Best Mario Games With Playable Bowser

The Mario franchise is one of the longest-running and most varied in video gaming history. Over the years, the series has penetrated almost every genre and many of the characters have become household names, never managing to be more popular than they have been since the release of The Super Mario Bros Movie, which has renewed the popularity of many prominent Mario characters.

Bowser has generally been the antagonist of the Mario franchise. Through the many adventures of the iconic plumber, Bowser has usually been kidnapping Princess Peach or attacking the Mushroom Kingdom, not helping them out, or sometimes doing even weirder things. Despite this, there have been a number of games over the history of the Mario franchise that have allowed players to take control of the fire-breathing turtle and King Koopa, resulting in some fascinating gameplay.

Related:Best Mario Games With Playable Daisy

7 Mario Party Franchise

There have been a number of spin-offs to the Mario franchise that have become their own franchises, with many entries of their own. Mario Party is one such franchise, being a fun series made up of party games where there is no or very little story, allowing characters from the franchise that are generally enemies to play alongside each other through mini-games and compete in a friendly way for stars, though some changes may be in order for the franchise soon.

Though Bowser hasn’t always been a playable character in the Mario Party games, he became one in Mario Party 10’s special mode involving the Wii U Gamepad and later became fully playable in the normal party mode in Super Mario Party. The turtle has generally appeared in the games in some troubling or villainous capacity prior to this but now can be fully used by players in conjunction with many others from the Mario franchise.

6 Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

The Mario & Luigi handheld role-playing series was an extremely fun one, and the third game in the franchise came up with a particularly unique story. Mario and his brother are shrunken down and thrown inside of Bowser and learn how to help him challenge their mutual adversary, Fawful. The game was fascinating to play, switching commonly between the brothers, on one screen, and Bowser on the other of the Nintendo DS.

This allowed the game to incorporate elements of the gameplay from many different previous Mario games. While Mario and Luigi were in a more typical side-scrolling 2D Mario adventure, Bowser was in more of an over-world with an overhead view. Not only was this a new standard for the series which introduced some hugely popular mechanics, but it also quickly became the second-highest-selling Mario role-playing game of all time.

5 Mario & Sonic Olympic Series

One of the most impressive and unusually long-running game franchises of all time, the Mario & Sonic Olympic Games have provided a huge boost in young people getting invested in the wondrous Olympic Games. Besides this, the games have also managed to make many characters from both the Mario and Sonic franchises playable who normally wouldn’t be in their own franchises.

This includes Bowser, who has become a personal favorite for many to take on in their competitions. Bowser comes with a lot of strength and power, making him particularly good for throwing events in the Olympic Games. There are also in some editions of the game various story modes that include Bowser teaming with Dr Eggman to try and stop the games from taking place. Though villainous, Bowser can team with plenty of different characters in some wonderfully fun game modes through this franchise.

4 Super Mario RPG

The first ever role-playing game featuring Mario, the Super Mario RPG has just gotten a remake, and may soon head for a sequel, making now the perfect time for Mario fans to revisit one of the best games in the history of the franchise and one of the few times outside of party games that players can take control of Bowser. This is surprising, considering that the game begins with Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach, as most games in the Mario franchise do.

Related:Every Playable Super Mario RPG Character ExplainedHowever, the arrival of the Smithy Gang distracts everyone from their usual adventures, and they take over as the main antagonists, while Bowser ends up helping Mario due to his armies deserting him. Bowser becomes part of Mario’s party, and the gameplay generally works in a similar turn-based combat fashion to other role-playing games by Square, such as the Final Fantasy franchise, enabling players to level Bowser and treat him as a real ally.

3 Super Paper Mario

Following on from the Super Mario RPG, the Paper Mario franchise has been the main source of role-playing games within the Mario franchise for a long time. Generally, the Paper Mario games have been light-hearted and fun, featuring 2D characters in a more three-dimensional space. Super Paper Mario was an update for the Paper franchise, adding more platforming elements to create a game that was much more hybrid between RPG and platform games than most previous entries.

Bowser is usually against Mario, even in the Paper Mario games, but the emergence of the villainous Count Bleck resulted in Mario and Bowser teaming up, as well as various other characters, as they attempted together to collect all the pure hearts to help go against Bleck. For the first time in the franchise, combat was in real-time, and this, as well as the ingenious dimension-swapping mechanic, helped Super Paper Mario become one of the most beloved Wii games of all time, and one of the best Paper Mario games as well.

2 Mario Kart Franchise

Another party game franchise where all characters, both good and evil, are available for playing, the world of Mario Kart is one filled with power-ups, drifting and enraging blue shells. There has never been a need for an antagonistic force in this franchise due to the lack of story in the racing games, which are one of the best Mario game genres, meaning that Bowser is just as playable as anyone else from the Mario franchise (and beyond in more recent entries).

What’s more, Bowser has always been a playable character in this particular franchise, ever since the first entry, Super Mario Kart. Due to being in the heavyweight class of racers because of his impressive size, Bowser can achieve one of the highest top speeds of any character in the Mario Kart series. While Bowser is a reluctant participant in many games where he is a playable character, he’s always seemed perfectly happy to be taking part in the races in Mario Kart.

1 Super Smash Bros

While not strictly a Mario game, Super Smash Bros is one of the most famous gaming franchises of all time and includes so many Mario franchise characters it feels adjacent to the Mario series. Super Smash Bros is a fighting game, meaning it’s perfect for Bowser. While not always having been playable in the franchise, Bowser has been available to players since 2001’s Super Smash Bros Melee. He has therefore contended with an incredible variety of characters from other universes, including Pac-Man, Minecraft Steve, and Bayonetta.

The Super Smash Bros franchise has become an ambitious level crossover series, but Bowser has never been pushed out as a fighter due to his iconic nature and his prominent place within Nintendo history, as well as being one of the easier characters to learn. All of this helped to get him in and keep him in the franchise. He has always been capable as a fighter, a great and imposing character to use, particularly with his final attack, the Giga Bowser Punch.

More:Most Annoying Super Smash Bros Characters To Face Online