Back to Falco, he would have fit (good) nostalgia if he didn't have an identity crisis in each game. He definitely fits bad nostalgia, though, with his crap recovery and annoying lasers. Falco's more of an example of "we have no idea what the hell we're doing with this character". Drastic changes to his game plan, stagnant evolution per launch of each game, and the idea of his Blaster, Falco Phantasm, and Dair in Melee and Brawl are all questionable. Falco never truly evolved compared to other semi-clones. He only evolved because of patches which when you think about it, is really sad how he was kept pretty much the same per game. Granted, this can be attributed to Smash 4's massive size which justifies the copy and pasting of characters which for Falco who wasn't all that different, doesn't really help him at all. Removal and engine-related changes affected him heavily resulting in drastic shifts to his play style. Brawl took away his and Fox's frame 1 confirm Reflector leaving Fox with a hilariously spammable Reflector stall and Falco with a transcendent poke. Welp, that took away his Shine to Dair pillar and Shine to Bair kill. With hit stun canceling and lowered hit stun in Brawl, his combo game dropped and his high kill power felt like low kill power. Brawl also took away his high fall speed meaning his ability to survive vertical kills disappeared. Smash 4 took away his projectile game which was amazing in Melee and disgustingly powerful in Brawl, his fast Dair and made it into a generic Dair while Cloud was given a balanced - arguable - version of his, and his Gatling combo which was really unique as it was the only normal cancellable option in Smash, but in return, they upped his kill power by returning Dtilt's Melee power, upping Fair's growth, introducing his new Bair, and through patches, upping Up Smash's growth. This emulated his Melee incarnation of high power and high combo potential, but that's not evolution; that's ironically enough, devolution because of Brawl's approach to Falco.
Where's the changes to his Specials? Especially Fire Bird which isn't anything but a worse version of Fire Fox and Fire Wolf. Um... Really? Where's the change to Blaster so it isn't annoying to players, but more like other hit stun-capable projectiles that while annoying, can't be continually fired to the point where you want to beat someone's skull in or has been notorious for being overpowered in previous games? Why just slow down his dash attack of all things? It wasn't abusive nor was the startup the reason why Gatling combo existed. Meanwhile, Fox's frame 4 dash attack with his high run speed letting him use it as a quick punish for everything. Why not a
jumping back kick? Or this
overhead swipe? Y'know, something reckless-looking that Falco would do? Why just a generic Dair? Why not a fast, but weak Dair instead of the over-tuned fast, strong Dair he had in Melee and Brawl? Am I really asking too much? Maybe I am since they had to fit 50+ characters at launch and pretty much all of them were copy-pastes with mostly nerfs and barely any changes, good or bad.
Some stuff were answered like why did Fox and Falco share air speeds in Melee and Brawl? Well, that changed at launch when Falco kept his and Fox's Brawl air speed of 0.893 while Fox's was upped to 0.96... So, the question became why is Fox (and Wolf) pretty much faster than Falco for everything? That was answered in 1.0.8 when his air speed was upped to 0.93 and air acceleration upped to 0.09. Great, Falco sort of fits the whole bird and pilot who are comfortable in the air now... kind of wished his air speed was higher even if it meant his jump height tanked to compensate 'cause low startup, high damage, high active aerials would have meant death for everyone off-stage against him if he had really good air speed and air acceleration. Another question is why did Falco's Fair have 32 landing frames in Brawl and Smash 4? It was frame 6 in Brawl, did 11%, but didn't connect well 'cause SDI. It's not even strong or good... It's pretty much Melee Falco and Fox's Fair of pure suckage compared to Fox's redesigned, works like a charm Brawl Helicopter Fair. So, it became frame 12 and does 8% to compensate for it connecting properly and having a finisher. Also, the stupidest landing hit in the game since nothing about it makes it look like there should be a hitbox unlike Mario's arms swinging out for Dair or the shockwave from Pikachu's Dair. If any Fair should have a landing hit, it's Ganondorf's. It would even match source material. Hello, first phase of the final boss of Ocarina of Time? Still had 32 landing frames which the landing hit was probably there for... 1.0.8 rolls in, Fair becomes frame 10, does 9%, and has 25 landing frames. Cool, it matches sort of Pikachu and Sonic's now. Why does it still have a landing hit? Are we really trying to promote degenerate play? I thought the changes to Diddy and Luigi's D-throw, Diddy's Uair, and Link's jab 1 were indicative of a "No". Anyway, why weren't any of these done in the first place? Oh, but game development time... Looking at a move, knowing it has 32 landing frames should cause a question mark to grow out of your skull. Gee, should a move that only does 8% and is frame 12 really have 32 landing frames? Meanwhile, Bowser, Link, and Toon Link's Dair doing +15%... Y'know, I keep forgetting these are the same developers who gave Roy 28 landing frames on his Dair which is virtually the same as Ike's if it had shorter range and worse sour-spots... They fixed it in 1.1.4, but really? What the hell is Roy going to do with his low jump and a frame 16 Dair? Sure as hell not going to jump all the way to the blast zone and Dair like Falco or Mewtwo and sure as hell not going to pull Cloud Dair shenanigans with only 2 active frames.
To me, the only changes to Falco that seemed good or were neutral for Falco was his Brawl jab - Smash 4 screwed it up -, Utilt, and Reflector in Brawl and Fair, Bair, and U- and B-throw in Smash 4. Note how I don't mention Nair, Uair, and obviously Fair in Brawl and Up Smash in Smash 4. In Brawl, Nair was iffy; it was sometimes good and sometimes bad. It took a patch to fix this in Smash 4 which is questionable considering it's one of the few multi-hits in Smash that have irregular hits unlike Samus and Sheik's Uair or Lucas, Palutena, and Zelda's Nair which hits in a specific pattern. It's cool that it's off-beat, but considering that people do fall out and because of its off-beat nature, auto-link angles should have been a given in Brawl and definitely in Smash 4. Melee Uair was an 8-9, 11-14 move that did 6% + 10%, 16% total; it's basically what Fox's Uair is in Brawl and Smash 4 in terms of total damage. Brawl changed it so it was a frame 10-14 move that did 11% with a sour-spot on his body. Cool, so it's more consistent which is fine for the damage nerf, but did it really have to be frame 10 with a sour-spot? 2 frames slower than his Melee Uair? It's not even a strong kill move in either Brawl or Smash 4. So, why make it slower? 1.0.8 made it frame 7-11, dropped the damage to 10% and lowered the growth on it while making all the hitboxes the same in knockback and changed the angles to be similar to Captain Falcon's where different parts have different angles... Really debatable on whether or not the hitbox changes and even the damage were necessary. I'd argue that Falco should have kept his Melee Uair with damage nerfs like make it do only 12%, 4% + 8%, because it looked cooler and it would probably work better as juggle allowing Falco to always send you in a specific angle which his Brawl and launch Smash 4 Uair did. That being said, front flip's fine, but it should have been a mixture of 1.0.8's 7-11 and hitboxes Uair with its old knockback, hit angles, and maybe damage at launch. Up Smash was kind of messy at launch and it's finally fixed. Granted, some of it felt like it should have been there all along like I-frames which every flip kick has, but Falco didn't until 1.1.4 and assuming Pikachu's is disjointed because of his tail, makes it seem questionable about why Falco's doesn't when his was the weakest in knockback or the hitbox not hitting low like the animation suggests... Welp, all fixed, but then they make it as strong as Fox's Up Smash... Um... why? A little stronger sure, but almost matching Fox's? This pretty much means Fox's Up Smash only has a +10% lead in kill percent while Falco's wins in startup, active frames, recovery frames, and arguably consistent damage. With everything else, Falco's isn't as good due to lack of confirms, but you could give Fox Falco's Up Smash and it wouldn't be any different really or even better for Fox since he'd have another ledge coverage option and a safer anti-air due to the much higher active frames and lower recovery frames.
Other changes were trivial and weird. Run speed went from 1.5 in Melee to 1.432 in Brawl and 1.472 in Smash 4... Basically he's the same between Melee and Smash 4, but was slower in Brawl for some reason... He's still slow, so what was the point of these changes? Down Smash gaining +2 growth doesn't do much except question why it's the strongest and overall the best compared to Fox and Sonic's which I've already talked about. Fall speed going up from 1.708 in Brawl to 1.8 and gravity going from 0.112 to 0.13 both matching Wolf's feels like they either wanted to mix him and Wolf which Bair's pose and Dair's "generic", but same as Wolf's Dair startup of 16 also seems to suggest. Side Smash going from Brawl's frame 16 to frame 17 is just a why? Was it not slow enough? If so, why not make it frame 31 like Ike's? It being transcendent is also questionable since it's not disjointed at all meaning it's kind of like Ike's dash attack and Little Mac's jab, Utilt, Ftilt, and Dtilt? being recoilless, except in their case, theirs don't recoil unlike Falco's. With Up Smash matching Fox's Up Smash kill power, the idea of Falco being the horizontal killer or having the strongest Side Smash becomes moot when he's also got vertical under his belt - and he had this since Melee thanks to his Dair. Side Smash as a punish becomes less useful when Up Smash has I-frames and Bair is a safer. Sure, in FFA and doubles, but then again, Dtilt, Up Smash, Down Smash, and Bair are all safer, faster punishes. I'd rather have Melee's frame 13 startup than transcendent priority and even alter or reduce the knockback in return. Want us to make more daring actions? Give us better Smashes.
In the end, Falco's still this weird and incomplete character. His moves suggest he should be an anti-zoner and while he does that and does it well with patches making his close-range game better, the problem is his mid-range and long-range game. Either you have good ground speed to get closer by running past projectiles or you have your own projectile that can challenge them. Falco has neither with a strong suggestion he should have the later. Once again, really simple since Falco could be given his Melee Blaster frame data which had 23 frames of startup, 35 recovery frames, and 57 total frames on the ground and 13 startup, 30 recovery, and 42 total frames in the air. Worse startup, but much, much better recovery compared to his current 48 on the ground and 41 in the air. Or the idea of limiting him to one laser per button press like other projectiles which would definitely allow for lower recovery... if it happened and he still had his crap recovery... I'll check myself into the hospital... Falco has one of the highest recovery for a projectile while having one of the lowest reward. This gives it a really skewed high risk/low reward ratio compared to most characters having something like moderate risk/moderate reward like Bayonetta, Cloud (regular Blade Beam), (Dr.) Mario, Duck Hunt, Greninja, Luigi, the Pits, Ryu, Triple D, Villager, Yoshi, and ZSS or low risk/low reward like Fox and Mega Man while some have high risk/high reward like Lucario (Aura Sphere throw-only), Mewtwo, Samus, and Zelda or the inverse, low risk/high reward like Cloud (Limit Blade Beam), Lucario (Aura Sphere as a melee move), PAC-MAN, Robin, Sheik, and Toon Link.
Basically, Falco with a decent, "traditional" projectile like Wolf's Blaster, Fox's Impact Blaster, or a high startup, low recovery projectile like Greninja's Water Shuriken, Guile and Nash's Sonic Boom in Street Fighter, or Leona's Earring Bomb in KoF would likely push him all the way up to solid mid-tier. Why? MUs where he struggles to control space and anti-zone would be better i.e. against characters like Greninja, the Links, the Pits, Robin, and Shulk and MUs where he struggles to set the pace and not be forced to approach would be better i.e. against characters like Captain Falcon, Lucario, Luigi, Mario, Yoshi, and ZSS. He wouldn't suddenly go 60:40, +1, slightly advantaged, whatever with them, but some of them would go from being noticeable negative to slightly negative or borderline even. Having a projectile like that would also solve the whole "Falco is an annoying prick. Can this character be removed from the series?" The fact the Falco AI is programmed to spam Blaster at you in 1v1 doesn't help counter this statement. Falco really is an annoying prick. Oh look, he can only fire at intervals like Ryu now. He's still spamming, but it's easier to bypass and he's not spamming way up close to you now... FALCO AI, WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID!?
: contender for best neutral in the game, devastating combos and lethal punishes, and terrifying KO potential.
