Hands On Impressions of Captain Falcon (New Info 2/6)

Dear me, it's been quite a day. Getting hold of Brawl, unlocking Captain Falcon, and Giants winning the Superbowl. What a day, what a day indeed.

If you want specific information and a guide on Falcon's moves, go here: http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=3850568#post3850568

I've had the opportunity and privilege of spending quite a few hours playing as Captain Falcon, and will give as much info as I can on the general play style of our beloved Captain.

I unfortunately must start off with saying that Captain Falcon suffers somewhat from the transition from Melee to Brawl. He's not bad, heavens no he's not, but he certainly will be a harder character to play with that most of the others in the roster. I hesitate to use the term "nerfed" because that isn't really what happened. He hasn't been made worse, he really just feels like a Melee-styled character that got stuck in Brawl. Allow me to explain what I mean by that.

In Melee, Falcon was the combo-centric character. His game was pretty much based on setting up or comboing into a knee. Stomps, raptor boost, nairs, uairs, and throws were all meant to flow together into a finishing knee. His speed, mobility, and good priority made it all really work. However, in his transition to Brawl, it seems they kept this combo-centric styled attacks, but downplayed his speed and priority. Coupled with Brawl's intrinsic floatyness and much reduced hit stun, you've got a combo-based character in a universe where you really can't combo.

Please don't take this as me disparaging Brawl and trying to compare it to Melee; I really enjoy the game, especially while playing Falcon, but I don't want people making the mistake of going into Brawl, seeing the familiar moves of Falcon, and then believing that the learned play style from Melee will carry over into Brawl. It really doesn't.


First off, Falcon's general movements and actions within Brawl.
Falcon's speed has changed. He still can run pretty fast when you sprint, probably faster than most other characters in the game. However, in Brawl, fast running speed does not translate into good mobility. The removal of dash dancing, l-canceling, in addition to the much slower fall speed characters experience and higher short hops, Falcon's mobility has been greatly diminished. You can't do attacks and aerials with the speed or precision of Melee.

Also, tech-chasing is completely out since no one falls fast enough to actually be tech chased.

However, that being said, his recovery is much better. Being a much slower faller, and thus able to maximize more from his jumps and revamped Up-B (including the now universal feature of sweet-spotting), he can come back from further away with less difficulty and fear of edge guarding. However, on the whole, it seems that edge-guarding is much harder to do in Brawl in general, so that may contribute slightly to it.

Summary:
- Speed is diminished from Melee, to Falcon's detriment.
- Move list the same with some tweaks to certain moves.
- You fall slowly. It kind of sucks.
- Not as much horizontal range for jumps.
- Tech-chasing is pretty much gone.



Next, Falcon's aerials.
Falcons aerials are all the same ones from Melee, just tweaked and it seems, unfortunately (as far as I can tell) they have suffered in the priority department.

His Dair* has a smaller hitbox now it seems, meaning you'll get some weird effects from it. His feet still meteor, but hitting elsewhere or at the outside edges of your feet will result in some remarkably horizontal trajectories. Still pretty powerful, but a bit more difficult to meteor, especially in relation to edge-guarding. You can still pop people into the air after hitting them with it while it's on the ground, but don't expect to really follow up on it too much (a.k.a. kneeing them).

His Uair is still good. Decent knockback, good start-up time, and decent range. It seems to be one of Falcons best, most useful, and easiest aerials. However, despite that, it has a hard time killing. You can knock opponents easily enough around with it, but killing them remains a bit elusive. The very front of the attack seems to deal the best knockback and damage, but don't expect a kill until nearing 200%. I unfortunately have had a difficult time trying to judge the usefulness of a reverse uair for edge-guarding, so I can't say much on that, other then that it seems a bit harder to do.

His Nair is...different, in what seems to be a bad way. The range of it has seemed to be decreased somewhat, making it not quite as useful as the Uair. Also, the two hits don't lead into each other as well as they did in Melee. The knockback is ok, but Uair is better. Unfortunately, the decreased priority is really felt in the Nair, making it not very good as an approach attack anymore.

The Bair* is (still) Falcons fastest aerial, and still does decent knockback. As far as I can tell, it also seems to have the best priority of his aerials, but I don't quite know how much that is relative to everyone else. Unfortunately, the hitbox has been tweaked to be a bit wonky now. Instead of doing a decent knockback in a more straight-forward trajectory when sweetspotted, it seems to like sending opponents at an upward angle, which is often not very useful as you're usually trying to hit them away, not up. However, it can still do the more traditional trajectory of Melee, but how you get the different results is not known to me. Due to the decreased mobility of characters in the air, the bair has lost some of it's usefulness.

The Fair (A.k.a. The Knee)*. Falcon lovers, you can find solace in the fact that you can still sweetspot the knee (minus the most satisfying sound to accompany a move ever). However, unfortunately, the knee has taken a few hits. First off, it's much more difficult to sweetspot the knee. Whether it's due to Brawl's floatyness and slower air velocity, or the sweetspot being a much smaller frame of time is hard to tell, but I get the feeling it's a bit of both. Most knees, if they even hit, will most likely be flubs. In order to sweetspot, it seems you must be hitting the person the very precise moment the knee is fully extended, and only then. No more of the slightly after full-extension sweetspot of Melee. If your model is not in contact with an opponent at the exact moment the knee is fully extended, you get no sweetspot.
Compounded to it too is that, despite having the best knockback of your aerials, it is not quite as good at killing as it was in Melee, probably due to the combination of people needing to be at higher damages in general to die and everyone being able to recover from attacks more easily. All in all, unfortunately, while still being a good attack, it's very hard to pull off, and might in the end not be the best aerial to jump around using all the time, especially due to it's loss of that ridiculous priority is used to obtain when sweetspotting. It very much feels like a move that has to be comboed into to use effectively, but unfortunately, you can't really do that in Brawl.

Summary:
- Priority seems lower
- Less range and knockback on the whole.
- Different hitboxes.
- Knee still owns, just slightly less so.
- You might be Uairing an awful lot.
- The lack of l-canceling and combo ability seems to be really detrimental to his air game, particularly when he has to work against the fact he has lower priority than a lot of other characters.


The B moves:
Again, familiar attacks return slightly revised.

Falcon Punch: Still awesome and manly in every way possible, and destroys almost everything it comes in contact with. In fact, it seems to be better than it's Melee counterpart in being slightly faster and being able to change directions with it. *To change directions, when you press B to do the move, immediately hit the opposite direction that you're facing with the Control Stick, and you should turn around as you do it regardless of whether you're in the air or on the ground. If you aren't turning, you are doing it too late. If you're Raptor boosting, you're doing it too soon (obviously).

Raptor Boost: Still functional and working. Unfortunately, it has lost a lot it's usefulness as an attack move. Opponents recover to quickly from it and often go too high to use it to combo into anything (most notably the knee). You might be able to squeeze off an uair afterwards if they're at low damage and aren't a character that can recover really quickly and out-prioritize you, but on the whole, it just doesn't set up for anything too useful anymore (KNEE). You can still fly right off a ledge and kill yourself, so be careful. However, as a recovery technique, it has improved in leaps and bounds. You can now grab the ledge with it, and unlike in Melee, someone being right in front of you won't cause you to ineffectually fall to your death. Instead, when you hit somebody, Falcon uses his hand to hurl himself over their body while meteoring them. This move is now more of a recovery move than an attack move unfortunately (or fortunately).

Falcon Dive: Still rapetastic, still explosive, and still elicits the excited "YES" from Falcon. This move is now much better for recovering because not only can you sweetspot with it, but the vertical grabbing range is increased dramatically. You can easily grab a ledge that is half a body's length above you when you Up-B now. Knockback from the move is still not so great.

Falcon Kick: Still essentially the same, but simple less laggy. Nothing too much to inform of about it. Oh, you do not regain a second jump if you use it in the air for recovery.

Summary:
- B's are generally better.
- Falcon Punch.


Grabs and Throws:

Falcon's throw game (like almost everyone else's) has been greatly diminished. Tech-chasing is pretty much gone, people recover too soon from throws. Comboing/chainthrowing is gone because everyone recovers too soon from throws. I don't really know what to say about throws other than they seem much less useful. They don't throw far enough to really kill, and they don't throw close enough to combo. Especially the down throw. It looks like you should be able to follow up on it, but don't trust it. Every character I played against always recovers right before you can properly follow up on it (KNEE!).

Throws now seem regulated to as a way to get people off the ledge, or to chase the rare occasion that you get a character teching or rolling along the ground. However, even that is harder to do because, as far as I can tell, you can no longer jump cancel grab, leaving Falcon with his standard none-too great grab.


Ground Game: The Smashes, tilts and jabs.

USmash: Seems about the same as Melee. You can run and the hit up on the c-stick to do an easy sliding usmash.

FSmash: About the same.

DSmash: Seems to have gotten a slight range and knockback buff.

Ftilit: Still pretty good, about the same sort of thing. You can still angle it.

Dtilt: This seems to be about the same, and might actually hit low enough to be followed up on, but I haven't much opportunity to try it because every time I'd try it, someone would usually outprioritize it.

Utilt: Still good knockback, however doesn't seem that useful for edgeguarding, unless they're above the ledge.

Jabs: You no longer need to press A repeatedly to jab. You can just hold down A now and just watch Falcon just send those fists flying. The Gentleman no longer has knockback unfortunately.



Ok, that's about all I can currently post at the moment, as it is very late at night (actually early in the morning), and I need sleep. However, if anyway one has any questions or comments, I'd be glad to answer them. If you think there are some things that ought to be fixed in this post (which there very well will be with how tired I am), just point them out and I'll fix it up best I can.


Edit (2/6/08): I actually want to make some corrections and addendums to my first impressions.

Back Air: I actually have to add something to my original statement. I said that sweetspotting with the bair causes opponents to fly more upward than away, which is true, if you hit with the fist of the bair. The "sweetspot" from Melee no longer really exists, so actually trying to hit with the fist at full extension doesn't result in the strongest knockback from the move. You actually have to hit with the move as Falcon is extending his arm, sort of in the forearm area. This results in a much better knockback with a much better trajectory, and is a decent killing move. However, the way you have to use it also makes it harder to hit, since you have to time it better and be closer.

Down Air: Occasionally, at some magic percentage with some certain characters (the one I did was Ganondorf I think), you can stomp into knee. However, until it is known exactly which characters and at what percentages it can happen, I generally recommend against stomping people while they're on the ground, because you have so much lag afterwards which is especially bad if you miss or they shield it. It's most useful against trying to spike people (which is rather difficult and should only be done against certain characters) as an edgeguard. It's espcially useful for when holding on the edge, you do a ledgehopped stomp to anyone near it.

Knee: I have found some situations to which it is useful. The knee is now more of a move which you use to punish opponents that you have baited or for the very rare occasions where people try to tech roll or attack recover from the ground. As Falcon now, you must bait your opponents into doing attacks (especially laggy ones) and punish them for it. The knee should really be used for those times you bait someone into doing a particularly laggy attack. One example is either Zero Suit Samus/Samus's grab. If they miss it, they sit there for a second or two, unable to do anything. This is the perfect opportunity to use the knee.
The other time is for if on the magical occasion (for it hardly ever happens) your opponent is lying on the floor and must either tech roll or recover attack. If they recover attack, this is also a very good time to use the knee because most characters have lag after they attack to finish standing up. Actually chasing a tech recover is much harder with the knee, but seems possible if you can guess where they're going and time the knee just perfectly. Don't try to knee people when they're simply lying on the floor, since you'll land before you can hit them. You have to wait until they do something that gets their model higher off the ground. Also, ledghopped knee still works wonderfully. The timing works just perfectly enough that it sweetspots anyone standing near the ledge.

I guess he's just different from melee, his speed game looks too..slow. We'll find our way, he'll knee it.
And THANKS a lot for the info . I owe you.

Thanks for the info, just a few quick questions.

When you say the knee is only slightly nerfed, are you saying it will still be his most useful move even with the smaller hitbox, or that it's really more situational rather than an all purpose killing tool?

And(you might have answered this, maybe I didn't look hard enough) if the knee is not his best killer anymore, what did you wind up using to finish people off? The FSmash? Falcon Punch might work too, since it's faster now.

i'm kinda sad right now.......i'm gonna miss those crazy combo strings from melee

Magically Enhanced Hobo said:

Thanks for the info, just a few quick questions.

When you say the knee is only slightly nerfed, are you saying it will still be his most useful move even with the smaller hitbox, or that it's really more situational rather than an all purpose killing tool?

And(you might have answered this, maybe I didn't look hard enough) if the knee is not his best killer anymore, what did you wind up using to finish people off? The FSmash? Falcon Punch might work too, since it's faster now.

Click to expand...

The knee might unfortunately be relegated to a more situational status. The thing that is up with it is that due to the fact that the hitbox has been decreased (in size and in timeframe as far as I can tell) you literally have to be model to model with your opponent for the precise moment you extend your knee. That's where the issue comes in. Since the knee takes a moment to wind up and has much less priority (I think), you pretty much have to knee them when the opponent is doing any sort of aerial. However, no opponent is going to just sit in the air and let you knee them, they're going to attack as well and most likely beat you to the punch.

Since there is much less mobility, it's much harder to bait people into whiffing so you can get a knee in afterwards (and even getting to them in time after whiffing might be an issue). The other sure way to projecting Falcon's rock hard bodice upon a limp, flaccid body would be to combo into a knee. Unfortunately, people in general recover so fast after attacks, this might be very hard to pull off. You might be able to in certain situations when the opponent is at low damage, but the knee won't be able to kill them until about 100%ish (depending on the character and level).

However, don't let all my doom and gloom talk scare you away from using it, I still jump away with it. I usually land about 3 to 4 in a match, but it mostly feels I landed it because I just happen to catch the opponent offguard, or got lucky rather then through any technical or more ensured manner.


I can't really say that one particular reliable killing move other than the knee has come up. I just use whatever seems best to be used at the time. DSmash, FSmash, Uairs, and the occasional Falcon Punch if I'm feeling manly crazy. I think Falcon is his best in free for alls or teams, where he can concentrate on getting just those individual strikes without someone paying too much attention to what he's doing.

But no matter what, he's still fun to play, and the knee is still awesome to get off (particularly because it's so hard to get now) though I miss the satisfying sound that use to accompany it. Every time you do knee, feel totally ok with yelling "SKILL" loudly at your opponent(s) face.

Edit: I should add that I spent a good deal of time playing against Metaknight and Ike, both of whom have good ranged disjointed hitbox with good priority, especially Metaknight, so my whole "Falcon gets outprioritized" schtick is probably a little skewed. He seems to work best against characters who don't have fast, good, disjointed attacks. Fighting against Metaknight in particular was painful because pretty much every move of his can cut through yours.

So Nintendo made the knee hard to pull off in almost every aspect?

Yes, both directly and indirectly so.

This makes me a ****ing sad panda. All that effort to get good with him in melee and now he's been watered down (basically everything that made him the epitome of **** is lost; tech chase, chain grabs on certain chars, speed/dd-ing...anything to KNEE....) ._.

Honestly, I'd take the crappy recovery for more **** anyday.

edit: Oh, but I highly appreciate your in-depth post. Thanks

Wait... did you say you can't really combo in this game? Are you sure? Maybe it's because people haven't really discovered new combos yet. Did you try chaining uairs Smash64 style?

If they made it so that you can't combo in this game (and when I say combo I mean something between ~50% and death), we should go to Japan and Knee Sakurai in the face.

i thot that they found a new way of l- canceling, by fast falling then attacking

greenblob said:

Wait... did you say you can't really combo in this game? Are you sure? Maybe it's because people haven't really discovered new combos yet. Did you try chaining uairs Smash64 style?

If they made it so that you can't combo in this game (and when I say combo I mean something between ~50% and death), we should go to Japan and Knee Sakurai in the face.

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You can get a couple of Uairs in a chain or sorts, like maybe 2 or 3 if you're lucky. However, by and large, everyone flies higher from attacks and recovers sooner, so especially at higher percentages, there won't really be a way to string a series of moves together that will result in a KO. The only way I've found to sort of get a combo of sorts is to hit/throw people into walls and hit them as they rebound, but most levels don't even have walls anyway.

It seems that l-canceling by fast falling may have been removed, or at least is very inconsistent, but I feel that even with l-canceling, the rate at which you fast fall is too slow to be able to jump again and land another attack before the opponent recovers.

Shut up man you havnt even played the game. Nothing got weaker, your confuseing the games new pschics and speed with Melee. Cpt Falcon is perfectly capable of being top tier in this game.
If you actually have played the game then would would agree with that statement.

cpt falcon players come in here for hope and you give them this crap.

TheMastermind said:

Shut up man you havnt even played the game. Nothing got weaker, your confuseing the games new pschics and speed with Melee. Cpt Falcon is perfectly capable of being top tier in this game.
If you actually have played the game then would would agree with that statement.

cpt falcon players come in here for hope and you give them this crap.

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It would help if you actually listed why.

TheMastermind said:

Shut up man you havnt even played the game. Nothing got weaker, your confuseing the games new pschics and speed with Melee. Cpt Falcon is perfectly capable of being top tier in this game.
If you actually have played the game then would would agree with that statement.

cpt falcon players come in here for hope and you give them this crap.

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Trust me when I say that I wish I was only being confused by the game's new physics and sense of speed, and that Falcon was still the combo-happy badass who would knee everyone and their mother in a second. I would rather be terribly wrong and misinformed.

Unfortunately, it's kind of true. I hate being the bearer of bad news, especially on this particular topic, but I feel people ought to know what's up and not run in with the wrong expectations. There maybe some future and unforeseen developments that can drastically change how Falcon is played in Brawl, but at the moment, this is what my impressions of Falcon is like, and unfortunately also seems to be shared by other people who've actually tried Falcon in Brawl.

Edit: Also, if people want, I can try to come up with a more technical list of Falcon's moves and the amount of damage that each move does.

What about the nair combo? I saw a great nair combo darkrain style in this vid around 2:46

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shfk871riNM

Rang Flash said:

What about the nair combo? I saw a great nair combo darkrain style in this vid around 2:46

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shfk871riNM

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To tell you the truth, from the times I did get the nair off, it didn't quite seem like it could be followed up on (if the initial one even hit), however I'm pleased to see that it is possible, at least against Ganondorf.

I've normally been playing against lighter characters like Metaknight (owch), and Zero Suit Samus. However, a friend of mine plays a good Ike, so I'll give it a try against him and see what the results are like. I'm thinking that the nair combo works on the heavier, larger characters, and not so much lighter characters, but I'll try it out on various characters and post the results later on.

Sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to post some info on what I found about nair comboing.

It may work on heavy end characters for a couple of hits while they're at low percentage, but nair comboing is not really possible to do on lighter/faster recovering characters, as they either recover too fast or are sent too far away.

Except Ganondorf. Ganondorf is an awesome character to fight against. Why? Because he's the only character tall enough to be hit by short hopped attacks while standing on the ground. You can short hop nair him really easily since you can hit him while he's either on the air or on the ground. Plus, since he's so heavy and so resistant to knockback, he can be comboed.

So, after more playing with Falcon, he seems like a character that has to bait other characters into doing things and then taking advantage of it. You can't just charge in, throwing out knees, nairs and uairs and expect to win. You must learn to become a master baiter (lol).

Reaver197 said:

Sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to post some info on what I found about nair comboing.

It may work on heavy end characters for a couple of hits while they're at low percentage, but nair comboing is not really possible to do on lighter/faster recovering characters, as they either recover too fast or are sent too far away.

Except Ganondorf. Ganondorf is an awesome character to fight against. Why? Because he's the only character tall enough to be hit by short hopped attacks while standing on the ground. You can short hop nair him really easily since you can hit him while he's either on the air or on the ground. Plus, since he's so heavy and so resistant to knockback, he can be comboed.

So, after more playing with Falcon, he seems like a character that has to bait other characters into doing things and then taking advantage of it. You can't just charge in, throwing out knees, nairs and uairs and expect to win. You must learn to become a master baiter (lol).

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Oh god I lol'd. XD

I'm fairly pro at that, so it shouldn't be too hard to make the switch. ;P

Any word on how useful the Falcon Punch is in something other than FFA or Team? It's faster and reversable now, does it give potential for MANLY KOS!?!?

Falcon Punch can make for an awesomely manly KOs. Through the ability to reverse Falcon Punch, you no longer need the moonwalk jump to do a Falcon Punch edgeguard by puching people on the ledge into the level. I've tried it a couple of times so far, and though I haven't hit anyone yet, I've gotten very close.

I also want to add that apparently Captain Falcon can instantly start running when he lands on the floor after doing an empty jump, which could add a lot to his mindgame and mobility since his initial dash animation is fast and covers lots of ground. I don't know whether you can do it after doing relatively unlaggy aerials like nair or uair, but I'm definitely going to try it out and see what the results are.

Is the moonwalk still in?

As far as I can tell, moonwalk is not in, at least not through the Melee method. There might be some way to replicate it, but I don't have any clue as to how.

Reaver197 said:

Falcon Punch can make for an awesomely manly KOs. Through the ability to reverse Falcon Punch, you no longer need the moonwalk jump to do a Falcon Punch edgeguard by puching people on the ledge into the level. I've tried it a couple of times so far, and though I haven't hit anyone yet, I've gotten very close.

I also want to add that apparently Captain Falcon can instantly start running when he lands on the floor after doing an empty jump, which could add a lot to his mindgame and mobility since his initial dash animation is fast and covers lots of ground. I don't know whether you can do it after doing relatively unlaggy aerials like nair or uair, but I'm definitely going to try it out and see what the results are.

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So his uair rush could be even BETTER than it already is? Holy ****. o.o

I tried the Uair and Nair to immediate running thing, but it doesn't really work. There is hardly any lag after them, but there is just enough to prevent an immediate dash upon contact with the ground. You can still dash after landing relatively quickly though, maybe quick enough to not really make too much of a difference.

As far as I can see. C. Falcon has been nerfed. He seems slower and weaker. Maybe that's the way he needed to be balanced against de rest. Now you will have to face ex-low tiers this way. We will see who really loves Captain Falcon. xD

You can't do comboes like that anymore. You can air dodge instantly after any attack. If that Ganon air dodged, he would have evaded the Nair.


And you cant really say he got nerfed because right now, it seems like every character "sucks" when really, no one really came up with the adv. tactics to change the games pace yet.

Hey, apparently, you can knee a flubbed/prone Ganondorf.

I will proceed to retry my attempts to see whether you can still knee other flubbed characters.

Reaver197 said:

Falcon Punch: Still awesome and manly in every way possible, and destroys almost everything it comes in contact with. In fact, it seems to be better than it's Melee counterpart in being slightly faster and being able to change directions with it. *To change directions, when you press B to do the move, immediately hit the opposite direction that you're facing with the Control Stick, and you should turn around as you do it regardless of whether you're in the air or on the ground. If you aren't turning, you are doing it too late. If you're Raptor boosting, you're doing it too soon (obviously).

.

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you can change directions with it in melee..... lol i'm not sure if you are saying you can't in melee but that's what it sounds like you are saying and if that is what you are saying then don't make posts unless you know what you are talking about...

Sorry, I should clarify that you can change it's direction in the middle of the Falcon Punch animation.

Lulz, STKL, how exactly did you get your copy of Brawl? RaiRai has said little but that it was very illegal. This sounds good, amigo.

I just watched your tournament vids; you seem pretty comfortable with the new falc, but things do look a tad sluggish; how drastically has he been lowered in tier-ish-ness, do you think..?

..GILLETTE