Fatality will never admit it, but Falcon being so bad in 5 is why he quit. He kept talking about picking up secondaries like Kazuya and even practiced with him on stream yet never used them in tourney once. It was clear all he wanted to play was Falcon and only Falcon.
So sad. He was the first pro smash player I every watched. The set he took off zero in smash 4 where zero went for the ditto and took a game off him was so incredibly hype. It was one of the reasons I got so interested in competitive. I miss him.
I remember Light mentioning after his set against Fatality was that if Falcon was a better character Fatality would've been much scarier. Sadly isn't smash 4 falcon but hopefully smash 6 changes that. I really miss seeing falcon in majors
falcon isnt good but ults metagame is so abursdly anti fun thats its not even worth finding a new main, i too switched to sf6 after being a comp smash player since 4. defense/camping/stalling is too good and the game is genuinely so lame and boring to practice as everyone plays as campy as possible, online and offline. you get punished for interacting, and playing a pvp video game to not interact with your opponent is stupid as hell but all smashers play like that. playing this game comp wouldnt even be so bad if online was viable for practice, but its not and it only embraces ults flaws playing online
0:07 funny you should say that. Sakurai showed some footage of the prototype that would eventually become Super Smash Bros, and the one playable character in that prototype had an extremely similar body and moveset to the Captain Falcon we eventually got. Captain Falcon is, in essence, the first super smash bros character.
@Team-Eclipse6024 nah I think falcons bair suits him more than a ganon bair. If they could make the weak hit actually a combo starter at most percents or at least a consistent tech situation. Ganon dash attack tho would be insane tho
Falcon in Ultimate is weird, cause it FEELS like Ultimate's engine was tailored made to his benefit, but in actuality, Falcon hates almost everything about Ultimate's universal changes. Ultimate's balloon knockback inadvertently making hitstun slightly lower in Ultimate? Well now Falcon's combos are significantly more frame tight than in SSB4, so that's cool... Dash dancing is back! Oh, but Falcon is stuck with a slow turnaround animation and he is stuck with no alternative since extended dash dancing is removed in Ultimate. Traction values are way higher in Ultimate! This benefits almost every character in the roster to a significant degree! ....except, Falcon (and Meta Knight), as he benefitted heavily from sliding in SSB4, boosting his movement and extending his grab range. Grabs and throws have been essentially universally nerfed across the board! Falcon in SSB4 was, however, a very grab reliant character because of its absurd reward and it completes his gameplan, so he got completely screwed by this. One of the biggest casualties of the change. You can tech footstools in Ultimate! Falcon is the 2nd most nerfed character from this change (2nd only to Lucas), cause that was the crux of his punish game. Teching in general is easier in Ultimate! Well now even mid-level players have an easy time tech checking Falcon's recovery (to his credit, this got heavily mitigated thanks to patches). You can feel the vision of a faster paced engine heavily benefitting a character like Falcon, like Melee Falcon before him, but the engine in very subtle ways does everything in its power to beat up Falcon in every corner. Falcon feels like one of those characters whose viability is heavily dependent on the engine he is in, which is the primarily reason why he was garbage back in Brawl (he did not fit Brawl whatsoever), and why he is in a weird mid tier limbo in Ultimate where he is better on paper looking at his toolkit, than he is in practice he you actually look at his matchups and his gameplan.
Platforms also add to him being a glass canon. They are awesome for combos but he gets combod the same, and his mid initial dash make it so easy to shark him underneath.
Well said, man. I love using this character and feel like I have him mastered. Theres just so many situations where I feel I'm in a horrible position and very disadvantaged.
Indeed, that's why Falcon feels so awful to play. Worse neutral due to the removal of pivoting and dash grab nerfs, no footstools to guarantee his combos and lack of safety in general due to shield nerfs and stickier platforms.
Unbelievably refreshing to hear someone be correct about Falcon, good vid. A lot of weird Falcon problems actually come from copypasting stuff from Smash 4 into Ult without tweaking it for the new engine's physics. For example, fthrow and ftilt stopped forcing tech situations even though they kept the same launch angles.
The problem with Falcon is that not only does he feel like he's still unfinished even after all the updates(moves not connecting properly like nair and jab, his side b is still inconsistent and down throw is completely worthless compared to the other smash games since you can DI out of it super easily. So playing neutral with him feels funny. You go for super risky stuff, and you end up getting neutral exchanges that should be in your favor, but the character just refuses to work. You can fix his turnaround and make his initial dash faster by using dashwalk(guide on my channel), but even then, it feels like a pain and a disability to play this character. Falcon is literally the only character in the game with no projectiles, no disjoints, and no comeback mechanic so he does require a lot of work and adding all those unfinished inconsistent stuff to deal with doesn't help at all. So you have to constantly approach 100% of the time, and if you haven't noticed, especially in the meta nowadays if you approach in this game, you lose.
@castonyoung7514 There's even an video after my dashwalk tutorial that shows the difference between dashwalk and his normal initial dash and turnaround that shows the difference(look for the title that starts with turnaround fixed and visual examples)
@@dartfeld9810 "look for the title that starts with turnaround fixed and visual examples" Dude I programmatically searched your original post for parentheses, it contains exactly 2 '('s but only 1 ')'. There is no need for me to look for any "visual examples". Perhaps you typed in a closing parenthesis, but that's unfortunately not what uploaded and is viewable by me.
@@dartfeld9810If only I saw your dashwalk guide before I retired from smash ultimate. I was a falcon main but I never got past the turnaround animation ever since the game came out. (I mained bowser too and noticed that bowser just felt better while falcon felt off) That being said…while I do think dashwalk can be very helpful for falcon, I don’t think it’s enough because of his lack of threatening options, subpar burst and honestly if opponents want to close the gap on him then the extra distance you get off if seems a bit telegraphed with how fats you can do it. This is just my initial thoughts. I also don’t think it’ll help much where people know the falcon matchup (i.e. camping him or blowing off his lackluster hitboxes)
@prolificpoultry4899 100% on the money. These techs that I've been showing on my channel were pretty much just bandages for the stab wound that is Falcon in this game. It's possible at the very, very highest level, for this stuff to optimize Falcon, but this late in the meta where everything is extremely defensive, it's not really worth it.
A character that is missing something to fit into his niche. A character that can be extremely hype but you have to play lamer the better the player. It’s scary that Duck Hunt is so similar to Falcon in this videos context.
I swear that competitively and casually the only problem with Falcon is the change to his running/stopping/turn around. If it was fixed, he'd be more fun because it'd feel better to move with him, and potentially more viable since his unique traction/slide mechanic would allow him to have more mixup potential and make his approach more ambiguous
Even if the turnaround got fixed, he still will not be able to slide around like in SSB4. In Ultimate, everyone's traction values got massively increased from the previous games, to the point where the lowest traction values in Ultimate (Banjo & Mii Gunner) is higher than the highest traction value in Brawl/SSB4 (Lucario). For the most part, this is a massive benefit for virtually every character in the game as it provides more precise movement while making it so that you slide less away from blocking an attack. Falcon is an exception, since he ironically heavily benefitted from the slide he got from SSB4 when it comes to extended dash dances, ambiguous movement, and extending his grab range. He does benefit in some areas from the change, but it prob has hurt him more than it helps.
It always felt like many of Falcon’s changes were done out of spite to his sm4sh version, based on how people played him in For Glory. A common flowchart you’d see back then was dashback to dashgrab, nair-trains across the stage, and then cover ledge with up tilt. Falcons both a simple and popular character, so It felt like changes were directly made to stop him from “gatekeeping” lower level players with these gameplans, leading to nerfs/changes in Ultimate which impacted his consistency at higher levels. I can’t help but feel like many popular old-school characters (Marth, Sheik, etc.) were punished this way going into Ultimate, while current flowchart characters like GnW and Luigi were too obscure to be balanced properly during Ultimate’s development.
For sure they changed between games, although Luigi’s arguably been THE smash bros grappler for a good decade just with d-throw. Much of Ult’s current relevant characters were once “weird” or unpopular characters when coming from 4. The overpowered tools they got coming into Ult tended to survive patches, especially if they lost notable tools inbetween games which hurt their perception early on (ex. Samus losing Dash Attack from 4). Many popular veterans in 4 simply lost options coming into ult, with the only compensation for some being a couple lottery buffs
@rcee3195 i agree with that general assessment. Donkey kong and metaknight where my examples of characters losing stuff from sm4sh into Ult with very little to no compensation. Its just that Luigi and GnW werent part of that one. :)
As a Falcon main and newer player to the game, this explains my confusion when I tried out Roy and Fox and thought, "why is this game suddenly so much easier?"
If they just allow you to keep your speed in the air like melee and possibly buffed his grab range, this would pretty much completely fix him, especially if they made his throws knockback weaker
Also just get rid of the turn around animation for everyone and make it a snap like melee. And buff falcon’s initial dash since it’s pretty mediocre. Oh and give him the sex kick on nair 2 like in melee. Also fix his awkward hit boxes on a bunch of his moves. Heh, I’m not saying your suggestion wouldn’t do a lot for him but I feel like he’s just got some bizarre and artificially bestowed problems
I don't understand why they took his perks away from him moving out of Smash 4! Yes Captain Falcon was kinda insane, but if he moved into Ultimate with those, he actually would fit right in since there's so many characters in Ultimate. And many can outrange him!
I secondary Falcon and while I can do think he can still hold up on his own in this meta, his glaring weaknesses really show. His turnaround animation is so detrimental to escaping out of scenarios and neutral as well as easy to combo and edgeguard from a lot of characters.
I think the intention was making him 100% rushdown so they made him bad at retreating on purpose. But then they didnt do it to Sonic lol. Highkey if the turn around animation was a universal mechanic the game would probably be less campy.
I see this idea so much and every single time it makes me wince because Black Shadow is typically faster than Falcon in F-Zero. F-Zero rep in Smash is already inherently limited in what it can do, and differences between Black Shadow and Falcon's stats would be one of the few hypothetical chances to make that actually happen.
I feel like Ultimate SHOULD be the best Smash game by a mile but the dev team called it a day when all of the characters were posted. It needs some big tweaks but they are not that much in the grand scheme of things.
Fr the last time I've seen a falcon play at top level has been months. Even characters thought to be high mid like bayo have started getting top 8 in majors but falcon has shown no improvement
@@epistarter1136 Because he was unintentionally design like that, the problem is that Ult. Engine and mechanics affect Cap. Falcon more than it benefits him. Smash 4 Falcon was indeed a very versatile character but some of his sauce really made him somewhat annoying and reason why they tried to balance him out in a healthy way but doin' the opposite. Don't judge me, I like Cap. Falcon, Melee Falcon still is my favorite version but Ult. Falcon is very lame.
@@nomado.3855I actually think his smash 4 self would have fit better into smash ultimate considering how much faster everyone is. Intentionally giving him the slowest turn around of 13 frames and having it slide him backwards and a slow initial dash is unnecessarily cruel because there are characters faster than him with better movement and better burst options.
@@nomado.3855Don’t get me wrong though, I understand people were frustrated when fighting captain falcon in smash 4 (because I was a falcon main) but rather than a different take on the character, he just feels watered down like a lot of returning characters
Heh, my dissatisfaction with him and bowser are part of the reason I stopped playing and picked up melee. It sucks because I put in like 2000+ hours in the game and spent tons of time playing with my friends at parties and at school just to end up bitter with the game.
He's getting quite good too. I don't watch fatality specifically, but I know he's getting crazy because I'm seeing him on sf pro players streams in bracket - if you're facing off against NuckleDu and Punk at their weekly online tournaments, you're doing something right.
For the moment i started mastering Falcon, i had this feeling that the character was being held back by the engine. After installing HDR, playing it for a while and then trying back vanila, let me make a list. 1. He is floatier than what it should be, or rather his short hop makes him jump to high, forcing me to use fast falling way more often, and yet, it's very slow, because the game doesn't allow you to fast fall, until you are past your jump peak, making it very predictable, for neutral and punnish, i don't like sacrificeing my characters identity for a better recovery. 2. His grab range is not a problem for me, but rather his throws, my brother discovered that unless i'm very precise, he can punnish me with any counter in the game, if i decide to atenpt a combo or followup, the only things i can use to punnish him on that situation are up-b(which is not easy to land), or grab again(which is a terrible punnish). 3. His dash dancing is terrible, this single fact, makes his speed be situational, and his movility trash, he is very unsatisfying and rough to move, also his jump doesn't transfer his grounded speed, making it unnatural. 4. Nair-1 might be harder to land because nair-2 comes out very fast, but you can still get it with some consistecy, the real issue for me, or the real crime the devs did IMO, is up air having a dogshit hitbox for grounded enemies, landing a hit on a short standing oponent is a real fucking odisey, and for the rest of the cast is also very hard, and no one seems to point on how much this problem ruins his gameplan. Now i cannot go back to vanila, due to this shit. Go play HDR.
He is supposed to be a glass cannon. He explodes you but you can explode him. He should be able to pressure with knee: in Melee it's +1 and his other aerials are 0 to -4 on block. If he lands a grab, or side b, or stomp at 100 or higher you should get kneed and die. With that and fixing his jank dash he would be incredible again.
I feel like falcon is too predictable. Like most rushdown characters have a myriad of mixups and timing mixups and options the opponent has to account for, but falcon seems to be straightforward to a fault.
He falls more into the Hit & Run, he is not Rushdown by any means because he lacks the tools, hitboxes and overall aggressiveness that real Rushdowns like Fox, Roy, Chrom, Pichu, Sheik and Mythra have, Falcon also relies too much on Bait and Punish which makes his rushdown not rushdown.
If Falcon had Melee Knee where the sweet spot is active for a few more frames I feel like he would be perfect in this game. He’s still a ton of fun to play though.
It’d certainly help but knee is so good in melee because of how easy it is to convert into and its incredibly versatile. In ultimate it’s incredibly laggy, falcon can’t really convert into it well especially out of up air strings and he just doesn’t have the movement to have stray hits lead into it.
I feel the main problem with Captain falcon is the huge grab nerf in ultimate, because his sauce came from those openings, either short hop Nair, dash attack or grab to rack up tons of damage.
Personally, Falcon has never felt good to me outside of 64 and Melee. His set just doesn't come together in any of the game engines since Brawl. Even when he performs well, like in Smash 4, his combos feel so limp and lack a sense of weight. Just doesn't feel good to play imo. Even from a casual perspective, they've added so many more "hype" characters with bigger, more explosive moves that the old Falcon Punch and Knee don't really stand out as especially appealing anymore. A downgrade to some areas of sound design is a contributing factor as well, I think. It might sound reductionist, but I wish they'd just revert him to as close to his Melee self as possible, and double down on it. Nerf his recovery, make his disadvantage state even worse, make him faster, and max out his effectiveness in neutral and advantage. Just turn him into the ultimate rushdown fighter who blows you up if he touches you, but gets destroyed if he ever loses an interaction. Right now, he's just kind of "generic combo guy" who doesn't do anything exceptional among the roster, and that's a real shame for a character who's otherwise so eccentric and bombastic.
@@cannibalfish2429eh. Not really. It helps but the distance and length of it limit its versatility, especially IF opponents decide to approach falcon rather than camp him. The reason why the turn around is so crucial is because a normal one would allow him to weave in and out of burst range like the many better and faster characters above him. I commented to the guy who made a video about the tech and he agrees, as I think most falcon mains would with this assessment
Falcon needs so many tweaks to be a top tier it isn't even funny. Grace and Glory has it right; just copy-pasting him from S4 lost the message of the moves and traits he should have had, losing what makes him Falcon in the transition to the new engine. He's too in-between to be good at either rushdown or bait and punish, for a variety of inconsistencies and incongruent tools that need tweaking in one direction or another. Make him a rushdown god, or impossible to hit as a bait and punish. Not a rushdown character thats easy to hit out of his rushdown.
@@TheKingofGoldstone I think the best way to sum it up is he’s just not good at anything. Whereas the top tiers are either good at everything or excel in one thing stupidly well.
2:25 You can argue that’s still within the glass canon because with that weight and poor air movement when hit, he’s very easy to combo and gimp more often than even Fox for example
Captain Falcon in Ultimate falls more in the Hit & Run, because he loses so Bad against swordies, Terry, Steve and G&W (His worst matchup) since he lacks the range and hitboxes to work his gameplay and the recovery specially with disjointed hitboxes ain't help him too much , no wonder why he is so lame in Ultimate.
The objectively funniest move Nintendo could make is make Ganondorf more of a clone of Captain Falcon again, and then completely rework CF to some entirely unrecognized form. Maybe they could use his tiny little gun. It wouldn't be a good option, but I bet it would be talked about in the community longer than Metaknight being busted in Brawl.
The most fun I've ever had playing Smash was playing Captain Falcon in the mod Brawl Minus. It just felt like the developers took *all* the chains off, it was glorious.
Nah melee ganon is GARBAGE. I think ult falcon is more like... melee luigi? Awkward but fast movement, annoying to scrap with, randomly blows you up but also gets blown up due to bad recovery and disadvantage
@@ellachino4799 melee ganon isn’t garbage. He’s actually pretty decent, and he’s essentially in the middle of the tier list which is where I’d place falcon in ultimate. I see what you mean with relating him to luigi though. Also melee ganon, like a lot of melee characters are worse off because the characters above them and at the top are so much better. But like could you imagine melee ganon in smash ultimate? Wavedashing and all? I’d come back to ultimate to play the crap out of that
@@prolificpoultry4899 i think ult falcon is a little better than middle - if I remember correctly the last ult tier list had bowser at around middle and I think ult falcon is still better than bowser, just like how melee luigi is just barely better than middle of the pack ganon. Dude imagine if smash had street fighter style versions for each character, like you could pick the character on the select screen but also their older versions like brawl meta knight or something. Would be busted but so much fun. I guess Melee Ganon does have that sheik chaingrab... I'll reluctantly say he's at least counterpick viable, though he seriously feels bad to use. I'd much rather play DK if I want a heavy, and melee falcon is also just better than ganon in every way
@ Oh I’d love if I could play any version of each smash character. Then it’d really be smash ultimate because every is and has been here. Also I have to know, would melee falcon destroy smash’s top tiers after melee? What about melee fox vs brawl meta knight? Or smash 4 bayo vs ultimate steve? Brawl snake vs ultimate snake because brawl snake was kind of busted if not for icies and meta knight.
@@prolificpoultry4899 brawl diddy would also be crazy, 2 bananas and dacus? Melee marth with his crazy grabs and melee falco with laser pressure on shield... the possibilities man
Hey, fantastic video, but the point nair 1 being inconsistent into knee ain't right. It is an incredibly consistent kill option into knee and works from 0 to 150% and beyond for some characters. You don't need idj except for a few characters at a small 5% window somewhere between 50-70%. It is mostly mitigated with properly delaying the knee after a short hop or timing the knee as early as possible for full hop
The vast majority of those kill confirms were undiscovered when balance patches were still a thing. Most of them are accidental, and the folks working on the game didn't predict kills coming from such low percentage. Falcon is a good example of why you can't use general rules for thinking about character balance. Platform fighters are nuanced. Taking away a single kill confirm can shift a character from top tier to mid or worse (diddy).
Ahh yes, the hypest character in 64 and Melee, One of the worst in Brawl, The most versatile in Smash 4 and the one of the lamest in Ultimate, My favorite version is Melee.
I kinda wish that his smash attacks all worked like his Up smash, to make his close range really strong. Then I'd think about making his ground moves better, moves like dash attack and up tilt don't combo nearly well enough. And lastly, bair sucks (no range, hard to combo, and not strong enough)
Yeah Falcon is like one of those characters where Nintendo, the smash team or sakurai himself (or all of the above) didn’t want him to be the way he was in smash 4 for some reason? Or just a very specific kind of way like they also did with Ridley. I don’t understand why exploiting the characters in cool ways like with footstool combos and sliding was so weirdly taken away, but it makes it to where smash 4, which was janky In a really fun way, makes it janky in an unfun way in ultimate and if you liked the character in legit every other entry you just don’t vibe with the character in this game. It’s the same with the multi hit controversy where I who loved Fox forever because of his cool drag down kill trick with forward air and his down throw to forward air combo no longer work. Or even in brawl where he could stall in the air with shine. All that removed because fox ought to be an all in aggressor who can only start a combo from a raw hit like dash attack and neutral air when in every other game he can be more versatile. I tried in recent years for so long to just play fox he just doesn’t fit me so I play wolf and sephiroth as a secondary cause I had a good marth too. No matter what anyone says I will always believe that ultimate is THE best competitively out of all the games, but it still isn’t the best that smash could be and it’s because of those decisions. Ridley for instance should feel like a boss like character while being balanced with the competitive seen, all the heavies should be good in general and Bayonetta should be so much more than what she was in both of these games. But this is what they thought was the best they could do. It’s why I wish more for a deluxe cause I want them to make the ultimate game before we move on, I really do.
In regards to the whole "Falcon is overrated in terms of hype", I think there's one more piece to the puzzle: His combos are super boring and lack variety compared to other characters. Aside from a decent variety in terms of combo starters, everything after the fact is practically guaranteed to be Nair and/or Up Air, then the combo ender will probably be a Knee. Compare that to the variety in combos like Joker, Bayonetta, Fox, Shiek, Terry, etc. (I would throw Kazuya there too if EWGF wasn't a thing that just overshadows the vast variety of combos that he does have lmao). For all this talk about how Captain Falcon is just so flashy of a fighter, he's not even like top 5 of the flashiest fighters on the roster, that's pretty sad.
@@ashton5061 He’s pretty lame in ultimate for sure and optimal falcon is just like ultra lame. He’s so hype in melee because of the versatility in his combo game. Although, even as a falcon main, I find many of the standard knee combos to be pretty boring to watch. But it’s when you get like three tech chases into a reverse bair to knee when it gets hype. Also in ultimate he can’t even combo into knee easily so his up air strings end in like nair or reverse bair.
Why everyone and no one plays captain Falcon. By the way I use to main captain falcon smash 4 but realize this game mechanics do not work out for him in ultimate
whoa whoa whoa whoa (stops at 1:26ish). How is he not a bait and punish character? He can essentially control the speed and distance between himself and opponents, and playing his ground game slowly requires occasional throwing out of his jab to cover him. He can obviously cover dashins and aerial is necessary, and if you go in with pressure at least on the ground, I don’t think he has the recovery generally to commit to a forward approach unless you try baiting. Naw. After playing fox lately, I see the rushdown elements but do not be fooled: failing a bait and punish approach with falcon is negating his skillset.
@@wepeanutthree5553 He’s not a bait and punish because he has no way to force approaches. His movement sucks. His burst options are incredibly telegraphed. His aerials are non threatening and trades don’t work out favorably for him when pitted against better characters. His attacks lacks range and again, his crappy dash doesn’t afford him the freedom of movement to connect those hits. Even his initial dash sucks which doesn’t let him close that gap off a whiffed aerial when so many characters are ranged and have better apm. All these things combined with the optimal way to play the matchup being to camp him and yeah he’s just not really a bait and punish character. I mean I see the reasons why he should be. I mained him for 5 years in ultimate, but he just doesn’t have it. Once you get your hands on him then his disadvantage sucks so bad and he can’t play from behind when he’s being camped.
@ Ok. I’m going to do a visceral, gut feeling response and then I will do a more thought out response but here is my visceral response: FORCING APPROACH: forward aerial can condition to force a approach. if you intentionally use it to whiff, and as it is a heavy move, your opponent may be baited by the end lag. Hell, I can even use it as a threat and just fast fall when my opponent thinks I’ll use it to not even risk the cover of end lag. Off the top of my gut, I can probably use cross ups to also force approach-but I will concede, these are more micro spacing- short term approaches. Opponents will always feel pressured by easily juggalable moves, especially if it misses, so if I miss with his up air intentionally as a cross up, I feel confident I can get a bait-it will just come from a short approach. Using the behind hitbox of an up air, and using it as an encroaching poke could also work but again- short approaches. As for attacks lacking range, I personally use tilts out of dashes and other pokes because psychologically, dashing or moving through the air turns the character into a projectile in the same way a fully charged samus neutral special is a projectile. Now this is not a projectile with a hitbox of course, and you need to practice conditioning for sure to get this effect, I consider any character whether moving through the air or dashing and tossing out a poke, I consider that character as a projectile and have had opponents respond like they would a projectile-it just needs a bit of conditioning to get really get the effect-but in the moment, he situationally has all the range he needs. His intitial dash is perfect for mixing up into a grab-if they go into shield because like you said, his bursts are telegraphed, I’ll either go for a throw or a neutral so I think his dash does what its supposed to if you go the bait and punish route. Now as for campers, I think there are obvious reasons why he would have trouble, but I think I could get around em if I try. I’ll play some a few rounds and I’ll get back to you on that-but everything else in regards to forcing approach and his range, oh yeah man. I definitely got stand behind all that.
@@wepeanutthree5553 all these things, using yourself as a projectile, poking with the reverse hit of up air, baiting approaches with knee, they are all good ideas that work… on melee falcon. But again, all these moves have poor, hard to hit hitboxes or lack range, especially the reverse hit of his up air which can’t hit a lot of standing characters Knee’s landing lag is 18 frames which doesn’t seem like much except that its range is short and it has a pretty decent amount of startup which makes it highly committal and very punishable. Trust me, if falcon could use knee as an approach tool like he could in melee then he’d be 10x better. Look I’m not saying he’s got nothing. I’m not saying he just gets completely screwed, it’s just he’s in this weird state where he’s not great at anything such that camping on both ends is more preferable. It also means he has to work so hard for mediocre openings which is not the mark of a character that can thrive in this meta At the top level he just gets wrecked though, like fox is so oppressive for him, and so is roy, these two characters can pressure the crap out of him particularly well and then camp him (both on the ground and in the air)
Ah yes the smash char. Its an interesting role he plays and what hes been through. I rember him doing well 4 a bit but now hes just alr. Villager vid when lol.
I heavily disagree with most of the points in this video. He has arguably the best combination of mobility and survivability in the game, and his ludicrous kill power only increases as you get better with the character. He has excellent options both on and offstage, and a lot of his perceived issues can be fixed with tech and labbing. I think this is a case similar to melee falcon where it could take years for this character to be properly optimized
@@cannibalfish2429 As a falcon main of five years in ultimate I have to heavily disagree with you and heavily agree with the video. His survivability sucks because he has an exploitable recovery, even without tech checking which can still be taken advantage of, just not as consistently. But if you have an active hit box or a disjoint or some range then there is no reason to go off stage and hit him as he is recovering. He can’t really mix up his recovery, his ledge options suck since his aerials have poor range, and aren’t threatening enough on their own. Also he’s tall too and has some poorly placed hit boxes on a lot of his moves. His out of shield game sucks with his fastest option being up air or nair which, again, have poorly placed hit boxes that also end too quick. His kill power is alright but it becomes incredibly difficult to land them at a top level because his movement sucks, and again, he’s got poor range. Onstage his approach options are incredibly telegraphed which forces him to camp and fish for openings. Those openings being nair one, dash attack, a bair into potential tech chase, side b or grab. Approaching with his nair or bair sucks because his nair has low priority and his bair won’t lead to much. Up air can catch jumping opponents but if it trades then falcon is going to end up worse off. Bag dashing is so impractical unless someone can do it perfectly and even dashwalks have their limits due to its length and the speed in which it can be done. It’s why having a normal dash dance is so good, because its length can be varied more. Offstage, again, his attacks have low priority and a lot of characters can abuse him or get around or trade better with his hit boxes. These aren’t perceived issues. They are real problems and you can see it at the mid to top level. It doesn’t help that nearly every other character is better at camping him which is the optimal way to play both against and with him and the meta is heavily leaning towards this
@@prolificpoultry4899 Ive seen someone change his moveset via a mod called the "Blood falcon" mod. From what I saw one big tweak is that his down special now is INSANE at recovering horizontally like how wizard's dropkick was used to help ganondorf recover horizontally however here its even more capable since it is even more forwards than downwards. Also I think that they made the falcon punch as fast as the smash 64 variant meaning he can use it as a hard read more frequently
I think the problem with Falcon is the priority and hitboxes of his moves. If Mario's fireball collides with Falcons Falcon kick which is a much powerful attack will cancel out eachother. And why does Mario have bigger hitboxes than Falcon even tho Falcon is s much bigger character
@@aidenvega6306It's a sequel to indie game Rivals of Aether 1. Most people tend to know that game as the pixel Smash Bros-like that had "funny' mods like Ronald McDonald. The MUGEN of Smash Bros basically. It was a successful niche game with a dedicated fan base and even had Shovel Knight and Ori to gain some more visibility. But it was held back by its pixel art style and not having the likes of ledges, grabs, and shields in the game. It got a 3D sequel that released this year that includes those mechanics and adds new ones like special pummels and ledge specials and to say it's successful compared to the likes of Nick All-star Brawl and Multiversus would be an understatement. You can see a couple of other Smash Bros content creators really into the game, you even have the likes of MKLeo, Mango, AMSA, Hungrybox and Dabuz competing in their tournaments. And many others in the fighting game space. It has good visuals compared to other Smash Bros-likes (We call them Platform Fighters) good sound design, good animations, fun and expressive character designs, mechanically depth, and is very fun to play. The game costs $30 in U.S. currency but the game will have FREE characters, stages, and gameplay modes like a fleshed out Story mode like the Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Gameplay will never be locked behind payment or grinding. The game will sustain itself with purchases of the game, a co-publisher in Offbrand (who's ran from a popular Smash Bros commentator), and in-game cosmetics which are possible to earn without spending a single cent on the game. Might be silly to write this whole essay but it really is a good game and I highly recommend people check it out, even if they're against the anthro character designs. But if people can tolerate the Pokemon and Star Fox crew, I'm sure they can tolerate the character designs in Rivals of Aether 2.
I think you should upload all your content to the same chanel people are alot less close minded then you think.... (ok maybe not the genshin impact content)
Falcon has really odd mechanics that make you think in a completely different way when you play him. It used to drive me insane when I first tried to call him my main. He has top tier run speed, but bottom tier attack speed. He jumps high, but he falls oddly fast. He has a lot of kill moves, but none of his moves truly combo into one another. To get combos with Falcon, you have to add basic movement skills and overall match up knowledge. Playing him is purely skill because he really has no advantages, just a bunch of kill moves. After saying that; I am really seeing him as Ganondorf Lite now... Or Ganon is Falon Heavy? idk
Cap is great but i dont know why the devs make him weaker in most of the games. Like no hate as a Falcon main I want my boy to get some love like Gannon did
@@garretwoeller7669 he's just fun, I dont think tier lists are the only thing developers take into account when designing/balancing characters, they just make them, tweak a few things to make them functional and thats it, If youre too worried to lose that much with one character, just pick another, theres plenty of them, there's always gonna be falcon players anyway.
But unlike falcon, she can play bait and punish due to her special dodge. Sadly Mythra is also not that good at racking damage when playing more defensively due to being a balancing to her range and frame data, and that's why I feel she's overrated.
I disagree with both of you. A well-spaced Mythra nair is practically unpunishable but you still get a huge combo from it even if you only hit a small part of the nair. In the neutral, I see the top-level Pythra mains alternate between spamming Nair on the SIDE of someone's shield(not directly ON shield because that's unsafe) and spamming her tilts. Sooner or later, because of her overwhelming speed, something hits, and they do a 40% true combo at least as a result. Then, the opponent is in disadvantage, so the Pythra player gets to juggle them for a while before they switch to Pyra and eventually get the kill.
This is some fucking copium. Mythra doesn't need to play rushdown, and even if she does, she's definitely able to an extent due to her really far dash grab being able to punish holding shields
@@Wrestleroftheyear the only good falcon in my area is marss. Me saying he's annoying to face is far different from me saying he's broken. Hes braindead and mashy and a waste of time to face against. Hes not fun for anyone. And you're a clown for saying he lacks true combos because if you had any skill at the game, youd know what an IDJ is
Also, I want him to have F smash as Falcon Punch and use the gun sort of like Joker, but if you push n b and then up/down, he’ll either do a headshot or an under point respectively to help reduce his stature.
Fatality will never admit it, but Falcon being so bad in 5 is why he quit.
He kept talking about picking up secondaries like Kazuya and even practiced with him on stream yet never used them in tourney once.
It was clear all he wanted to play was Falcon and only Falcon.
So sad. He was the first pro smash player I every watched. The set he took off zero in smash 4 where zero went for the ditto and took a game off him was so incredibly hype. It was one of the reasons I got so interested in competitive. I miss him.
I’m pretty sure he has already admitted that.
To me falcon died in comp smash when fatality quit, every other falcon I watch just plays like it's elite smash or mindless edgeguards to death.
I remember Light mentioning after his set against Fatality was that if Falcon was a better character Fatality would've been much scarier. Sadly isn't smash 4 falcon but hopefully smash 6 changes that. I really miss seeing falcon in majors
falcon isnt good but ults metagame is so abursdly anti fun thats its not even worth finding a new main, i too switched to sf6 after being a comp smash player since 4. defense/camping/stalling is too good and the game is genuinely so lame and boring to practice as everyone plays as campy as possible, online and offline. you get punished for interacting, and playing a pvp video game to not interact with your opponent is stupid as hell but all smashers play like that. playing this game comp wouldnt even be so bad if online was viable for practice, but its not and it only embraces ults flaws playing online
0:07 funny you should say that. Sakurai showed some footage of the prototype that would eventually become Super Smash Bros, and the one playable character in that prototype had an extremely similar body and moveset to the Captain Falcon we eventually got. Captain Falcon is, in essence, the first super smash bros character.
Samus also took from those guys, and I think she was finished first so she kinda ties for first ever smash character, at least for me.
Unironically, captain falcon wants some moves off ganondorf.
Ganandorf’s moveset’s crazy good. He just has the second worst mobility and 4th worst hitbox in the game
What I wouldn't give for some Falcon Punch armor
Specifically, dash attack and back-air probably if I was to name a few.
@@PorcKopup tilt:
@Team-Eclipse6024 nah I think falcons bair suits him more than a ganon bair. If they could make the weak hit actually a combo starter at most percents or at least a consistent tech situation. Ganon dash attack tho would be insane tho
Feels like falcon either kills at 50 or 150 and there isn't really any in-between.
or in other terms, he has marthritis (so called because it's an issue marth has had for a while, where they either kill fairly early, or pretty late)
Pretty much. His combos just don't work at those mid percentages, and his heavy hitters don't hit hard enough to kill at those mid percentages either.
Falcon in Ultimate is weird, cause it FEELS like Ultimate's engine was tailored made to his benefit, but in actuality, Falcon hates almost everything about Ultimate's universal changes.
Ultimate's balloon knockback inadvertently making hitstun slightly lower in Ultimate? Well now Falcon's combos are significantly more frame tight than in SSB4, so that's cool...
Dash dancing is back! Oh, but Falcon is stuck with a slow turnaround animation and he is stuck with no alternative since extended dash dancing is removed in Ultimate.
Traction values are way higher in Ultimate! This benefits almost every character in the roster to a significant degree! ....except, Falcon (and Meta Knight), as he benefitted heavily from sliding in SSB4, boosting his movement and extending his grab range.
Grabs and throws have been essentially universally nerfed across the board! Falcon in SSB4 was, however, a very grab reliant character because of its absurd reward and it completes his gameplan, so he got completely screwed by this. One of the biggest casualties of the change.
You can tech footstools in Ultimate! Falcon is the 2nd most nerfed character from this change (2nd only to Lucas), cause that was the crux of his punish game.
Teching in general is easier in Ultimate! Well now even mid-level players have an easy time tech checking Falcon's recovery (to his credit, this got heavily mitigated thanks to patches).
You can feel the vision of a faster paced engine heavily benefitting a character like Falcon, like Melee Falcon before him, but the engine in very subtle ways does everything in its power to beat up Falcon in every corner. Falcon feels like one of those characters whose viability is heavily dependent on the engine he is in, which is the primarily reason why he was garbage back in Brawl (he did not fit Brawl whatsoever), and why he is in a weird mid tier limbo in Ultimate where he is better on paper looking at his toolkit, than he is in practice he you actually look at his matchups and his gameplan.
Platforms also add to him being a glass canon. They are awesome for combos but he gets combod the same, and his mid initial dash make it so easy to shark him underneath.
👍
Well said, man. I love using this character and feel like I have him mastered. Theres just so many situations where I feel I'm in a horrible position and very disadvantaged.
Indeed, that's why Falcon feels so awful to play. Worse neutral due to the removal of pivoting and dash grab nerfs, no footstools to guarantee his combos and lack of safety in general due to shield nerfs and stickier platforms.
Dang, you really put it perfectly, this right here is a goated comment
Unbelievably refreshing to hear someone be correct about Falcon, good vid.
A lot of weird Falcon problems actually come from copypasting stuff from Smash 4 into Ult without tweaking it for the new engine's physics. For example, fthrow and ftilt stopped forcing tech situations even though they kept the same launch angles.
A lot of weird items issues comes from not hitting jump + grab.
The problem with Falcon is that not only does he feel like he's still unfinished even after all the updates(moves not connecting properly like nair and jab, his side b is still inconsistent and down throw is completely worthless compared to the other smash games since you can DI out of it super easily. So playing neutral with him feels funny. You go for super risky stuff, and you end up getting neutral exchanges that should be in your favor, but the character just refuses to work. You can fix his turnaround and make his initial dash faster by using dashwalk(guide on my channel), but even then, it feels like a pain and a disability to play this character. Falcon is literally the only character in the game with no projectiles, no disjoints, and no comeback mechanic so he does require a lot of work and adding all those unfinished inconsistent stuff to deal with doesn't help at all. So you have to constantly approach 100% of the time, and if you haven't noticed, especially in the meta nowadays if you approach in this game, you lose.
Wait where is the closing ')' in your post? I can't understand what you're saying without a closing parenthesis for the first open one.
@castonyoung7514 There's even an video after my dashwalk tutorial that shows the difference between dashwalk and his normal initial dash and turnaround that shows the difference(look for the title that starts with turnaround fixed and visual examples)
@@dartfeld9810 "look for the title that starts with turnaround fixed and visual examples"
Dude I programmatically searched your original post for parentheses, it contains exactly 2 '('s but only 1 ')'.
There is no need for me to look for any "visual examples". Perhaps you typed in a closing parenthesis, but that's unfortunately not what uploaded and is viewable by me.
@@dartfeld9810If only I saw your dashwalk guide before I retired from smash ultimate. I was a falcon main but I never got past the turnaround animation ever since the game came out. (I mained bowser too and noticed that bowser just felt better while falcon felt off)
That being said…while I do think dashwalk can be very helpful for falcon, I don’t think it’s enough because of his lack of threatening options, subpar burst and honestly if opponents want to close the gap on him then the extra distance you get off if seems a bit telegraphed with how fats you can do it. This is just my initial thoughts. I also don’t think it’ll help much where people know the falcon matchup (i.e. camping him or blowing off his lackluster hitboxes)
@prolificpoultry4899 100% on the money. These techs that I've been showing on my channel were pretty much just bandages for the stab wound that is Falcon in this game. It's possible at the very, very highest level, for this stuff to optimize Falcon, but this late in the meta where everything is extremely defensive, it's not really worth it.
0:41 the way Ryuga looks at Fatality´s combo was like, "yeah i respect that sauce"
A character that is missing something to fit into his niche. A character that can be extremely hype but you have to play lamer the better the player. It’s scary that Duck Hunt is so similar to Falcon in this videos context.
now i dont think i would say duck hunt can be extremely hype but maybe thats just me
Aka "Why Some People Play Captain Falcon"
And others don't.
"How GOOD was Captain Falcon ACTUALLY"
More like why people still play Smash Ultimate
I swear that competitively and casually the only problem with Falcon is the change to his running/stopping/turn around. If it was fixed, he'd be more fun because it'd feel better to move with him, and potentially more viable since his unique traction/slide mechanic would allow him to have more mixup potential and make his approach more ambiguous
Nah you just don't know how to get good
Even if the turnaround got fixed, he still will not be able to slide around like in SSB4. In Ultimate, everyone's traction values got massively increased from the previous games, to the point where the lowest traction values in Ultimate (Banjo & Mii Gunner) is higher than the highest traction value in Brawl/SSB4 (Lucario). For the most part, this is a massive benefit for virtually every character in the game as it provides more precise movement while making it so that you slide less away from blocking an attack.
Falcon is an exception, since he ironically heavily benefitted from the slide he got from SSB4 when it comes to extended dash dances, ambiguous movement, and extending his grab range. He does benefit in some areas from the change, but it prob has hurt him more than it helps.
Agreed, he is very lame in Ultimate, Melee is his best version.
"Fixed"
@@nomado.3855 I think he’s fun in ultimate
It always felt like many of Falcon’s changes were done out of spite to his sm4sh version, based on how people played him in For Glory.
A common flowchart you’d see back then was dashback to dashgrab, nair-trains across the stage, and then cover ledge with up tilt. Falcons both a simple and popular character, so It felt like changes were directly made to stop him from “gatekeeping” lower level players with these gameplans, leading to nerfs/changes in Ultimate which impacted his consistency at higher levels.
I can’t help but feel like many popular old-school characters (Marth, Sheik, etc.) were punished this way going into Ultimate, while current flowchart characters like GnW and Luigi were too obscure to be balanced properly during Ultimate’s development.
GnW and Luigi were not too obscured to be changed. They are nothing like their Sm4sh counterparts, but still ended up with busted tools.
For sure they changed between games, although Luigi’s arguably been THE smash bros grappler for a good decade just with d-throw.
Much of Ult’s current relevant characters were once “weird” or unpopular characters when coming from 4. The overpowered tools they got coming into Ult tended to survive patches, especially if they lost notable tools inbetween games which hurt their perception early on (ex. Samus losing Dash Attack from 4).
Many popular veterans in 4 simply lost options coming into ult, with the only compensation for some being a couple lottery buffs
@rcee3195 i agree with that general assessment.
Donkey kong and metaknight where my examples of characters losing stuff from sm4sh into Ult with very little to no compensation.
Its just that Luigi and GnW werent part of that one. :)
As a Falcon main and newer player to the game, this explains my confusion when I tried out Roy and Fox and thought, "why is this game suddenly so much easier?"
If they just allow you to keep your speed in the air like melee and possibly buffed his grab range, this would pretty much completely fix him, especially if they made his throws knockback weaker
Also just get rid of the turn around animation for everyone and make it a snap like melee. And buff falcon’s initial dash since it’s pretty mediocre. Oh and give him the sex kick on nair 2 like in melee. Also fix his awkward hit boxes on a bunch of his moves. Heh, I’m not saying your suggestion wouldn’t do a lot for him but I feel like he’s just got some bizarre and artificially bestowed problems
I don't understand why they took his perks away from him moving out of Smash 4! Yes Captain Falcon was kinda insane, but if he moved into Ultimate with those, he actually would fit right in since there's so many characters in Ultimate. And many can outrange him!
I secondary Falcon and while I can do think he can still hold up on his own in this meta, his glaring weaknesses really show. His turnaround animation is so detrimental to escaping out of scenarios and neutral as well as easy to combo and edgeguard from a lot of characters.
I think the intention was making him 100% rushdown so they made him bad at retreating on purpose. But then they didnt do it to Sonic lol.
Highkey if the turn around animation was a universal mechanic the game would probably be less campy.
😂just turn around
@@benross9174yeah like at least give him good tools to pressure shield and push advantage but he can’t even do that well.
If Ganon can get an original move set, I’d make Falcon the rush down and Black Shadow the Hit and Run.
You can literally give Ganon's moveset to Black Shadow in Melee and it would be like nothing's changed at all.
I see this idea so much and every single time it makes me wince because Black Shadow is typically faster than Falcon in F-Zero. F-Zero rep in Smash is already inherently limited in what it can do, and differences between Black Shadow and Falcon's stats would be one of the few hypothetical chances to make that actually happen.
@@ScLuigi Stats, Aesthetics and Gameplays can still be changed.
I feel like Ultimate SHOULD be the best Smash game by a mile but the dev team called it a day when all of the characters were posted. It needs some big tweaks but they are not that much in the grand scheme of things.
being a falcon main gives me depression
Fr the last time I've seen a falcon play at top level has been months. Even characters thought to be high mid like bayo have started getting top 8 in majors but falcon has shown no improvement
@@epistarter1136 Because he was unintentionally design like that, the problem is that Ult. Engine and mechanics affect Cap. Falcon more than it benefits him. Smash 4 Falcon was indeed a very versatile character but some of his sauce really made him somewhat annoying and reason why they tried to balance him out in a healthy way but doin' the opposite. Don't judge me, I like Cap. Falcon, Melee Falcon still is my favorite version but Ult. Falcon is very lame.
@@nomado.3855I actually think his smash 4 self would have fit better into smash ultimate considering how much faster everyone is. Intentionally giving him the slowest turn around of 13 frames and having it slide him backwards and a slow initial dash is unnecessarily cruel because there are characters faster than him with better movement and better burst options.
@@nomado.3855Don’t get me wrong though, I understand people were frustrated when fighting captain falcon in smash 4 (because I was a falcon main) but rather than a different take on the character, he just feels watered down like a lot of returning characters
Heh, my dissatisfaction with him and bowser are part of the reason I stopped playing and picked up melee. It sucks because I put in like 2000+ hours in the game and spent tons of time playing with my friends at parties and at school just to end up bitter with the game.
No wonder Fatality went to SF6 instead - goated game btw
There's a 6th smash flash?
@@aidenvega6306 it’s street fighter
He's getting quite good too. I don't watch fatality specifically, but I know he's getting crazy because I'm seeing him on sf pro players streams in bracket - if you're facing off against NuckleDu and Punk at their weekly online tournaments, you're doing something right.
Yeah falcon just doesn’t have it. But even besides being not great falcon’s kit overall just isn’t really satisfying to play with
For the moment i started mastering Falcon, i had this feeling that the character was being held back by the engine.
After installing HDR, playing it for a while and then trying back vanila, let me make a list.
1. He is floatier than what it should be, or rather his short hop makes him jump to high, forcing me to use fast falling way more often, and yet, it's very slow, because the game doesn't allow you to fast fall, until you are past your jump peak, making it very predictable, for neutral and punnish, i don't like sacrificeing my characters identity for a better recovery.
2. His grab range is not a problem for me, but rather his throws, my brother discovered that unless i'm very precise, he can punnish me with any counter in the game, if i decide to atenpt a combo or followup, the only things i can use to punnish him on that situation are up-b(which is not easy to land), or grab again(which is a terrible punnish).
3. His dash dancing is terrible, this single fact, makes his speed be situational, and his movility trash, he is very unsatisfying and rough to move, also his jump doesn't transfer his grounded speed, making it unnatural.
4. Nair-1 might be harder to land because nair-2 comes out very fast, but you can still get it with some consistecy, the real issue for me, or the real crime the devs did IMO, is up air having a dogshit hitbox for grounded enemies, landing a hit on a short standing oponent is a real fucking odisey, and for the rest of the cast is also very hard, and no one seems to point on how much this problem ruins his gameplan.
Now i cannot go back to vanila, due to this shit.
Go play HDR.
He is supposed to be a glass cannon. He explodes you but you can explode him. He should be able to pressure with knee: in Melee it's +1 and his other aerials are 0 to -4 on block. If he lands a grab, or side b, or stomp at 100 or higher you should get kneed and die. With that and fixing his jank dash he would be incredible again.
Falcon is so lame in this game. I miss smash 4 Falcon.
Agreed.
I feel like falcon is too predictable. Like most rushdown characters have a myriad of mixups and timing mixups and options the opponent has to account for, but falcon seems to be straightforward to a fault.
He falls more into the Hit & Run, he is not Rushdown by any means because he lacks the tools, hitboxes and overall aggressiveness that real Rushdowns like Fox, Roy, Chrom, Pichu, Sheik and Mythra have, Falcon also relies too much on Bait and Punish which makes his rushdown not rushdown.
If Falcon had Melee Knee where the sweet spot is active for a few more frames I feel like he would be perfect in this game. He’s still a ton of fun to play though.
It’d certainly help but knee is so good in melee because of how easy it is to convert into and its incredibly versatile. In ultimate it’s incredibly laggy, falcon can’t really convert into it well especially out of up air strings and he just doesn’t have the movement to have stray hits lead into it.
I feel the main problem with Captain falcon is the huge grab nerf in ultimate, because his sauce came from those openings, either short hop Nair, dash attack or grab to rack up tons of damage.
Also bodyblocking, dash past-> pivot grab was a huge part of Falcon's mixup game in Smash 4
Giving everyone a 3 Frame jump squat meant compromising elsewhere
Personally, Falcon has never felt good to me outside of 64 and Melee. His set just doesn't come together in any of the game engines since Brawl. Even when he performs well, like in Smash 4, his combos feel so limp and lack a sense of weight. Just doesn't feel good to play imo. Even from a casual perspective, they've added so many more "hype" characters with bigger, more explosive moves that the old Falcon Punch and Knee don't really stand out as especially appealing anymore. A downgrade to some areas of sound design is a contributing factor as well, I think.
It might sound reductionist, but I wish they'd just revert him to as close to his Melee self as possible, and double down on it. Nerf his recovery, make his disadvantage state even worse, make him faster, and max out his effectiveness in neutral and advantage. Just turn him into the ultimate rushdown fighter who blows you up if he touches you, but gets destroyed if he ever loses an interaction. Right now, he's just kind of "generic combo guy" who doesn't do anything exceptional among the roster, and that's a real shame for a character who's otherwise so eccentric and bombastic.
A strange problem Captain Falcon has is that more people recognize him as a Smash Bros character rather than an F-Zero character.
I’m surprised there’s no mention of his dash turn around being really slow, it’s definitely one of his biggest issues
This can be fixed with dash walking, which is not the hardest thing in the world to execute
@@cannibalfish2429eh. Not really. It helps but the distance and length of it limit its versatility, especially IF opponents decide to approach falcon rather than camp him. The reason why the turn around is so crucial is because a normal one would allow him to weave in and out of burst range like the many better and faster characters above him. I commented to the guy who made a video about the tech and he agrees, as I think most falcon mains would with this assessment
"no character is without weakness": shows steve
Every time I play him I endup wishing Raptor Booster was a command grab
Imagine if Falcon had a tap special where he actually uses that gun for once in his land and a hold for his Falcon Punch
Falcon needs so many tweaks to be a top tier it isn't even funny. Grace and Glory has it right; just copy-pasting him from S4 lost the message of the moves and traits he should have had, losing what makes him Falcon in the transition to the new engine. He's too in-between to be good at either rushdown or bait and punish, for a variety of inconsistencies and incongruent tools that need tweaking in one direction or another. Make him a rushdown god, or impossible to hit as a bait and punish. Not a rushdown character thats easy to hit out of his rushdown.
@@TheKingofGoldstone I think the best way to sum it up is he’s just not good at anything. Whereas the top tiers are either good at everything or excel in one thing stupidly well.
1:53
“No character is without flaws.”
He says as he shows Steve
kids named Sparg0 and Sonix:
Steve does have flaws, just that his strengths are dramatically higher than other members of the cast
2:25
You can argue that’s still within the glass canon because with that weight and poor air movement when hit, he’s very easy to combo and gimp more often than even Fox for example
I have been WAITING for this episode. I can’t even watch it right now I just had to leave this comment.
0:43 Not his real name and never was his real name.
Captain Falcon in Ultimate falls more in the Hit & Run, because he loses so Bad against swordies, Terry, Steve and G&W (His worst matchup) since he lacks the range and hitboxes to work his gameplay and the recovery specially with disjointed hitboxes ain't help him too much , no wonder why he is so lame in Ultimate.
So glad you compared him with Roy and Joker since those two are my secondaries
I'll still main Falcon tho
The objectively funniest move Nintendo could make is make Ganondorf more of a clone of Captain Falcon again, and then completely rework CF to some entirely unrecognized form. Maybe they could use his tiny little gun. It wouldn't be a good option, but I bet it would be talked about in the community longer than Metaknight being busted in Brawl.
Your videos have gotten so much better
I love falcon for smash, but at this point I would kill for another F-Zero game, or even just a remaster of F-Zero GX
The most fun I've ever had playing Smash was playing Captain Falcon in the mod Brawl Minus. It just felt like the developers took *all* the chains off, it was glorious.
As a falcon main since launch, you articulated this perfectly. Great video.
Finally someone who understands my pain and suffering...
It almost sounds like Ultimate Falcon is in the same place as Melee Ganondorf.
Nah melee ganon is GARBAGE. I think ult falcon is more like... melee luigi? Awkward but fast movement, annoying to scrap with, randomly blows you up but also gets blown up due to bad recovery and disadvantage
@@ellachino4799 melee ganon isn’t garbage. He’s actually pretty decent, and he’s essentially in the middle of the tier list which is where I’d place falcon in ultimate. I see what you mean with relating him to luigi though. Also melee ganon, like a lot of melee characters are worse off because the characters above them and at the top are so much better.
But like could you imagine melee ganon in smash ultimate? Wavedashing and all? I’d come back to ultimate to play the crap out of that
@@prolificpoultry4899 i think ult falcon is a little better than middle - if I remember correctly the last ult tier list had bowser at around middle and I think ult falcon is still better than bowser, just like how melee luigi is just barely better than middle of the pack ganon.
Dude imagine if smash had street fighter style versions for each character, like you could pick the character on the select screen but also their older versions like brawl meta knight or something. Would be busted but so much fun.
I guess Melee Ganon does have that sheik chaingrab... I'll reluctantly say he's at least counterpick viable, though he seriously feels bad to use. I'd much rather play DK if I want a heavy, and melee falcon is also just better than ganon in every way
@ Oh I’d love if I could play any version of each smash character. Then it’d really be smash ultimate because every is and has been here.
Also I have to know, would melee falcon destroy smash’s top tiers after melee? What about melee fox vs brawl meta knight? Or smash 4 bayo vs ultimate steve? Brawl snake vs ultimate snake because brawl snake was kind of busted if not for icies and meta knight.
@@prolificpoultry4899 brawl diddy would also be crazy, 2 bananas and dacus? Melee marth with his crazy grabs and melee falco with laser pressure on shield... the possibilities man
Hey, fantastic video, but the point nair 1 being inconsistent into knee ain't right. It is an incredibly consistent kill option into knee and works from 0 to 150% and beyond for some characters. You don't need idj except for a few characters at a small 5% window somewhere between 50-70%. It is mostly mitigated with properly delaying the knee after a short hop or timing the knee as early as possible for full hop
The vast majority of those kill confirms were undiscovered when balance patches were still a thing. Most of them are accidental, and the folks working on the game didn't predict kills coming from such low percentage.
Falcon is a good example of why you can't use general rules for thinking about character balance. Platform fighters are nuanced. Taking away a single kill confirm can shift a character from top tier to mid or worse (diddy).
Ahh yes, the hypest character in 64 and Melee, One of the worst in Brawl, The most versatile in Smash 4 and the one of the lamest in Ultimate, My favorite version is Melee.
I kinda wish that his smash attacks all worked like his Up smash, to make his close range really strong. Then I'd think about making his ground moves better, moves like dash attack and up tilt don't combo nearly well enough. And lastly, bair sucks (no range, hard to combo, and not strong enough)
Strangest thing is he has a gun but never uses it.
6:39 😂😂😂 best moment of the video
Falcon has a gun, Damn
You should make a Why No One plays Peach/Daisy. Also Why No One Plays PAC man would be really cool as well. Amazing video 😊
Ooh will there be a Young Link vid?
10:38 Why is Mewtwo in the center of the triangle?
Got everything
Jack of all trades, master of none
The real question is why is Kirby in grounded :/
Yeah Falcon is like one of those characters where Nintendo, the smash team or sakurai himself (or all of the above) didn’t want him to be the way he was in smash 4 for some reason? Or just a very specific kind of way like they also did with Ridley. I don’t understand why exploiting the characters in cool ways like with footstool combos and sliding was so weirdly taken away, but it makes it to where smash 4, which was janky In a really fun way, makes it janky in an unfun way in ultimate and if you liked the character in legit every other entry you just don’t vibe with the character in this game. It’s the same with the multi hit controversy where I who loved Fox forever because of his cool drag down kill trick with forward air and his down throw to forward air combo no longer work. Or even in brawl where he could stall in the air with shine. All that removed because fox ought to be an all in aggressor who can only start a combo from a raw hit like dash attack and neutral air when in every other game he can be more versatile.
I tried in recent years for so long to just play fox he just doesn’t fit me so I play wolf and sephiroth as a secondary cause I had a good marth too.
No matter what anyone says I will always believe that ultimate is THE best competitively out of all the games, but it still isn’t the best that smash could be and it’s because of those decisions. Ridley for instance should feel like a boss like character while being balanced with the competitive seen, all the heavies should be good in general and Bayonetta should be so much more than what she was in both of these games.
But this is what they thought was the best they could do. It’s why I wish more for a deluxe cause I want them to make the ultimate game before we move on, I really do.
In regards to the whole "Falcon is overrated in terms of hype", I think there's one more piece to the puzzle: His combos are super boring and lack variety compared to other characters. Aside from a decent variety in terms of combo starters, everything after the fact is practically guaranteed to be Nair and/or Up Air, then the combo ender will probably be a Knee. Compare that to the variety in combos like Joker, Bayonetta, Fox, Shiek, Terry, etc. (I would throw Kazuya there too if EWGF wasn't a thing that just overshadows the vast variety of combos that he does have lmao).
For all this talk about how Captain Falcon is just so flashy of a fighter, he's not even like top 5 of the flashiest fighters on the roster, that's pretty sad.
@@ashton5061 He’s pretty lame in ultimate for sure and optimal falcon is just like ultra lame. He’s so hype in melee because of the versatility in his combo game. Although, even as a falcon main, I find many of the standard knee combos to be pretty boring to watch. But it’s when you get like three tech chases into a reverse bair to knee when it gets hype.
Also in ultimate he can’t even combo into knee easily so his up air strings end in like nair or reverse bair.
out of all mid tiers in ult falcon was always my favorite
Slightly unrelated but why is Mewtwo not in the glass cannon category? Seems like the very definition of one.
Why everyone and no one plays captain Falcon. By the way I use to main captain falcon smash 4 but realize this game mechanics do not work out for him in ultimate
YAY NEW SMASH ULTIMATE META VID!!!
Falcon + Ganon Tipman = SSS Tier
whoa whoa whoa whoa (stops at 1:26ish). How is he not a bait and punish character? He can essentially control the speed and distance between himself and opponents, and playing his ground game slowly requires occasional throwing out of his jab to cover him. He can obviously cover dashins and aerial is necessary, and if you go in with pressure at least on the ground, I don’t think he has the recovery generally to commit to a forward approach unless you try baiting. Naw. After playing fox lately, I see the rushdown elements but do not be fooled: failing a bait and punish approach with falcon is negating his skillset.
@@wepeanutthree5553 He’s not a bait and punish because he has no way to force approaches. His movement sucks. His burst options are incredibly telegraphed. His aerials are non threatening and trades don’t work out favorably for him when pitted against better characters. His attacks lacks range and again, his crappy dash doesn’t afford him the freedom of movement to connect those hits. Even his initial dash sucks which doesn’t let him close that gap off a whiffed aerial when so many characters are ranged and have better apm.
All these things combined with the optimal way to play the matchup being to camp him and yeah he’s just not really a bait and punish character. I mean I see the reasons why he should be. I mained him for 5 years in ultimate, but he just doesn’t have it. Once you get your hands on him then his disadvantage sucks so bad and he can’t play from behind when he’s being camped.
@ Ok. I’m going to do a visceral, gut feeling response and then I will do a more thought out response but here is my visceral response: FORCING APPROACH: forward aerial can condition to force a approach. if you intentionally use it to whiff, and as it is a heavy move, your opponent may be baited by the end lag. Hell, I can even use it as a threat and just fast fall when my opponent thinks I’ll use it to not even risk the cover of end lag. Off the top of my gut, I can probably use cross ups to also force approach-but I will concede, these are more micro spacing- short term approaches. Opponents will always feel pressured by easily juggalable moves, especially if it misses, so if I miss with his up air intentionally as a cross up, I feel confident I can get a bait-it will just come from a short approach. Using the behind hitbox of an up air, and using it as an encroaching poke could also work but again- short approaches. As for attacks lacking range, I personally use tilts out of dashes and other pokes because psychologically, dashing or moving through the air turns the character into a projectile in the same way a fully charged samus neutral special is a projectile. Now this is not a projectile with a hitbox of course, and you need to practice conditioning for sure to get this effect, I consider any character whether moving through the air or dashing and tossing out a poke, I consider that character as a projectile and have had opponents respond like they would a projectile-it just needs a bit of conditioning to get really get the effect-but in the moment, he situationally has all the range he needs. His intitial dash is perfect for mixing up into a grab-if they go into shield because like you said, his bursts are telegraphed, I’ll either go for a throw or a neutral so I think his dash does what its supposed to if you go the bait and punish route. Now as for campers, I think there are obvious reasons why he would have trouble, but I think I could get around em if I try. I’ll play some a few rounds and I’ll get back to you on that-but everything else in regards to forcing approach and his range, oh yeah man. I definitely got stand behind all that.
@@wepeanutthree5553 all these things, using yourself as a projectile, poking with the reverse hit of up air, baiting approaches with knee, they are all good ideas that work… on melee falcon. But again, all these moves have poor, hard to hit hitboxes or lack range, especially the reverse hit of his up air which can’t hit a lot of standing characters
Knee’s landing lag is 18 frames which doesn’t seem like much except that its range is short and it has a pretty decent amount of startup which makes it highly committal and very punishable. Trust me, if falcon could use knee as an approach tool like he could in melee then he’d be 10x better.
Look I’m not saying he’s got nothing. I’m not saying he just gets completely screwed, it’s just he’s in this weird state where he’s not great at anything such that camping on both ends is more preferable. It also means he has to work so hard for mediocre openings which is not the mark of a character that can thrive in this meta
At the top level he just gets wrecked though, like fox is so oppressive for him, and so is roy, these two characters can pressure the crap out of him particularly well and then camp him (both on the ground and in the air)
@ I will give him a shot for a while and get back to you.
Give him better air speed, lol. He needs something like that since after they changed the tech mechanics from sm4sh to this game
Why did all the FGC characters lined up next to each other look like they're all a part of a boyband?
Becoming a falcon main for ultimate has been a mistake over the last 5 years, but I still choose to play him. 😂
I feel like falcon in Ultimate has become a scrub killer. And i like him there. For lower comp hes flashy and kinda cool.
Ah yes the smash char.
Its an interesting role he plays and what hes been through. I rember him doing well 4 a bit but now hes just alr.
Villager vid when lol.
He’s large and gets comboed to easily
If these one thing vars understands, it's a 50/50
Yea, but FALCON PUNCH! is fun to land.
Falcon used to deliver like doordash
We need why everyone plays Diddy OR GnW
I heavily disagree with most of the points in this video. He has arguably the best combination of mobility and survivability in the game, and his ludicrous kill power only increases as you get better with the character. He has excellent options both on and offstage, and a lot of his perceived issues can be fixed with tech and labbing. I think this is a case similar to melee falcon where it could take years for this character to be properly optimized
@@cannibalfish2429 As a falcon main of five years in ultimate I have to heavily disagree with you and heavily agree with the video. His survivability sucks because he has an exploitable recovery, even without tech checking which can still be taken advantage of, just not as consistently.
But if you have an active hit box or a disjoint or some range then there is no reason to go off stage and hit him as he is recovering. He can’t really mix up his recovery, his ledge options suck since his aerials have poor range, and aren’t threatening enough on their own. Also he’s tall too and has some poorly placed hit boxes on a lot of his moves.
His out of shield game sucks with his fastest option being up air or nair which, again, have poorly placed hit boxes that also end too quick.
His kill power is alright but it becomes incredibly difficult to land them at a top level because his movement sucks, and again, he’s got poor range.
Onstage his approach options are incredibly telegraphed which forces him to camp and fish for openings. Those openings being nair one, dash attack, a bair into potential tech chase, side b or grab.
Approaching with his nair or bair sucks because his nair has low priority and his bair won’t lead to much. Up air can catch jumping opponents but if it trades then falcon is going to end up worse off.
Bag dashing is so impractical unless someone can do it perfectly and even dashwalks have their limits due to its length and the speed in which it can be done. It’s why having a normal dash dance is so good, because its length can be varied more.
Offstage, again, his attacks have low priority and a lot of characters can abuse him or get around or trade better with his hit boxes.
These aren’t perceived issues. They are real problems and you can see it at the mid to top level. It doesn’t help that nearly every other character is better at camping him which is the optimal way to play both against and with him and the meta is heavily leaning towards this
@@prolificpoultry4899 Ive seen someone change his moveset via a mod called the "Blood falcon" mod. From what I saw one big tweak is that his down special now is INSANE at recovering horizontally like how wizard's dropkick was used to help ganondorf recover horizontally however here its even more capable since it is even more forwards than downwards. Also I think that they made the falcon punch as fast as the smash 64 variant meaning he can use it as a hard read more frequently
Besides, "Why No One Plays" wouldn't be accurate. He's one of the most mained characters.
His problem is he got zero sauce
No wayyyyyy you just typed that about the same game that has min min
Ah, Yes. The F-zero sauce
He just has no sauce in this game, i have said this since release…
Toon link?
I think the problem with Falcon is the priority and hitboxes of his moves. If Mario's fireball collides with Falcons Falcon kick which is a much powerful attack will cancel out eachother. And why does Mario have bigger hitboxes than Falcon even tho Falcon is s much bigger character
I wonder how @mockrock would react to this
Any plans to cover Rivals of Aether 2 Vars? Would love to see it get more exposure, it's a really good platform fighter.
Never heard of it
@@aidenvega6306It's a sequel to indie game Rivals of Aether 1. Most people tend to know that game as the pixel Smash Bros-like that had "funny' mods like Ronald McDonald. The MUGEN of Smash Bros basically. It was a successful niche game with a dedicated fan base and even had Shovel Knight and Ori to gain some more visibility. But it was held back by its pixel art style and not having the likes of ledges, grabs, and shields in the game. It got a 3D sequel that released this year that includes those mechanics and adds new ones like special pummels and ledge specials and to say it's successful compared to the likes of Nick All-star Brawl and Multiversus would be an understatement. You can see a couple of other Smash Bros content creators really into the game, you even have the likes of MKLeo, Mango, AMSA, Hungrybox and Dabuz competing in their tournaments. And many others in the fighting game space. It has good visuals compared to other Smash Bros-likes (We call them Platform Fighters) good sound design, good animations, fun and expressive character designs, mechanically depth, and is very fun to play. The game costs $30 in U.S. currency but the game will have FREE characters, stages, and gameplay modes like a fleshed out Story mode like the Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Gameplay will never be locked behind payment or grinding. The game will sustain itself with purchases of the game, a co-publisher in Offbrand (who's ran from a popular Smash Bros commentator), and in-game cosmetics which are possible to earn without spending a single cent on the game. Might be silly to write this whole essay but it really is a good game and I highly recommend people check it out, even if they're against the anthro character designs. But if people can tolerate the Pokemon and Star Fox crew, I'm sure they can tolerate the character designs in Rivals of Aether 2.
🔥🔥🔥
He’s a stupid Ganondorf clone
Love the series but your mic…
I think you should upload all your content to the same chanel people are alot less close minded then you think.... (ok maybe not the genshin impact content)
Falcon has really odd mechanics that make you think in a completely different way when you play him. It used to drive me insane when I first tried to call him my main.
He has top tier run speed, but bottom tier attack speed. He jumps high, but he falls oddly fast. He has a lot of kill moves, but none of his moves truly combo into one another. To get combos with Falcon, you have to add basic movement skills and overall match up knowledge. Playing him is purely skill because he really has no advantages, just a bunch of kill moves.
After saying that; I am really seeing him as Ganondorf Lite now... Or Ganon is Falon Heavy? idk
Cap is great but i dont know why the devs make him weaker in most of the games.
Like no hate as a Falcon main I want my boy to get some love like Gannon did
Ganon got no love 😂😂😂falcon is a character that deserves to suck 😊hope he keeps getting worse
his stats are average in most f-zero games, ideal for beginners, makes sense he was the same way in smash.
@ayar2 true but doesn't change how he ends up being weaker
@@garretwoeller7669 he's just fun, I dont think tier lists are the only thing developers take into account when designing/balancing characters, they just make them, tweak a few things to make them functional and thats it, If youre too worried to lose that much with one character, just pick another, theres plenty of them, there's always gonna be falcon players anyway.
I would say falcon is a punish character. He makes a lucky guess and if it works you die if not he dies.
🐐
I can use this as cope :,)
As someone who plays Sora, I say he has no problems and is absolutely perfect with zero flaws.
oi
Smash 4 was so much better than Ultimate
Mythra suffers from similar issues and cannot play Rushdown either most of the time at higher levels.
Great video as usual Vars :D
But unlike falcon, she can play bait and punish due to her special dodge. Sadly Mythra is also not that good at racking damage when playing more defensively due to being a balancing to her range and frame data, and that's why I feel she's overrated.
I disagree with both of you. A well-spaced Mythra nair is practically unpunishable but you still get a huge combo from it even if you only hit a small part of the nair. In the neutral, I see the top-level Pythra mains alternate between spamming Nair on the SIDE of someone's shield(not directly ON shield because that's unsafe) and spamming her tilts. Sooner or later, because of her overwhelming speed, something hits, and they do a 40% true combo at least as a result. Then, the opponent is in disadvantage, so the Pythra player gets to juggle them for a while before they switch to Pyra and eventually get the kill.
This is some fucking copium. Mythra doesn't need to play rushdown, and even if she does, she's definitely able to an extent due to her really far dash grab being able to punish holding shields
There’s no way u used a captain falcon video to find a way to downplay broken ass ageis☠️
First and hi 😊
I've got a strange problem too... I get too much of it. Smell my finger.
Keep him bad. Falcon players in this game 😬😬theyre ALL the same...
What are use humble Flacon players like (besides clip-hungry 24/7?)
@danyaguirrebroca3844 degenerate up b spamming mashers who just hold forward like its a mario game. Like bruh you're not cool for hitting a true combo
🙄
@@aidenvega6306lol I can tell you get cooked by falcons a lot, the fact you think falcon has a single “true” combo is itself copium me boy
@@Wrestleroftheyear the only good falcon in my area is marss. Me saying he's annoying to face is far different from me saying he's broken. Hes braindead and mashy and a waste of time to face against. Hes not fun for anyone. And you're a clown for saying he lacks true combos because if you had any skill at the game, youd know what an IDJ is
If Ganon can get an original move set, I’d make Falcon the rush down and Black Shadow the Hit and Run.
Also, I want him to have F smash as Falcon Punch and use the gun sort of like Joker, but if you push n b and then up/down, he’ll either do a headshot or an under point respectively to help reduce his stature.