob-omb at Bowser is exactly as damaging as having it explode next to him, which is highly unintuitive. Also note that while having exactly the same explosive radius as Bob-ombs, Link's bombs actually deal 5 damage, which is also not indicated in any way.

-Galoombas or Goombuds thrown at Bowser in the Super Mario World style deal 3 damage.

-Bones and wrenches eaten by Yoshi that were thrown by regular Rocky Wrenches and Dry Bones deal 3 damage each.

-Hammers are not affected by size rule; all hammers eaten and spat out by Yoshi deal 3 damage regardless of whether they originate from Hammer Bros. or Sledge Bros.

-The hammer attack of the Super Hammer power-up in the Super Mario 3D World style deals 3 damage to match the other hammers. The crate throw attack deals no damage not just to Meowser, but to any other enemy except Pom Pom's clones, which are defeated by it.

-Hitting Bowser from below with a Spiny Shell helmet deals 3 damage:

Note that while he does in fact take 14 hits here, he actually takes 2 hits on most of Mario's jumps (note the red flashing), which is why this method of defeating him usually appears faster than the rest despite not technically dealing more damage per hit.

-Performing a Ground Pound with a big Goomba's Shoe (but not the stiletto) also deals 3 damage:

Doing this with the big Goomba's Stiletto has a much more dramatic effect:

Bowser simply dies. Note that all differences between regular shoes and stilettos apply only to the big versions; the regular versions are merely a cosmetic difference (and in the nighttime themes, walking in a stiletto makes an 8-bit drum sound instead).

-Hitting Bowser with a charged shot from a small Fire Koopa Clown Car also deals 3 damage. Note that Fire Mario makes the Fire Koopa Clown Car shoot three fireballs at once; as previously mentioned, hitting Bowser with more than one of these at once actually deals the appropriate multiple of the damage.

-Having any exploding object ramming into Meowser in the Super Mario 3D World style also deals 3 damage, independent of the object. This goes for Bullet Bills, Banzai Bills, their homing versions, and Koopa Cars.

-Icicles deal 3 damage to Bowser as well:

This was famously used as a way to kill Bowser in the final course of the 2019 Nintendo World Championships.

-Throwing any small enemy at Bowser as Super Mario Bros. 2 Mario in the Super Mario Bros. style deals 3 damage, as well.

-Link's sword attack deals 3 damage. This goes for the regular sword slash, the Ground Pound, and the dash attack.

-Regular-sized Spike Balls deal 3 damage each to Bowser:

While Mario cannot use them himself, this is a good way to put Bowser "on a timer", by having Spike Balls roll down and hit him in a timed challenge room.

-The projectiles shot by Blasta Mechakoopas deal 3 damage to Bowser if they explode next to him. Of course, these being very difficult to indirectly control, a battle against Bowser using this to defeat him is very tedious unless great care is put into positioning both the Mechakoopa and Bowser in such spots that only minimal maneuvering is needed for each hit.

-Finally, Cannon Boxes in the Super Mario Bros. 3 style deal 3 damage to Meowser regardless of being charged or not charged, which is also very surprising, given how much more dramatic the explosion of the charged projectiles is. From this, the tip that can be derived is: do not bother to charge the Cannon Box when fighting Meowser, and simply mash the button instead.

Attacks that deal 4 damage to Bowser:

-Big Snowballs are the only way to deal 4 damage to Bowser, so if the aim is to have a Bowser battle that takes exactly 5 hits, or a Big Bowser one that takes exactly 10 hits, these are the only option. Note that they must be rolling to deal damage to him; a big Snowball falling out of a pipe onto him will deal no damage.

Attacks that deal 5 damage to Bowser:

Large versions of things listed above:
-Big shells
-Big Bob-ombs (again, regardless of simply touching him or exploding)
-Big Galoombas or Goombuds
-Bones and wrenches thrown by Big Rocky Wrenches and Big Dry Bones, spat out by Yoshi
-Big Spike Balls
-Shots from Big Blasta Mechakoopas
-Throwing big enemies at Bowser as Super Mario Bros. 2 Mario:

-As mentioned above, Link's bombs also deal 5 damage. This gives Link the options to deal 1 (arrow), 3 (sword) or 5 (bombs) damage to Bowser.

-A charged shot from a big Fire Koopa Clown Car deals 5 damage. This provides the quickest way to defeat Big Bowser that does not include using instant-kill attacks: if Fire Mario rides a big Fire Koopa Clown Car, and hits Big Bowser with charged shots from very close up, he will deal 15 damage each time, defeating him in 3 hits:

Attacks that deal 10 damage to Meowser (no attacks deal exactly 10 damage to Bowser):

-Hitting Meowser with any POW Block deals exactly 10 damage to him. This disregards the color, whether the POW Block touched him directly or whether it was only the shockwave, and whether it was an actual POW Block or Mario's wearable Red POW Box helmet.

This also includes the only time Meowser, or any form of Bowser, does not take multiple instances of damage from multiple simultaneous hits. If he is hit with a POW Block, he will be immune to any other POW Blocks he is hit by within about half a second from that point; as such, it is impossible to surround him with POW Blocks and defeat him in one hit that way. He will have to be hit several times.

Attacks that defeat Bowser instantly:

-Being touched while Mario is under the effect of a Super Star (or, as mentioned above, use a Cape Spin, Tail Spin, or Link's sword attack).

-Being crushed by a falling Thwomp. Interestingly, Thwomps always crush Bowser even in the styles where they merely damage Mario but do not instantly kill him.

-Being overwritten with a block (this kills every entity instantly, of course, and is only included for completeness). This means scenarios like Bowser standing inside a Dotted Line Block and the On/Off Switch being pressed.

-Being hit by the Ground Pound attack of a big Goomba's Stilletto (as shown above), or a Dry Bones Shell:

This one in particular is not known to many creators and I was able to completely bypass a number of Bowser battles just because the creator included a Dry Bones shell somewhere in the course.

-For non-Meowser Bowser only, being hit with a POW Block (again, no difference between actually touching one as it is being thrown, or touching the ground while being on screen as a POW Block is being activated).

-For non-Meowser Bowser, falling off the bottom of the screen kills him instantly. Unlike Bowser Jr., wings do not save Bowser; Winged Bowser will be defeated as well. This also goes for lava and poison.

-Finally, a very obscure way of instantly defeating Bowser in the Super Mario World style: if Cape Mario lands after a flight next to him, he will die:

I have personally never seen this being used for a legitimate challenge outside of speedruns where Mario is supposed to land in that state in a specific point anyway, removing the aiming and timing aspect. This is definitely an interesting idea to use for a course if you are looking for inspiration.

This concludes this analysis of Bowser's health in the Super Mario Maker games. Please let me know if I have missed some obscure interaction and I will add it in!

Thank you very much for reading.