Is Captain Falcon a good character for beginners?

[Deleted member]

I'm introducing a friend to competitive Melee, and he's looking to choose a main. He seems rather keen on Marth, but I'm afraid that he might develop some bad habits with the character. I've suggested that maybe he play Captain Falcon first, to at least start learning basic tech, gameplay mechanics, and combos. (He has not practiced tech yet, plus I main Falcon so it would be a little easier for me.) I know that Marth in his own right can teach you a lot about spacing and such, but I would like to hear your opinions before sitting down and teaching him the game. Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[タオー]

I relearned this game through Falcon's lens, and I loved it, but if your friend is someone who can't stand losing and gets frustrated easily... there's probably a better character for him to learn from the start.

 

[JoJoe]

I can kinda relate to this. I've been playing for close to 2 years, and I recently started playing Falcon to help with bad habits I developed with Marth, but you should just let your friend play whoever he wants. He'll be more motivated to play or practice with the character he likes the most.

 

[Waldoring]

Whenever I try and get a friend started on learning melee, I have them start with Falcon. He has an average jumpsquat, b-moves devoid of weird mechanics, and relies heavily on good execution of comparatively simple tech; being top 8 doesn't exactly hurt as well. Especially for someone still learning to l-cancel or comfortably shffl/wavedash, Falcon's a good choice.

Nonetheless, don't try and make him play something he doesn't want to. If he develops bad habits as a Marth player, take it as an opportunity to get really good at punishing bad options to show him why they're bad.

 

[coilerr]

make him play marth, marth is the best char to learn the game with. He'll learn to tilt, pivot, space, move, dash dance and DI.

 

[SSS]

I'm introducing a friend to competitive Melee, and he's looking to choose a main. He seems rather keen on Marth, but I'm afraid that he might develop some bad habits with the character. I've suggested that maybe he play Captain Falcon first, to at least start learning basic tech, gameplay mechanics, and combos. (He has not practiced tech yet, plus I main Falcon so it would be a little easier for me.) I know that Marth in his own right can teach you a lot about spacing and such, but I would like to hear your opinions before sitting down and teaching him the game. Any advice is much appreciated.

People should learn whatever character is their favorite and whatever character they plan on playing. When I learned Melee (and continue to learn Melee, since everybody is always learning this game, even Armada), I picked Falco because Falco is sick. But guess what? Falco is hard. I lost. A LOT. I became overreliant on lasers and had to redevelop my neutral game when I reached a level that lasers no longer just won me matchups. I had to practice a lot of techskill. Everything felt harder than my friends who played Sheik or Marth. But now I'm very glad I did it. Switching characters after you've been playing for awhile is hard. You have to be all-in when you switch characters and really want to, because your results will take a SERIOUS dive. When switching characters, you have to go all-in and only play that new character in tournament, never falling back on your previous good character, or else your new character will never learn and grow. It can be easy to say "you know what? I want to be a Fox main, but my Sheik is just so much better that I'm just going to stick with Sheik my whole life", but then you're sad for the rest of your life because you don't have a shine. (;_; ) Learn the character with the character you want to learn the game with. While Captain Falcon is a VERY fundamental character (as is Marth, and Sheik), we do not REALLY play Super Smash Bros. Melee as the main thing we're playing. We're playing a character within the rules of Super Smash Bros. Melee. If he picks Marth and gets bad habits, that's ok; those bad habits will be ironed out eventually (and honestly every character has bad habits, do you think the kid is gonna pick Falcon and start spacing shield stop nair in the first 3 months). Let him play who he wants to eventually play, and he will get there.

just make sure he picks a top 8 character none of this Dr. Mario bull****

 

[Ennui_]

I'd say Falcon is great for becoming versed in the fundamentals of the game. When I started playing more seriously I used Falcon and became familiar with tech chasing and the typical bread and butter combos like stomp knee and nair to uair to knee. They're fairly simple to get down and would probably help your friend get more into the game since they're so satisfying. Using Falcon also weened me off of the bad habit of impulsive shield grabbing since his range is so abysmal. This carried on to my play with other characters. All this considered though, playing against spacies and Sheik is hell with Falcon. If he plays against someone who uses them and has a decent punish game he might get disheartened. I'd say if you played dittos with him he'd probably come to like Falcon since Falcon dittos are fun as heck.