• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Eggman or Bowser?

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
Bowser because he's been in less shit games ^_^
 

DoomGaze

Banned
Smash_Bowser_Big.jpg


All hail the King
 

Dunkley

Member
Bowser by a long shot.

I really enjoyed Eggman's characterization in the Sonic Boom show but even though he has his moments there, Bowser got a landmile advantage alone for his characterization in Paper Mario:

hqdefault.jpg
 
is this a joke

Bowser is a fucking CLOWN. He literally rides in a vehicle called a clown car, but more importantly Mario constantly rocks his shit. And usually, Mario does that before Bowser really does anything of note. Kidnapping the leader of a foreign country is certainly not a minor offence, but that's as grand as his (fulfilled, if not attempted) crimes have ever gotten.


Go play a Mario Galaxy and come back.
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Dr. Robotnik.

Going by comparing the Mario and Sonic I've played, Robotnik had better music and better boss fights, and he was more of a threatening character than the somewhat more goofy Bowser.
 

Synth

Member
King Koopa but only for the NES Mario titles.

Those were Bowser at his worst though.

Mario 1: Run underneath x 8.
Mario 2: M.I.A.
Mario 3: Koopalings fight (poorly) throughout the game, and then he has a single fight at the end where he duppies himself in under 2 minutes, with Mario barely having to do anything.
 
Keep in mind that every Mario game starts off AFTER Bowser has his forces occupying most of the continent, including the Mushroom Kingdom. That's military expertise at its finest. Didn't need a doomsday diety or nothing.
 

Synth

Member
Keep in mind that every Mario game starts off AFTER Bowser has his forces occupied most of the continent, including the Mushroom Kingdom. That's military expertise at its finest. Didn't need a doomsday diety or nothing.

Considering how easily it's all undone though, I'd argue that says more about the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom than Bowser. Bowser's army is generally useless (with the possible exception of the goddamn Hammer Bros), and they'd be unlikely to be able to claim dominion over any other game's land.
 
Eggman.

He's hilarious in Sonic Boom a he has incredible boss fight since that giant mech in Sonic 2, Big Arms in Sonic 3, Egg Dragon in Sonic Unleashed and so on.

He is also the name of the single best 3D stage of Modern Sonic: Eggmanland.
 
You must had never played Mario games for quite some time huh.^_^

I've played them all except for NSMB U and NSMB 2. (I played New Super Luigi U though)

I was a Nintendo kid who grew up with Mario, not Sega. The first Sonic game I ever owned was Sonic Adventure. And I still think Eggman is the better villain.

Bowser's boss fights just aren't as creative in the majority of games he's been in. I love Bowser as a character though. But moreso as a protagonist, given that my favorite game of all time is Super Mario RPG. Bowser stopped being scary to me after that game. He's just been a loveable loser to me ever since.
 
Considering how easily it's all undone though, I'd argue that says more about the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom than Bowser. Bowser's army is generally useless (with the possible exception of the goddamn Hammer Bros), and they'd be unlikely to be able to claim dominion over any other game's land.

You can say that about the enemies in Sonic games too, those robots are made of fucking butter. The point is Traditional Mario games start after the worst has ALREADY happened while Sonic struggles to try and PREVENT the worst from HAPPENING. If you can cause a worst case scenario before the game starts, you're better.

Point: Bowser. (That said, Bowser also having a galactic conquest of the galaxy in a way eggman has never done is also a plus on his scoreboard.)
 

Astral Dog

Member
Eggman has amazing moments, blowing up the moon, scheming, awesome music , deadly robots, compassionate moments, funny dialogue. evil space stations/themeparks.

Bowser has all of the above too, but he is a bit more limited while Eggman is moe flexible with better characterization and more fun battles.

that said, the worst of the Eggman is worse than the worst of Bowser while Bowser rarely reaches Eggmans highs.
 

Pizza

Member
Bowser tbh, eggman lost a lot when he got orbot and cubot to constantly undercut every scene he has, bowser is consistently amusing at the very least. If Mario wasn't faster than sonic when it came to fucking with their villain's plots I think bowser would fuck up shit equally well in the long term


Shit like building a castle under peach's or straight up stealing it with a ufo are some solid plots. Also if we're counting spinoffs bowser has been friends with the Mario bros since he was a toddler, I'm sure he's just fucking around most the time to satisfy the evil empire he rules
 

Village

Member
More like alternative universe version. Despite the idea that Blaze and Silver are from "the future" introduced from 2006, I don't think they had the same concept in mind when they first introduced Nega in Rush.
Yeah considering how they messed up ( strait up admitted they forgot) blaze's deal in rush. And it has been said using blaze's entire world and its characters and is something weird and hard for them to do in the comics. Amplified further they just introduced a character in another sonic thing (boom) and that character is almost a strait up remix of character from that world down to color pallete and boomerang motif.

Yeah and this point, the only things from blaze's world that actually exists at this point is blaze herself, and they still barely use her. Girl had a bum rap.

Think about this, they were ready to bring back and sell to you mephilies in sonic runners before they were going to address all that. The litteral edgy recolor from sonic 06, sonic 06. They gave up on that.
 
Gotta go with Eggman, just look at that stache, that faster than Sonic running speed, that stellar pair of voice actors to carry him through even the dreadful games and of course YOOOOSH!
 
Yeah considering how they messed up ( strait up admitted they forgot) blaze's deal in rush. And it has been said using blaze's entire world and its characters and is something weird and hard for them to do in the comics. Amplified further they just introduced a character in another sonic thing (boom) and that character is almost a strait up remix of character from that world down to color pallete and boomerang motif.

Yeah and this point, the only things from blaze's world that actually exists at this point is blaze herself, and they still barely use her. Girl had a bum rap.

Think about this, they were ready to bring back and sell to you mephilies in sonic runners before they were going to address all that. The litteral edgy recolor from sonic 06, sonic 06. They gave up on that.

Low key, I want more bigger bads like Mephiles (or his return). He's one of my favorite parts about 06, gave Shadow purpose as well. I wouldn't mind if they start making the stories in Sonic games work like:

Shadow -> The true antagonist

Sonic -> Eggman
 

Synth

Member
You can say that about the enemies in Sonic games too, those robots are made of fucking butter. The point is Traditional Mario games start after the worst has ALREADY happened while Sonic struggles to try and PREVENT the worst from HAPPENING. If you can cause a worst case scenario before the game starts, you're better.

Point: Bowser. (That said, Bowser also having a galactic conquest of the galaxy in a way eggman has never done is also a plus on his scoreboard.)

Well, no. Eggman's army falls easily to Sonic & Friends... because they're Sonic & Friends, lol. Basically every single character (sans Big) is a more viable hero than Mario is, and so as a result they have more deadly enemies to contend with. Even at the lower levels (the Buzz Bomber is the second enemy encounter in Sonic) you're talking about a flying, armor-clad enemy that has actual awareness of Sonic (rather than simply walking left and right like a Lemming with nobody playing), and will shoot a laser orb on sight.

The Mushroom Kingdom gets taken over so consistently for two reasons:

1) The inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom can't defend themselves for shit.
2) Mario is frequently absent, and only arrives on the scene afterwards, unlike Sonic who's just always there (or can always be there in an instant).

Bowser doesn't cause the worst case scenario before the game starts. The worst case scenario would be if the hero is defeated, and nobody is left to stop them. It would be far more impressive to gain control of the land whilst Mario is attempting to stop it from happening. Taking over a well defended base is infinitely more difficult than basically capturing the flag when the hero is away buying groceries, and then failing to hold that one person off, with all of your army in place. In Robotnik's case, despite ultimately failing, he consistently manages to almost entirely execute his plans whilst dealing with Sonic's attempts to thwart them the entire way... if Sonic were to go off on holiday, or whatever it is Mario's doing in between games, then Robotnik would have little trouble succeeding, despite the fact that Sonic isn't even the only competent inhabitant.

Eggman consistently comes close to causing the worst case scenario (especially in Sonic Adventure through Sonic 06) despite Sonic's presence, whilst Bowser typically only has any sort of game going before Mario turns up at World 1-1, and then it's all downhill from there.
 

Village

Member
Low key, I want more bigger bads like Mephiles (or his return). He's one of my favorite parts about 06, gave Shadow purpose as well. I wouldn't mind if they start making the stories in Sonic games work like:

Shadow -> The true antagonist

Sonic -> Eggman
I feel you. I just dont thibk mephilies was executed well, he like a lot of the elements in that game were exicuted in such a way where they tried to create new elements for drama but actually using stuff they had, or in mephilies case, making an obvious connection to shadow that would have actually given meph reason for...everything him and those demons were.

Im rambling point is I aggree, will we get that is another story.

Edit: although sonic boom they do, if they keep making those games, have tge right environment to do such things
 

Now we're going for the semantics of which hero is more competent in fighting than we are which villain is better (in a sense that you're insinuating that Mario can't beat Eggman's robots at the same capacity, whose to say Mario couldn't curbstomp Eggman like he does Bowser the moment he'd step into that game?)

But the point about the Mushroom Kingdom is that it's not JUST the Mushroom Kingdom, he's conquered entire continents of land in every game outside the Kingdom borders. As a surprise attack. It wasn't just a gradual and effortless military push. Everything happens just *snaps* like that.

Bowser is also cooler and more handsome than a bald, old man.

Signed, Bowser
 

Toxi

Banned
The Mushroom Kingdom doesn't seem to mind being conquered considering virtually everything there is smiling and dancing to awful "bah bah" music.

Mario doesn't even do anything until Bowser kidnaps Peach, so clearly being conquered by a foreign power is not an urgent concern.
 

Synth

Member
Now we're going for the semantics of which hero is more competent in fighting than we are which villain is better (in a sense that you're insinuating that Mario can't beat Eggman's robots at the same capacity, whose to say Mario couldn't curbstomp Eggman like he does Bowser the moment he'd step into that game?)

But the point about the Mushroom Kingdom is that it's not JUST the Mushroom Kingdom, he's conquered entire continents of land in every game outside the Kingdom borders. As a surprise attack. It wasn't just a gradual and effortless military push. Everything happens just *snaps* like that.

Bowser is also cooler and more handsome than a bald, old man.

Signed, Bowser

It became semantics the moment you tried to introduce this argument as making Bowser more capable. Both fail in their plans, they just fail at different times, because they encounter the hero at different times. You're trying to award Bowser simply because Mario isn't present at step 1, whereas Sonic tends to be (which makes sense for a being that moves at the speed of sound).

This isn't really about whether or not I think Sonic is a more capable adversary than Mario (I do though), because you can rearrange the variables in numerous ways to make the same point. Look:

Scenario A) Your described Mario scenario. Bowser conquers the land, and gets thwarted once he gets to the Mushroom Kingdom and is met by Mario.
Scenario B) Eggman conquers the land, and gets thwarted once he gets to the Mushroom Kingdom and is met by Mario.
Scenario C) Your described Sonic scenario. Eggman attempts to take over Mobius, is met by Sonic almost immediately who prevents it from happening.
Scenario D) Bowser attempts to take over Mobius, is met by Sonic almost immediately who prevents it from happening.

You can swap these around as much as you want, but the underlying point remains the same. It is expected that the villain in either game would be successful in conquering all around them if the hero is absent (hence why they're the hero), and it is also expected that the hero will beat the villain once they make contact. So in either case, the only real show of competence would be what they achieve in the hero's presence. Neither score an win in this case, but arguably Bowser fares far worse once the hero turns up.

What's outside the Mushroom Kingdom? Who lives there? There's never any information to establish what's being conquered elsewhere... for all you know he beat up 6 old ladies and took over their huts.
 
Go play a Mario Galaxy and come back.

This is my point, though! In Galaxy 1, Bowser kidnapped Peach and her castle, so property damage and multiple kidnappings there - still not exactly a near-complete enslaving of a local populace. And Bowser uses Rosalina's power - not his power, Rosalina's, via the Grand Stars - to power his Galaxy Generator.

WHICH HE NEVER GETS TO USE, BECAUSE MARIO KICKS HIS ARSE BEFORE THEN.

The universe resets but that's because of Bowser's shoddy craftsmanship. I'm pretty sure Eggman is too smart to let his machines rip a hole in the universe any time they get trashed by Sonic.

Anyway, here's the point: in terms of attempted crimes, Bowser is guilty of some highly heinous, devastating shit. But in terms of what has Bowser ever actually accomplished, he is completely incompetent.
 

Toxi

Banned
Bowser seems justified in conquering the Mushroom Kingdom when at some point before Sticker Star all non-Toad entities were apparently declared enemies of the state. Even Goombella and Koops were probably rotting in Peach's dungeons
 

Village

Member
But the point about the Mushroom Kingdom is that it's not JUST the Mushroom Kingdom, he's conquered entire continents of land in every game outside the Kingdom borders. As a surprise attack. It wasn't just a gradual and effortless military push. Everything happens just *snaps* like that.

Actually, because the games never address it, the comics suggest that he has taken over parts of the world as broken as it may have been for the last entierly too long and made the main book a slong, and now due to archies reactionsbto it's legal issues...strait up uselesss 3 years I think. So in one version he does have military might...but I personally dont like that.

My favorite version of the guy is the now...kind of incompitent. Like he's smart and a coward like, I like that. But how I view the character is oddly enough the underdog. He's someguy who lives in a ship in the sky because he cant take much over besides some occasional place that gets destroyed. And never seen again.

See Mario's plight is he's the everyman trying to save the day. To a degree that's what sonic was suppoused to be, but sonic characters have evovled over time to the degree where they are god like, its him despite being the evil genious is the underdog. When I see bowser I go, will he win? I know he wont, but that's what conveyed. When I see eggman? I go good luck. Because he's out of his league, eggman is still often to this day not the main badguy of his games, hes just trying to make an evil buck. Just trying to do it, live his life...of evil.

And thats why I love the character. See bowser is supposed to be threating but he gets rocked all the time. But eggmans kind of incompetent and coward so him getting rocked works with his gimmic. Bowser is vegeta, someone you wanna see do something cool, but never really does. Eggman is hurcule, you thought that shit on his shoe mad him look bad, it actually made him stronger it powers up eggmans gimic. And he knows that, so at least in game he is not affraid to lie and coward his way to almost victory. He's an honest liar.

And the biggest contributions to this to his amazing characterization, oddly enough is Knuckles and Shadow. You would think its sonic, but his interactions with sonic even with new kind of sassy sonic are still very much wrote and one note. You know the progression a million miles away. Its why I appreciate sonic boom on some level including different characters to allow for such interesting interaction. And why I advocate for their playable inclusion in main line titles again. They make eggman more interesting, and obfuscate the fact sonic isnt that interesting at all

But I'm rambling a bit. Why are knuckles and shadow interesting in this regard, they are two things in the world eggman doesnt wanna deal with by himself because he sees them as a net loss for himself. So he comes up with other ways to deal with or...in shadows case not deal with the problem. This makes eggy endearing because now hes human. When folks do a bad guy of this type they are ussually the biggest baddest type dudes. They are the end boss but the reason like eggman and dedede, they are ussually a chucklefuck compared to the extradimensional horror that is the actuall problem. That allows him to be a character, admittedly bowser gets this inbthe rpg games but those character representations are largely non representative of the same characters in the main line, also paper mario thanks to who thanks to whoever has become the "bowser is the ultimate end boss" type thing.

To get into specifics in the case of knuckles he strait up lies and cheats. He dont wanna deal with knuckles, knuckles will mess him up. And he has most powerful emerald, he wants that and doesnt wanna deal with the guy, so how does he figure that out? He lies and cheats uses his gullibility gets knuckles to shatter the emerald himself so the quest to reunite them conviently ends on your ship. It shows he's not a mindless tyrant. He knows that you cant actually handle every problem. On the opposite end of bowsers " im going to rule everything mentality.

In shadow's case, its even more intersting, shadow isnt that gullible and exceedingly thourough. Thats the guy who when offered to oppertunity to actually learn more about himself chose no so hard he murdered his entire family of the course of a few days, because that's the level "im not fucking around" that guy is. So how deal with this problem, he doesnt he often avoids shadow entierly and if shadow comes across him eggman tries to ask hom for help and actually help him in return because trickery might get him killed as he learned. And he respects him, eggman respects things. Bowser does not. Eggman has unique dynamics...bowser does not. Even when bowser lost his memory bowser gonna bowser, and while that in itself is kind of endearing, I value eggmans pseudo ability to adapt more.

Sonic runners oddly enough has a good reprisentation of the insurmountable odds eggman has against him.

So my point is Eggman is not as cool as a dinosaur that shoots fire, thats why he's cooler than a dinosaur that shoots fire.
 
Eggman's voice actor and dialogue have really solidified him as the better character for me.

His boss battles are usually more fun to play as well.
 
Top Bottom