Bowser's Castle

''This article is about Bowser's actual Castle. For the race track, go here. For the stadium in Mario Superstar Baseball, see here. For the levels in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Island DS, go here and here, respectively.'' Bowser's Castle (also known as Bowser's Keep in Super Mario RPG or Castle Koopa in the Mario TV series) is King Bowser's home and the base of operations for the Koopa Troop, and is always the final area Mario visits to rescue Princess Peach. It is guarded by Koopas, Koopatrols, Magikoopas and Hammer Bros.

Shown in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Paper Mario, it is found in the Dark Land, whereas in Super Mario World, Bowser's Keep is found in the Valley of Bowser. Sometimes, there are many ways to reach the end, for example, one of the roads has many Fences and another road has a pit of lava.

During the events of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Bowser's Keep is isolated on a mountain of red, jagged rocks. The keep rests on the largest rock, which, in fact, resembles Bowser himself. The castle can only be accessed by a long bridge that connects to the faraway Vista Hill. The halls of Bowser's Keep are lined with statues of Hammer Brothers and Bowser. The castle is originally guarded by Terrapin soldiers. Additionally, molten lava flows through the keep in several areas. Fortunately, several bridges allow access across the lava (Unfortunately, the bridges are wooden, and as such, will eventually collapse in a room filled with lava. In fact, one bridge breaks right after Mario walks across it. Later, this bridge is replaced with hovering Donut Blocks.) The castle is also filled with ornate chandeliers. Mario and Bowser actually duel on the top of these chandeliers.

Bowser's Keep was also the Smithy Gang's base of operations on the Mushroom Planet. During the beginning of Smithy's invasion, the gigantic sword Exor crashed into the keep. Since Exor is the gateway to Smithy's dimension, the soldiers of the Smithy Gang had an easy time taking control of the castle. In fact, many of Bowser's soldiers defected or ran away instead of fighting. Eventually, the Smithy Gang claims the castle as their own. Additionally, Exor destroyed the bridge connecting Bowser's Keep to the outside world. As such, the castle can only be accessed by flying vehicles.

In Paper Mario, Bowser and Kammy Koopa use this castle to steal Peach's castle, and lift both into the stratosphere after imprisoning the Seven Star Spirits and stealing the Star Rod. But Mario, with the help from party members Goombario, Kooper, Bombette, Parakarry, Lady Bow, Watt, Sushie and Lakilester, manage to take back the Star Rod and save Princess Peach.

In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Bowletta used Bowser's Castle to attack the Beanbean Kingdom. This castle could fly and looked like a statue of Bowser. A time bomb blew it up at the end of the game.

In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, the four heroes get to see a little of Baby Bowser's castle.

Only a hallway and the outside of the castle is seen in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

In Super Princess Peach, Bowser has his own Villa, located on Vibe Island. There are two castles shown in Super Paper Mario. The first one in the intro is his modern castle. Only the outside of the castle and a hallway was shown, like in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

The second castle was one he made after being taken by Bleck. This castle was located in Chapter 3-1, Bitlands. This castle resembles the one from Super Mario Bros.

Bowser's Castle also appears as a stage in Itadaki Street DS, along with other stages from the Mario and Dragon Quest series.

Cartoons
In The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, King Koopa was depicted as owning a wide range of castles, ranging from fortresses, towers and even an ice palace; most often at the end of an episode, the featured castle of King Koopa would be destroyed, and if not, would likely not be seen again. Unlike the games, the various castles seen in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! lacked the abundance of traps that would be normally featured in a castle owned by Bowser, though a large amount of minions were still prevalent in the castles.

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 migrated away from the concept of King Koopa owning several castles and instead, one castle, located in Dark Land like the game, was seen; this castle was refered by the name Castle Koopa. Castle Koopa largely resembled it's game counterpart, with Bowser's image engraved on to it, though it was blue in color and lacked towers. Castle Koopa also possessed a large hall filled with portraits, as well as a bedrooms for the Koopalings and a laboratory most often used by Kooky Von Koopa.

In Super Mario World, Neon Castle, which was short for Coney Island Disco Palace, was featured as the main base and home for Bowser and the Koopalings. Apparently located in a lava filled wasteland, Neon Castle lacked the amount of towers it's game counterpart possessed, only having one; Neon Castle also possessed a rectangular shape and, like the Japanese version of Super Mario World, had Koopa flashing in neon lights on it's front, instead of Bowser. Like it's game counterpart, Neon Castle possessed a large amount of traps, such as Ball 'n' Chains, lava, fire-breathing statues and various kinds of minions.

Publications
In both Nintendo Comics System and Nintendo Adventure Books, Bowser's Castle was infrequently seen, and was shown to have a labyrinth like construction, possessing various passages, bridge and doorways.

In Super Mario Adventures, Bowser's Castle is only seen near the end of the comic, and is portrayed as a large fortress, having many spike-covered towers and a large great hall, capable of holding several hundred different creatures. Catacombs and a lava filled chamber inhabited by Blarggs are also depicted in this version of Bowser's Castle.

Movie
In the Super Mario Bros film, King Koopa, instead of having a castle, had a pair of decaying towers as his base-of-operations; these towers, collectively known as Koopa's Tower, were the Dinohatten equivalent of New York City's now destroyed World Trade Center.

Area Tattles

 * It's Bowser's Castle. This appears to be the hangar for Bowser's vehicles.


 * Boy! Bowser's Castle. Talk about your basic eerie atmosphere, huh? Oh... I'm nervous and excited at the same time. We're headed for the final fight at last!


 * Are we still outside the castle or what? Let's hurry through here. OK, Mario?


 * I've gotta hand it to him, Bowser's Castle is amazing! Such creative use of lava flows! It's just like that volcano!


 * It's a covered hallway in Bowser's Castle. It doesn't look like anythings amiss in here. Let's press on, Mario.


 * Look at the size of that stone Bowser face! He's pretty scary looking. That face gives me the creeps, Mario.


 * It's an underground prison cell, Mario. Are you sure you can find the way back to where we were before?


 * I wonder where all this lava comes from. Don't you think it's odd?


 * Lava, lava, lava! There's such a thing as too much lava, that's for sure. Mario, are you all right in this heat? Boy, it's hot! This adventure has just been one extreme or the other.


 * The only way to cross the lava is to have somebody carry us. If we could find a way to cool the lava off, we could probably walk on it, though. And if we have to pass through lava flows, we can have Bow hide us from danger.


 * Here's the source of the lava. It's miserably hot when it's flowing. It's not so bad when it's cooled off, though.


 * Now we're cooking! I mean, now we're not cooking! It's still hot, but not, you know, burning hot.


 * You know, walking on newly hardened lava is not exactly something that your average Goomba gets to experience.


 * The lava seems to have hardened as it cooled off.


 * There's a treasure chest. Things are looking up. The lava has even cooled.


 * It seems to be a cave. Are we below the castle? It's so dark. They must have had problems setting up lights down here. What a pain for us.


 * It seems to be a cave. Are we below the castle? It's so dark. How long can this darkness possibly last?


 * Ah! We're back inside Bowser's Castle. There's a stone pedestal with Bowser's face carved on it. What poor taste! What an egomaniac! If we push that thing, what do you think will happen?


 * It's a hall in Bowser's Castle. I wonder where it leads. We have to hurry! And yet, we should also be careful.


 * These stairs aren't lighted very well, are they? I wonder how deep below ground they go. Bowser should really look into some ambient lighting.


 * This is a prison cell where Toads are being held. You know... There are Toads here...and beds... It's kind of like a Toad House! Do you think that I'm just an incurable optimist? Well, what's wrong with that?


 * Here's the storage room for Bowser's Castle. It looks like one of his subjects is selling his stuff. Ha ha!


 * It's a covered hallway. I can sum up the decorating in two words: pure Bowser! Such dark colors and drab lighting! What terrible taste!


 * I'm sure Bowser's going to be surprised. I'm sure he'd never believe that we could make it this far. I can't wait to see the expression on his face.


 * If Bombette were about three times bigger, we could just blow all these walls up. It would certainly let us move through these areas a lot faster. But that's probably not a good idea. It would be far too dangerous.


 * We're somewhere inside Bowser's Castle. This hall is quite large. It also looks quite fortified. I wonder if there's anything good around here? An attack item, maybe?


 * Look at all these carvings of Bowser's ugly mug. It's really shameless! I guess he thinks he's cool. Hey, incidentally, about those stone pedestals... Some move and some don't, so check 'em all out.


 * Whoa! This corridor has much lower ceilings, huh? I guess I had gotten used to really high ceilings.


 * In case you don't know by now, some of these Bowser pedestals can be pushed and others can't. In many cases, you can push them from either the right or left side. I wonder where I heard that?


 * This is a hidden passage. It's a bit dark, huh? That's all right. I can sense that something good's in here.


 * Some of these Bowser pedestals can be pushed and others can't. In many cases, you can push them from either the right or left sides. If they move, you can be sure they're covering a hidden passage.


 * See! A hidden passage. This one doesn't seem to be hiding anything interesting.


 * ...Nothing. This room's just a dead end. How worthless. Let's go back to the room where the pedestals are and check 'em out!


 * This hidden passage looks promising, doesn't it? It must lead somewhere... You know, I hope we're going in the right direction. I feel kind of disoriented.


 * We've certainly seen many kinds of treasure on our adventures, haven't we, Mario? There's one that I would value above all others, though. I would keep it in the safest place I know... Mario, please give me your autograph!!


 * Again with the Bowser faces! I'm sick of looking at his ugly mug! Let's find the real Bowser and show him who's boss! And then I can meet Princess Peach!


 * It's the outside of Bowser's Castle. Even the outside feels gross and ominous. Maybe he wasn't so bad until he moved here. Living in such a dank place isn't good for the soul.


 * How many halls have we been through? I wonder what this one leads to... To Bowser's room? Maybe?


 * Know what this reminds me of? A ghost story! This would make the perfect setting for a freaky ghost story! We could have Bow and her friends play the scary parts. Remind me to do that some time back at Toad Town!


 * It's a prison cell within Bowser's Castle. A lot of Toads are here. It's a bit strange... Why would Bowser ever need this many prison cells? Do you think there are that many prisoners?


 * I think we've already come really far. But we're not at Bowser's room yet. Where could he be? This place is so complicated! That Bowser... I really don't like him!


 * "I smell treasure!" Isn't that a good Kolorado imitation? Mario? Wasn't that right on? I wonder what Kolorado's doing?


 * It's a covered hallway in Bowser's Castle. There's no place to hide around here, that's for sure. Not that we need one, Mario! Who'd hide? Not me!


 * Do you think those windows open to outside or to the inner part of the castle? I'm getting totally turned around in here. This castle really is huge.


 * It's a room without a window. It also has a chandelier with no lights in it. I'm getting the feeling that Bowser is really going for the dark, gothic look in here. Maybe he hates bright lights.


 * All the torches hanging over there... Doesn't their pattern strike you as sort of suspicious? It's almost as if there's a hidden meaning there. What do you say we try to remember it?


 * I think we keep passing through the same room. Do you think, perhaps, that somebody's messing with us? Well, it's a waste of time to just keep running around with no clue about what we're doing. It's kind of like what happened in Forever Forest. Say...those torches might hold a clue for us.


 * This is a corridor of sorts. I guess it's more like an elevated skyway, though. If a guy were afraid of heights, his legs would probably tremble and he'd probably freak out. Gulp!


 * You know, if I were designing a castle, I wouldn't put in so many corridors. Well, whatever. You can't expect Bowser to have good taste.


 * This room is one big ego massage for Bowser. I wish we could crush all these statues to dust.


 * Stairs again! Do you think Princess Peach's Castle is at the top of 'em? We're almost there, Mario! I can feel it! Onward! The princess awaits!

Trivia

 * Bowser's Castle from Paper Mario made a cameo appearance in the Mario Kart: Super Circuit course Rainbow Road, as the castle appears in the background.