Falco
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Falco, the pilot from Star Fox, makes his debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee. He boasts a versatile shine as well as a plethora of useful moves. He has a very devastating punish game, capable of comboing and tech chasing characters until their stock is taken. He also is incredibly dominating in the neutral game because of his powerful aerials, and lasers able to cause hitstun. With these, he stands 4th on the current tier list.
How to unlock[edit]
There are two ways to unlock Falco:
- Defeat 100-Man Melee with any character within any time limit.
- Play 300 VS. matches
Necessary Tech[edit]
Attributes[edit]
Falco's play style is said to be very similar to Fox's in Super Smash Bros in that he has a high technical skill ceiling. He is also known to have the second fastest normal falling speed and the fastest fast falling speed. This means he is hard to hit in the air, and has a very fast SHFFL. On the downside, he has a poor recovery, and he is vulnerable to combos and chaingrabs that work on Fast fallers. Overall, Falco's moves possess larger range than Fox's, as he is slightly taller than Fox, and his leg-based moves have larger hitboxes (most notably his forward tilt, forward smash, and down smash).
Falco's excellent short hop is critical for his use of short hop lasers. His short hop lasers prevent most characters from approaching and can pressure the opponent. His shine not only reflects projectiles, but is also one of his strongest tools for starting combos. Falco also has the highest initial jump, the ability to wall jump, and a very effective Down Aerial spike. He also has the odd property of having a walk speed that is almost as fast as his full run speed.
Like Fox, Falco is lightweight and has a linear recovery. Not only does he have the aforementioned fast-falling problem, but also the slowest air speed, along with Fox. This means that not only does Falco fall much further while in hitstun, but he gets launched far by strong attacks. This along with his short, linear recovery makes him very easily gimped if he can even reach the ledge at all. Falco's Up Special Move, Fire Bird is very easy to edgeguard, due to its long start-up lag, linear travel, and short length. Additionally, it also lacks the active hitbox during the charge up that Fox's Up special has. His Side Special Move, Falco Phantasm, is shorter than Fox's Illusion, but has a faster startup, which, when combined with its meteor smash effect make it much more difficult, and risky to edge guard against.
One of Falco's strongest attributes is down air, arguably the best aerial attack and best non-special move in the entire game. The move's hitbox lasts for a huge number of frames; the stronger initial hitbox spikes the opponent with strong knockback, while the late hitbox is a weaker spike in NTSC (it sends opponents horizontally in PAL). When used offstage at mid percents, a clean dair will send most characters too far below the stage to recover; it can also set up a guaranteed tech chase situation when used above the stage. Falco's dair knocks grounded opponents vertically starting at around 30 percent, meaning it can combo into itself multiple times, especially when L-canceled.
Falco possesses one of the most reliable combo games in Melee, relying on his shine, his up tilt (Utilt), and his Down air (Dair). A common technique among Falco's is known as pillaring. Pillaring involves launching the opponent upwards, usually with a shine or uptilt; jumping, and hitting them back down into the stage for a tech chase (or at low percents a true combo into another shine). This causes the opponent to repeatedly travel up and down, which looks a lot like a row of pillars, hence the name. This is possible because his shine and uptilt launch the opponent vertically, whereas the Dair launches the opponent downward into the ground. DI and teching make follow-ups more difficult, but with good reads and reactions, pillaring is still an extremely strong tactic for comboing. Falco's combo game relies far less on tech chasing compared to other characters such as Fox, making his strings more reliable to land. Falco, unlike Fox, also has a reliable finishing move to end combos in his down air; a pillar combo into a dair offstage can often lead to a kill or an easy edgeguard. Falco's pillar combos can easily deal 50% or more damage to fastfallers like Fox and Captain Falcon. He can also kill floaty characters such as Jigglypuff and Peach off the top blast zone with a well-timed shine or up air pillar combo.
One of Falco's weaknesses is his difficulty finishing opponents at high percents outside of edgeguards or down air spikes. Falco has few reliable kill confirms at high percents, because his shine sends non-fastfallers too far to reliably combo, and he has no guaranteed followups from his throws, leaving his main kill confirm as his low-ranged jab or a point blank laser. As a result, many opponents will simply stay in shield against a Falco while in kill percentage. Falco's main finishers are his forward smash, back air, down tilt, down smash, up smash, and up air, but each of these moves has their own shortcomings. His forward smash is powerful and kill extremely early near the edge when poorly DI'ed, but takes much longer to kill with good DI. His back air is prone to staling due to its frequent usage, and his down tilt has a low and small hitbox. Falco's down smash is most effective near the edge of the stage because it sends opponents at a nearly horizontal angle. His up smash and up air are both not very strong and only start to reliably kill above 140% on most characters, unless used near the top of the screen. As such, it is not uncommon to see floaty characters such as Peach and Samus living to extremely high percents vs. Falco. His most reliable KO setup at high percents is jump canceled Shine followed by back air. Overall, Falco lacks a strong and reliable finisher like Fox's up smash, which creates greater difficulty in finishing his opponents.
Techniques[edit]
Falco has some common techniques that are used often:
- Dair -> Shine
- Dair -> Shine -> Dair -> Shine etc. Also known as pillaring
- Nair -> Shine
- Dthrow -> Utilt (No tech)
- Dthrow -> Dtilt (No tech)
- Dair -> Fsmash
- Short hop laser reset -> Fsmash
- Short hop laser -> Shine
- Short hop laser -> Grab
- Short hop laser -> Aerial
- Aerial Shine (Single Hop) -> Immediate Bair (or Dair)
Notable players[edit]
Active[edit]
- 404Cray
- Albert
- Baxon
- Blunted_Object10
- bobby big ballz
- Fiction
- Frenzy
- G$
- Ginger
- Lambchops
- Magi
- Mango
- MattDotZeb
- Santiago
- Squid
- TheRealThing
- Westballz
Retired[edit]
- Axe formerly used Falco as a secondary
- Bam
- Bombsoldier
- Calle W
- Cyrain
- DaShizWiz
- Forward
- Frootloop
- HomeMadeWaffles is now a full time commentator
- Hungrybox formerly used Falco as a counter-pick character
- Kounotori
- DEHF is playing Ultimate
- PC Chris
- Porkchops
- PPMD
- Ralph switched to Pikachu/Fox
- Remen
- S2J formerly used Falco as a secondary
- StriCNYN3
- th0rn
- Zanguzen
- Zhu
Useful Links[edit]
- Falco Frame Data
- PP's Falco thoughts - A lot of pieced together info covering everything from proper laser usage to what sort of mindset you should have in game.
- Multishining guide
- Falco Matchup guide
- Alternate Falco Matchup guide
- bornfidelity's Falco Guide
- Mogwai's Falco guide
- Hell's Falco Tech Trials - Useful for learning some advanced movement and combos for Falco