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Is Falco a good character to start out with?

masterexploder9

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
6
I'm completely new to competitive smash and I was wondering if Falco required a lot of tech skill or if I could easily learn the basics. My friend picked up Wolf really fast, is he the easier space animal to play?
 

Y-L

Smash Champion
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Messages
2,436
Location
Ventura, CA
I would say the space animals are generally harder to pickup because they are so fast and the shine techs are pretty hard when first starting off. For space animals I would say Wolf>Falco>Fox in terms of ease. If you can master Falco though you'll play well with a lot of other characters too.
 

masterexploder9

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
6
I know it's kind of irrelevant to the topic, but would you recommend someone like Shiek, Captain Falcon, or Mr. Game and Watch?
 

Zekk

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 8, 2014
Messages
180
For you I would recommended trying sheik and Falco see who you pick up faster everyone's different
 

HK_Spadez

(@'o')=@ t('o't)
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Messages
221
sheik's movement is kind of rough cause of small dash dance and wave dashes. maybe someone with easier movement would be better. like marth.
 

pkblaze

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
176
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
marth or Falcon are the best to start with movement. Falcon's worse but he gets you acclimated to playing fast, and his combos are easier than marth.

Falcon will teach you to combo and be fast, marth will teach you to combo and play neutral.

Edit: Wait this is PM lol.
 
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Shin_Mazinkaiser

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Feb 11, 2013
Messages
234
I would say the space animals are generally harder to pickup because they are so fast and the shine techs are pretty hard when first starting off. For space animals I would say Wolf>Falco>Fox in terms of ease. If you can master Falco though you'll play well with a lot of other characters too.
Really?

I see it as Fox>Wolf>Falco imo.
 

HK_Spadez

(@'o')=@ t('o't)
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Messages
221
marth or Falcon are the best to start with movement. Falcon's worse but he gets you acclimated to playing fast, and his combos are easier than marth.

Falcon will teach you to combo and be fast, marth will teach you to combo and play neutral.

Edit: Wait this is PM lol.
that "edit:" was epic. lolol
 

Nail.exe

Smash Cadet
Joined
Apr 24, 2013
Messages
61
Location
Arkansas
Learning Falco is a great long term investment, but only if you like playing him. Even as you learn tech, applications, gradually improve your fundamentals, and seriously increase the speed at which your can play, there will be periods of time when your friends find gimmicks and strategies that put Falco in a headlock. Two moves that I've had serious trouble against in my time are Luigi's down-b and Marth's F-Smash- but in time I've reformulated my strategy so many times that it's improved my capability to think about interactions and figure out what moves and strategies are effective in what situations, often times because I was forced to rethink my play style when faced with an effective gimmick.

To take the character as far as you can, towards his maximum potential, you have basically two options. You can study the incredible amount literature amassed in the Melee forums for Falco, or you can study him as an entity unique to Project M. I have chosen to do the former, and I cannot believe that anyone new to competitive smash could place decently in tournaments or improve their game on a regular basis by playing Falco in P:M without studying Falco in Melee.

So yeah, Falco is great to start out with, if you're the kind of player to spend almost as much time pouring over theory and frame data as you actually spend playing the game.
 

Sol0ke

Smash Ace
Joined
Apr 11, 2014
Messages
732
Location
Massachusetts
To answer the topic, I think only if you like the payoff of the techskill you need to do and his playstyle.

Or if you just like Falco in general (like I do).
 

Ness_STFU

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
112
Location
Manassas, VA
I'm going to go out on a limb here and give you a solid "No."

Of all the characters I can think of, Falco is the most dependent on advanced skills. For the first few years of Melee he was considered awful because few people were versed enough in advanced tactics to make use of him. That all changed of course, but... it took a while.

Falco's competitiveness grows exponentially when you incorporate out of shine maneuvers, wave dashing, multi shines, SHFFLs and other advanced tactics, but if you are just learning smash, you are going to get super frustrated. Most players begin their adventure into advanced technique with wavedashing, and Falco has the second hardest wavedash to execute (the exception being Fox). His recovery is also very unforgiving to new players.

Start with someone easier to familiarize yourself with fundamentals. Marth is a great choice because he's capable of very high game, but he's not overly complicated starting out.

In the grand scheme, if you like Falco, go back to him later when you've got a firm grasp of fundamentals. Falco will be waiting for you.
 
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Giygacoal

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 30, 2011
Messages
1,651
I'm completely new to competitive smash and I was wondering if Falco required a lot of tech skill or if I could easily learn the basics. My friend picked up Wolf really fast, is he the easier space animal to play?
Imo Falco is the easiest of the spacies to pick up. He's fine to start learning competitive style Smash with if you're willing to put in the work. He's no Mario/Marth in accessibility, but I think he's still a good character to start getting good with.
 

herbmaster%

my dankchu is 420XX
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Feb 25, 2014
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187
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Sheik's fair knockback isn't as whopping as it was in Melee, and since that was her most reliable kill move I'm not picking her up. I like Falco because once you're capable of jumping/grabbing/shining/shffling OoShine/Shield you've got such nasty combo potential. Plus, simply inputting short hop lasers is a blast. It feels good dishing out hitstun with the analog stick. I was hooked on phalco by the time i got them down.
 

Symba

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jun 19, 2014
Messages
18
Location
Maryland, USA
I started out with Sheik and trust me, she is a great character to start with. But you have to know how to make the most of all of her moves. After you get all the fundamentals down(like i have recently done) you could start picking up more characters. I'm also thinking of picking up falco he's very technical though so I know it's going to take a lot of time. But hard work usually pays off lol. Good Luck
 

Nohbl

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 20, 2017
Messages
357
Location
Chicago, Illinois
I'm completely new to competitive smash and I was wondering if Falco required a lot of tech skill or if I could easily learn the basics. My friend picked up Wolf really fast, is he the easier space animal to play?
The guy who introduced me to Project M also started as a Wolf main and he'd get beaten pretty badly due to Wolf's combo weight and the necessity of utilizing his tech in order to really bring out his top tier potential. At the time when I first started playing, he couldn't yet waveland blaster, he didn't go for Wolf Flashes, and he was still working out L-cancelling. But many months later, although I'm not around to see him progress, he tells me he's gotten to be the best in his circle of friends, as he committed to grinding out all of Wolf's tech as often as he could until he got it down-pat; he'd watch what other Wolf players like Switch did and incorporate what he saw into his own game. But it took him months of practice to get to that level.

Still, the way Wolf works, and perhaps the way all the Star Fox characters work, is that you are led to see each phase of the game individually and can see your progress in each of those areas of play. You learn soon what a good Wolf neutral is like, what good Wolf punishes are like, what good Wolf recoveries are like, how to get out of and avoid being combo'd, and so on. I think Wolf has the best potential of the 3 in terms of being solo-mained but he's really hard to master. But I bet that if you go ride or die Wolf when you first start off, you're going to get a lot of satisfaction out of the game, along with a great deal of frustration, of course—but it's that love of Wolf, or love of what Wolf can do, that's going to push you to become a better player.

I think Falco is easiest to play at the lowest level. He has difficult tech too, but you are less reliant on Falco tech to win games. I think he's also the easiest to develop bad habits with and fall into creative ruts with, especially with how seemingly easy it is and tempting it is to dual main him with Fox. When you're playing Falco, it's hard to see what you could be doing better, or what the maximally efficient play with him really is.

Really, I think you should start with whoever feels right to you. I've been playing Falco since Brawl, and I've touched Fox and Wolf in all the games and didn't feel them at all. I even tried to give up Falco after playing Project M for a little while and hearing about how bad he is, but I couldn't because I enjoyed him far too much, and I have too much of a sentimental connection with him. I think connection with your main is very important, just as well as their optimal playstyle in comparison to one's preferred playstyle. I think Keitaro captured the attitude best, with lots of humor of course.
 
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