Is Bowser the new Meta Knight in Super Smash Bros. 4?

[ohmylanta1003]

Not saying it's impossible for him to be good, just that it's unlikely.

I am saying that I'm totally discounting the possibility for him to be the next Meta Knight. Heavy characters, regardless of how good they are, always have a few bad-terrible MUs that can be exploited (Snake has Pikachu/Olimar, Wario has Marth/Dedede, Dedede has Ice Climbers/Pikachu/ZSS). There's no way he's going to be the best character, let alone Meta Knight levels of best character.

In regards to Wario, though...Wario's also a bit of a special case in that regard. He's fairly small for his weight, so his bad range on jabs is compensated for. He also has an incredible amount of recovery tools (which Bowser does not), fantastic air mobility (again, Bowser does not), and he has numerous safe approach options (again, unlike Bowser).

My point is that pretty much every good "big" character in Smash Bros has something else to back them up besides "they hit hard," because hitting hard can always be worked around with enough practice (see Sentinel in MvC3). Dedede has excellent recovery, a long grab with a chain throw that can follow up on almost anyone, and a decent zoning game. Snake has a good zoning game, his mines can make life hell for anyone who has to approach, and fast jabs. The closest any big character comes to being good while just possesing extra power/weight (i.e. no zoning game or the likes) would be Ganondorf from SSBM. I could picture Bowser possibly being close to him, but honestly Melee Ganondorf looks much better than 3DS Bowser did in that tournament.

Then again, it is on an entirely new system, and it is a game that hasn't released yet, so I obviously can't judge that much. All I'd say is to excercise more than a little caution before we all rush off to crown Bowser as king of Smash, because there have been heavy characters like this before that have looked broken and then turn out to just be ok-ish (I'll reference Sentinel in MvC3 once more). No one knows the ins and outs of characters for Smash 4 yet, and it's more than likely that Bowser just happens to be the easiest character to simply pick up and play.

Oh! I totally believe all your points are valid and when I posted this thread, I knew I was going to get a resounding "no" as the answer. However, after Bowser's performance at SDCC, I could see him becoming a top tier player. I'm definitely am not rushing off to call him the king of Smash, but I did find it very interesting how well he did in the tournament. And your last point is a really good argument. He could be the simplest character to pick up and play, but, man, he cleaned house at SDCC. Even though we haven't seen the full roster, I could still see him ranking up on the tier charts quite nicely.