Nashun
Smash Ace
This is an uncompleted work. I wanted to get this whole guide done in one sitting but it seems there's a lot more crap I need to get to typing and I'm tired. So...instead of saving it for later I'm going to post it here so I can get feedback and input. Unfortunately for me, because of this I'm going to have to add a "What's New" section to keep everybody reading this happy. It'd be pretty frustrating to have to read the whole guide every time you wanted to see if there was something new, right?
What's New
1/12/2007: I started the guide, but I didn't finish it. This is taking much longer than I thought.
1/13/2007: Changed section II: Approach name to "II: When and How to Approach." I also changed a bit of stuff that was in there before and added a bit more as well. In the II: Controlling Kirby section, I added a #7 that deals with throws and what you can do with them.
1/31/2007: Added to Section II and divided it into 3 subsections: "Offensive Options of Approach," "Defensive Options of Approach," and "When to Approach."
2/16/2007: I honestly can't believe after all this typing, I forgot to mention b-air in the section about approach. I'll add this in the offensive subsection, even though b-air is kinda defensive as well. I'm also FINALLY adding a section on Falcon's approach and Kirby's options when dealing with each. This is probably going to be the most important and useful part in the guide, but I'm not going to finish it because I don't have time. It WILL be added to in my next update, I promise.
Once the guide is completely finished, I'll just delete everything in this little italicized section, including the updates. If you haven't noticed by now, the actual guide starts directly after the italics. That means now.
I doubt anybody here knows who I am but I'm going to write a detailed guide on this match-up anyways. If anybody cares, I'm just a random Kirby player in SoCal but I do play regularly with who I believe is one of the best Captain Falcon players in the area. Since nobody knows me, attempting to raise my credibility with a long list of accomplishments (which I probably wouldn't be able to produce) would be pretty pointless. So I'm just going to type and you're just going to read kthnx <3
Oh, and I'm assuming anybody reading this guide knows how to use Kirby to some extent as to not be totally confused about the concepts and techniques I'll be discussing. If you don't play smash competitively, this guide probably won't help you as much as I want it to.
Kirby vs. Falcon
I. Who has the advantage?
This isn't too tough of a question to answer. Falcon does have an advantage over Kirby even though this is one of Kirby's easiest match-ups. Before you -rep me for saying such a thing, let me give you my reasons.
-Falcon can move. He can move a lot. He has tons more mobility than Kirby in pretty much every single way. This lets him camp. Neither Kirby nor Falcon have any projectiles to force approach. Any sort of confrontation would have to be close-range.
-Falcon has a bit more range than Kirby. Now, in any normal circumstances, a combination of greater speed and greater range would be incredibly bad for the disadvantaged character. However, this is SSBM, not Starcraft, and game mechanics give the disadvantaged character a chance even if his opponent has both greater speed and range.
-Falcon can kill. I'll get more into this later.
So far I've been making it sound like Kirby doesn't have a chance. Fortunately, Kirby has a bunch of tricks and strengths he can use against Falcon to make it much less one-sided.
-Kirby can crouch. This can avoid all of Falcon's grabs and certain aerials, depending on how late in his jump Falcon starts said aerial. Usually any whiff can mean a grab or d-tilt, but I'll get more into this later.
-Kirby can edgeguard. Falcon's recovery kinda sucks, Kirby's edgeguarding really isn't bad at all. A lot of your kills will be from edgeguarding and a lot of the time, edgeguarding when Falcon is at low percentages can either kill Falcon or at least give him 30-50%.
In the end, Falcon has an advantage over Kirby and by the end of this guide, you'll understand why.
II. Controlling Kirby
Even though I put a disclaimer in my introduction stating that non-competitive Kirby players wouldn't benefit as much from this guide, I'm going make this section to clarify a bunch of things anyways.
1. Kirby can crouch under Falcon's grabs. This is very important because Falcon's grabs are really good. A lot of the time, you can approach with an aerial and crouch directly after your l-cancel before Falcon can grab you. The only aerial this is really difficult, if not impossible, to do this with is D-air.
2. Controlling Kirby's aerials is very important. Though Kirby's mobility isn't that great, even in the air, you're going to have to use what he can give you. Running F-airs are nice, but they can be even nicer if you can control whether or not you land behind or in front of Falcon when your aerial is finished. If you run and F-air, holding the analog stick towards Falcon at full speed can usually land you behind him. However, running at Falcon at full speed, starting the aerial, and immediately (if not before starting the aerial) slamming the control-stick away from Falcon is an effective way to slow down and space yourself, especially if you want all three of Kirby's kicks to be able to connect. Another example of this is approaching or camping with B-airs. You don't want Falcon to grab you. Fortunately, B-airs have more range than Falcon's grab. Use that to your advantage and control Kirby so that the B-airs are using as much of their range as possible to apply pressure to Falcon and his shield.
3. Kirby's wavedash is just about as short as his crouch. You can use this to space yourself against aerials in a bunch of different ways. Wavedashing backwards into an F-tilt is fun but Falcon can get around that pretty easily. When he starts to expect it, he'll start trying to land his aerials a little behind you to counter that wavedash. Fortunately for you, you have other options. Wavedashing forwards can put you either under or behind Falcon when he puts up his aerial. If you're really good you can use this with your U-tilt to intercept whatever crap he wants to throw at you. Yes, wavedashing forwards towards Falcon sounds scary. But Kirby is short and he can do things with his U-tilt against Falcon. Don't be too scared to try this once in a while. A lot of the times you don't even need to use the wavedash to space the U-tilt correctly. Just keep in mind how Falcon likes to land the most. Pay attention and you'll start to see patterns if the Falcon is sloppy.
4. F-tilt has range and a bunch of priority. Try to space these so that Falcon has a hard time approaching.
5. Kirby has relatively little lag after his aerials. Kirby's aerials have so little landing lag that if they hit Falcon's shield late enough in the aerial (so that Kirby lands relatively fast right after the attack), Falcon's shield lag will be just enough for Kirby to get either a jab, grab, F-tilt, D-tilt, U-tilt, shield, or crouch. Which of these follow-ups to use depends on what you think Falcon will do next.
a)If you think Falcon will try to shield-grab the aerial, you can jab, crouch, or D-tilt (if you're fast and if you have nice spacing, you can even add F-tilt to this list). This is because the jab comes out faster than Falcon's grab will, and the crouch will come out before the grab as well. And we all know about Falcons trying to grab a crouching Kirby.
b)If you think Falcon will jump out of his shield to use an aerial, use an F-tilt (directed upwards) or an U-tilt. These can intercept Falcon's aerials, depending on which one he uses. You can also crouch, but if Falcon expects the crouch he can time his aerials to hit you. You can also shield or sidestep, but these have their obvious risks as well.
c)If you think Falcon will roll, just run after him or wavedash out of your shield to follow. He's pretty safe here, though so he'll probably start rolling away a lot once he finds out Kirby's too slow to do anything about it. This is all simple mindgame stuff so if you don't know it yet, learn it fast.
6. Just try to experiment with Kirby's aerials and how to use his mobility in different ways to achieve different effects. I'm not going to type how every single possible combination of fastfalls, aerial starting points, speed changes, and jump heights can be used, but I'll mention most of them by the end of this guide. Just to give a few examples though, try full-jumping double B-airs, or starting a SHFFL'd U-air after the fastfall, rather than before it. There's a bunch of stuff you can do, this isn't the guide for it, though.
7. Kirby's throws are stupid and they need to be better. Unfortunately, Kirby has no range and even if he did, his moves don't really apply much shield pressure so we have to live with Kirby's grabs. All of Kirby's grabs are at least a little bit useful in this match-up, and that's a good thing. You just have to know exactly what you want to do before you decide which throw to use. Here's a list of the four throws along with when to use each of them and how to follow up.
a)U-throw. Depending on how confident you are on your mindgames, you might be using this throw the most. This throw does the most damage and Kirby usually doesn't have any good guaranteed followups to any of his throws, so the 10% with this throw comes in handy. No follow-up necessary, usually your opponent is smart enough to DI away from Kirby. If he misses the DI, though, you can usually follow up with any aerial. U-air and B-air are nice. Another thing to note is that at the higher percentages, sometimes you can even fastfall or waveland and pull off a short-hopped U-air before Falcon actually hits the ground. A last use (and I use the word "use" very loosely, since it's not too useful at all IMO) for this throw is for a Kirbycide.
b)D-throw. You'll probably be using this throw quite a bit as well. This one gives Falcon a bunch of options to tech (or not to tech) and it consequently gives Kirby a bunch of options to follow. After the d-throw, Falcon can either tech towards, tech away, tech in place, or choose not to tech at all (or miss the tech completely). Now pay attention, because I'm about to tell you how to tech-chase after this throw and theres a lot of crap to know.
Normally, relatively unskilled players will DI this throw the same direction they're going to tech. This makes it much easier for you to read the tech. To elaborate, after Kirby finishes his d-throw there is a split second of time where Falcon is in the air. You have that much time to react to Falcon's DI if you believe that he is going to tech the same direction he is going to DI. If you see him DI'ing to the right, start chasing to the right. Same thing with the left. Good players sometimes like to mix up their DI and their tech, so if you notice the Falcon player doing it stop assuming his tech and do it like every other Kirby player does it: read his mind.
If Falcon techs away from Kirby (either right or left, doesn't really matter) he's relatively safe because he usually has time to run away after his tech, leaving you really no option to follow up (there is an exception, however. If, as mentioned before, the Falcon DI's one direction and techs the other, Kirby can actually catch up to him and Falcon's not as safe anymore). When Falcon techs to the left or right, you either F-air him and hope that he ran away too late, or you expect the roll and keep on running. Either way leaves Falcon a bit safe, and this is why d-throw isn't incredibly useful. However, Falcon wants to be offensive sometimes so he won't always choose the safe option. Sometimes he won't run away after his tech. Maybe he'll expect your F-air and he'll shield. That's when you can grab him. Maybe he'll start jabbing, hoping to use his fastest move to rack up damage. That's when you crouch, shield, or full-jump an aerial (Falcon's triple jab takes up a bunch of time. You can usually get in a full-jumped aerial in this case. However, his single jab is fast and if he does this he has time to react to a full-jumped aerial so be careful). In any case, just remember that Falcon is pretty safe if he techs this to the left or the right.
If Falcon techs in place, you can usually put in an U-tilt or another grab. If you wanna be cute you can even start a smash attack right after the grab and he'll tech right into it. The Falcon's gotta have a lot of balls to do this, though, so he probably won't do it often. Just don't completely forget that he can.
If Falcon doesn't tech or he misses his tech, you can have lots of fun if you predicted it. I like f-smash and u-tilt, but a nice thing to do is reset Falcon's wake-up with a jab (if you didn't know, most character's jabs can "reset" a character that's lying down. In other words, it FORCES the lying down character to IMMEDIATELY use the standard wake-up option as if the player had pushed L or R). After the jab you can immediately charge an f-smash and time it so that it his Falcon when he gets up. You can also just be safe and go for another grab. A REALLY fun and embarrassing thing to do is use Kirby's ground hammer. =( Unfortunately every time I do this the hammer doesn't sweetspot, and I don't think Kirby has time to jab, space himself correctly, and sweetspot a ground hammer. In any case, the hammer is fun to hit with whether or not it's sweetspotted and you should do it once in a while just to show off. Also, if anybody knows of any way Kirby can have enough time to jab AND space himself for the sweetspot, please let me know. Short wavedashes and walking are too slow, though I haven't experimented much with simply walking to space the hammer.
c) B-throw. This throw would be SO much better if it were guaranteed. I hate how people can break out of it so easily at lower percentages. Because of this stupid disadvantage, you'll probably only be doing this throw at the higher percentages. Also, if you're near the middle of the stage this throw is pretty useless against a good Falcon as well because he can DI away and be relatively safe (if he doesn't realize that he can be safe by always DI'ing away, continue to use this move with the follow-ups I'll be discussing very shortly). However...
After about 60-70%, this throw can lead into a bunch of fun stuff. If you're a little near the edge and you use B-throw to send Falcon away from the stage, he really has very little option. If he DI's away from the stage, he'll leave himself a bit farther from the ledge than he'd like. This is where you edgeguard. Edgeguarding leads to kills or at least a ton of damage, especially against Falcon.
If he DI's towards the stage (and, as a result, towards Kirby ^_^), you get to have a lot of fun with a few options. At around 60-70%, you can wavedash backwards right after the throw and get an U-tilt. U-tilt leads to U-air or B-air so pick whichever one you can use. B-air is more guaranteed but if you have good aim then U-air is preferred. After about 70-80% you can wavedash right after the throw and get a free B-air. Just edgeguard after the B-air and you'll be fine.
Near the edge of the stage, both DI's are incredibly dangerous to Falcon, but remember that this is only true when Kirby is near the edge and he's b-throwing Falcon away from the stage. As mentioned earlier, if Kirby does this more inside the stage Falcon can just DI away and be relatively safe. If the Falcon doesn't DI properly, however, this move can still be useful in the middle of the stage. Just stop doing it in the middle of the stage if you notice Falcon DI'ing away all the time. In that case it's better to use U-throw for the damage or D-throw for the chasing possibilities.
d) F-throw. This takes longer to do than B-throw and it's pretty easy to get out of as well. I almost never use this, but if you wanna be cool just remember that at about 60-100%, this can lead to an U-air if the Falcon doesn't DI properly. That's all I really know about this throw, I really don't use it that much.
III. How and When to Approach
Approaching Falcon effectively is an extremely difficult skill to master. Falcon can do a ton of crap to stop Kirby's approach and it's very possible to have this match-up end up in a huge camp-fest. You need to know how to approach and what to do in certain situations. First I'll tell you how to approach Falcon.
Offensive Options of Approach:
-F-air. F-airs are really nice but it takes a lot of practice to control them well. There are a bunch of ways you can use the F-air, and I'll list them and how each of them can be used against Falcon.
There are two ways to use the F-air:
a) Starting the F-air as soon as Kirby's little feet leave the ground. This has very little landing lag and if you space and time it correctly, Falcon will have a very hard time grabbing you if he shields it. A running, SHFFL'd F-air is good because it hits 3 times in the air and, if you want it to, 1 time as you land. The last hit can sometimes prevent grabbing or break through a small shield.
b) Starting the F-air late so that the last one or two hits don't actually occur. If Falcon doesn't block this, Kirby can sometimes get a free grab because the first one or two hits stun Falcon just enough for Kirby to have time to grab him. However, these are easily intercepted because they are slower.
Also, don't forget to refer to #'s 2 and 5, and maybe 6 as well in section II: Controlling Kirby if you want to be creative with this approach.
-B-air. This is such an awesome move, at least compared to Kirby's other moves. It's probably the closest thing Kirby has to a sex kick, and we all know he desperately needs one of those. It comes out fast, it lasts a nice amount of time, and the hitbox extends forever all around his body. Of course, you all knew that. So how can it be used against Falcon? In every freakin way possible. I'm not kidding. Combo, edgeguard, kill, intercept, defense... as long as your spacing and timing are decent, you'll be hitting Falcon a lot with these.
Now, there's one important thing to remember with this move that's going to make it a bit harder to use than your other aerials. It gets the most range from Kirby's feet, which are stuck out behind him. That's a small problem when you're approaching with this move. You see, Kirby doesn't have much priority on his face even though it consists of 300% of his body. That means unless you wanna be cool and tell people that you hit them with your face, you gotsta be facing backwards. We all know Kirby's air mobility sucks, right? Well its even worse when you have him moving backwards. So before I tell you when you're supposed to use this move, I'm going to give you some little tricksies that everyone already knows.
1. If you wanna run towards Falcon with this, you're going to need to turn around somehow. Just run, wavedash to stop your run (doesn't matter whether it's forwards or backwards, depends on what you wanna do), turn around by running away from Falcon, and either B-air right there or put in another wavedash towards Falcon before the bair so you can have some sort of momentum and he won't just stand there and laugh at your feet.
2. If you wanna make some sort of wall of feet that Falcon will fear forever (probably because of the smell? Cuz Falcon can get through if he's fast, you gotta watch out for the infinity priority U-airs he has), slowly approach with shorthopped B-airs and full-jumped B-airs. You can fit two B-airs in one fulljump, so try to use those as well.
Okay, so you know how to use B-air. What can Bair do and how do you use it correctly? Main thing you need to know is to SPACE yourself. You do NOT wanna get grabbed by Falcon. Make sure you're at optimum range so that if he blocks, he won't be able to grab you.
Also, if you start the B-air late so that you hit Falcon's shield RIGHT before you land on the ground, he'll have too much shield-stun to grab you before you can U-tilt. So you can B-air and immediately U-tilt. If he tried to grab you and you did this correctly, he'll get hit. The only thing he can do in that situation is to keep on blocking or to roll away. If he starts to keep on blocking in that situation, you can substitute the U-tilt for a quick grab by turning around and grabbing him. Remember to start the B-air when you're almost landed. If you do it too early and too high in the air, he'll be able to grab you before you reach the ground and try your U-tilt.
B-air lasts quite a bit of time so don't be afraid to use it early. It's not as strong but there's still a hitbox there. Just watch out for Falcon's interceptions, watch out for the aerials that have a lot of range. Namely, his N-air and his U-air.
-Grab. Pretty self-explanatory. If you think the Falcon's gonna be a wimp and block when he sees Kirby running towards him, the easiest way to counter this is with a grab. You can even be cute and put in a quick, empty short-hop before landing and actually grabbing him (this helps bait the shield sometimes) or if you wanna be so cute that even Kirby gets jealous, start an empty short-hop and waveland towards Falcon before grabbing him (this also baits the shield, as well as give Falcon the impression he's safe because Kirby isn't going to land close enough to hit him).
One thing to note: Kirby's neutral+b (which I'll from now on refer to as Swallow) has all the properties of a grab, so you can even use this as well. You can reverse Kirby's direction in the air with Swallow, so you can be cute and use this in a short-hop, landing behind Falcon and swallowing him if notice him shielding a lot.
Refer to #7 in section II: Controlling Kirby to find out what exactly you can do when you get a grab in on Falcon.
Defensive Options of Approach:
-F-tilt. This doesn't have very many uses and if you space it incorrectly it's pretty easy to grab or intercept. However, it does have uses if the Falcon's starting to get unpredictable.
You should really only use this approach if you think Falcon's going to jump or block. If Falcon blocks, you better have good mindgames and spacing if you don't want to get grabbed. However, if Falcon jumps, one of two things can happen. 1)He full-jumps a little bit too early and he gets a free aerial or 2)he tries to shorthop and messes up his spacing, which leads to the F-tilt connecting.
Falcon can also screw up in a number of ways that can make this approach work, but I really only like it when he gets super aggressive with the knees. If you start running, planning on using this approach, you can probably bait him into intercepting your approach with a knee. If your spacing is good, you'll intercept the knee instead.
In any case, IT'S NOT SAFE. Don't rely on this if your mindgames suck. Against a good Falcon with decent spacing, this approach will be hard to use if Falcon wants to be gay and play safe and reactionary. Remember that Kirby is slow. Kinda like Luigi, he can only pretend to be fast. But even Luigi pretends better
-D-tilt: The use of this approach should be somewhat obvious, but I'll explain it in a bit of detail anyways. If you think Falcon's going to grab you out of whatever he thinks you're going to throw at him, you'll duck the grab. D-tilt also has range and D-tilt also ducks under a non-tilted f-tilt and Falcon's jabs. Additionally, if Falcon misspaces his knee by starting it early, you can also duck the knee as well. This move comes out fast and Falcon can't shield grab it, but if you use it a lot Falcon can mix in a bunch of D-airs to counter this so watch out for that. If the Falcon's really good, he'll even replace the D-airs with well-spaced knees, starting them late in the shorthop so they connect to crouching Kirby.
-U-tilt: You can really use this a lot against a crappy Falcon because they space everything wrong and it's easy to land one of these. A major plus to using this type of defensive approach is that U-tilt can combo Falcon pretty easily especially if his DI sucks. In any case, use this approach if Falcon likes to attack with a lot of full-jumped aerials or D-airs. This comes out fast so if you space and time it right, it should intercept a lot of crap Falcon throws at you.
HOWEVER
If the Falcon is really good this gets a LOT more unreliable because a good Falcon has good spacing. The better Falcon's spacing is, the harder it is to land this because this move actually has a disadvantage over Falcon's aerials if he times them right. It's nice to mix in once in a while but if it never works it's either because you're not spacing or timing them right (or you're using them in the wrong situations) or because the Falcon's too good for it to work on him too often.
You can mix this approach up with the F-tilt approach to some effectiveness, but meh, try it out and see if it works for you.
-Block, sidestep, roll: Nearly everyone knows the disadvantages of approaching with these, but just for completion...
Blocking stops all attacks except for throws. If you think Falcon can't space, this usually leads to a free grab. If Falcon expects the block, it usually gives him a free grab. Mindgames plz kthnx.
Sidestepping with Kirby is fast and it gives him decent invincibility, but Falcon is fast as well and he can usually get a free grab if you try to sidestep his aerial. However, if he does one of his slower moves or a ground move this is pretty safe as well.
Rolling is nice with Kirby because if you space the roll correctly you can be perfect distance for an U-tilt. U-tilt is nice against Falcon right right? Buuuuut of course we all know that rolls can get predictable and predictability leads to knees in this case. Knees = bad.
When to Approach
This should be simple enough but for those that don't understand or know the basic strategy involved in what level of aggression one should undertake in this game, I'm going to explain this in a lot more detail than I believe required. Generally, in this game, you are forced to approach when...
a)You're behind. Either the opponent has more stocks than you or you both have equal stocks but you have more % damage.
b)Projectiles are owning your soul. If your character doesn't have a projectile but your opponent does, you're kinda forced to approach to prevent projectile spamming.
Simple, right? In MLG if the time limit runs out, the person who has more stocks (or in the case of a tie in # of stocks, the lesser percentage) wins the game. Therefore, the losing player is always forced to approach if the winning player decides to play defensive and opts NOT to approach.
If a character has a projectile, he can force his opponent to approach by indirectly attacking with the projectile. If the opposing character has no projectile of his own, he is forced to approach because the projectiles will do damage while he will not.
Now, in the Kirby vs. Falcon matchup, neither characters have any projectiles that force approach (I've stated this before). Kirby has his Final Cutter, which is a projectile, but that hardly forces approach from Falcon. It's too slow. Falcon, however, moves at 23984732984 miles an hour and can himself be considered a projectile (especially considering how safe his defensive approaches are. I'll get into that later though).
I'm not too much into the Soul Calibur 2 metagame, but if any of you are then you can easily compare Captain Falcon (at least in this matchup vs. Kirby) extremely similar to Xianghua in SC2. Xianghua has some extremely safe pokes that allow her to gain an advantage and force her opponent to approach (since he/she is behind and time will eventually run out). We all know how camp-based SC2 is at its highest levels and being forced to approach generally isn't good since there aren't a lot of usable rushdown characters. Once Xianghua, with her extremely safe pokes, builds up even the slightest bit of damage, her opponent is immediately put under a lot of pressure since Xianghua is hard to hit in the first place.
Now how does this relate? Falcon is fast and he has little lag. His grabs are gay in this matchup and Kirby has little range. He can throw out a lot of buffer moves to space himself AND keep him safe at the same time. He can poke and poke and, if you make even the slightest mistake in spacing, or if you decide at the wrong time to block, he can get a easy grab or quick aerial. He's very SAFE in this matchup because there is little Kirby can do to even efficiently punish Falcon's mistakes. Kirby gets punished harder than Falcon does in most cases, so you have to be really careful.
Now, to sum everything up...Since Kirby is not as safe as Falcon, Kirby will be the one approaching the vast majority of the time. Of course, if the Falcon WANTS to play aggressive, that's his choice. However, Kirby doesn't have that choice if Falcon wants to play defensive. Keep this in mind when you're playing a Falcon because if you're too defensive, Falcon can gain control in a bunch of different ways. He'll have space to move and run around and create his OWN space while you're forced to evade or interrupt. He'll be able to use his greater range to poke and control YOUR space. He'll also be less pressured to do certain things, giving him more options.
You can play defensive, but remember that Falcon can play defensive much better than Kirby can, at least on the stage. Remember when you have to approach and when it's safe to play defensive.
Falcon's Approach
You have to remember that this guy is fast. A lot of the time he'll probably be running around the stage like a maniac with random shorthops and N-airs and whatnot waiting for the slightest bit of hesitation or shield or attack...so he can just get in a grab. Again, you do NOT want this guy to grab you. So you gotsta play it a bit safer sometimes, though if you think you have balls there are some tricky stuffs you can do to Falcon if you know EXACTLY what he's going to do.
Falcon's going to run around at some point; there's nothing you can do about it. You're not going to catch up to him, you're not going to be able to attack him until he feels ready to run up to you. And he probably won't run up to you until he sees you try to start up some sort of attack. This is Falcon's way of playing defensive. He might try to look offensive with some fancy N-airs but really he's waiting for you to approach so he can counter.
What's New
1/12/2007: I started the guide, but I didn't finish it. This is taking much longer than I thought.
1/13/2007: Changed section II: Approach name to "II: When and How to Approach." I also changed a bit of stuff that was in there before and added a bit more as well. In the II: Controlling Kirby section, I added a #7 that deals with throws and what you can do with them.
1/31/2007: Added to Section II and divided it into 3 subsections: "Offensive Options of Approach," "Defensive Options of Approach," and "When to Approach."
2/16/2007: I honestly can't believe after all this typing, I forgot to mention b-air in the section about approach. I'll add this in the offensive subsection, even though b-air is kinda defensive as well. I'm also FINALLY adding a section on Falcon's approach and Kirby's options when dealing with each. This is probably going to be the most important and useful part in the guide, but I'm not going to finish it because I don't have time. It WILL be added to in my next update, I promise.
Once the guide is completely finished, I'll just delete everything in this little italicized section, including the updates. If you haven't noticed by now, the actual guide starts directly after the italics. That means now.
I doubt anybody here knows who I am but I'm going to write a detailed guide on this match-up anyways. If anybody cares, I'm just a random Kirby player in SoCal but I do play regularly with who I believe is one of the best Captain Falcon players in the area. Since nobody knows me, attempting to raise my credibility with a long list of accomplishments (which I probably wouldn't be able to produce) would be pretty pointless. So I'm just going to type and you're just going to read kthnx <3
Oh, and I'm assuming anybody reading this guide knows how to use Kirby to some extent as to not be totally confused about the concepts and techniques I'll be discussing. If you don't play smash competitively, this guide probably won't help you as much as I want it to.
Kirby vs. Falcon
I. Who has the advantage?
This isn't too tough of a question to answer. Falcon does have an advantage over Kirby even though this is one of Kirby's easiest match-ups. Before you -rep me for saying such a thing, let me give you my reasons.
-Falcon can move. He can move a lot. He has tons more mobility than Kirby in pretty much every single way. This lets him camp. Neither Kirby nor Falcon have any projectiles to force approach. Any sort of confrontation would have to be close-range.
-Falcon has a bit more range than Kirby. Now, in any normal circumstances, a combination of greater speed and greater range would be incredibly bad for the disadvantaged character. However, this is SSBM, not Starcraft, and game mechanics give the disadvantaged character a chance even if his opponent has both greater speed and range.
-Falcon can kill. I'll get more into this later.
So far I've been making it sound like Kirby doesn't have a chance. Fortunately, Kirby has a bunch of tricks and strengths he can use against Falcon to make it much less one-sided.
-Kirby can crouch. This can avoid all of Falcon's grabs and certain aerials, depending on how late in his jump Falcon starts said aerial. Usually any whiff can mean a grab or d-tilt, but I'll get more into this later.
-Kirby can edgeguard. Falcon's recovery kinda sucks, Kirby's edgeguarding really isn't bad at all. A lot of your kills will be from edgeguarding and a lot of the time, edgeguarding when Falcon is at low percentages can either kill Falcon or at least give him 30-50%.
In the end, Falcon has an advantage over Kirby and by the end of this guide, you'll understand why.
II. Controlling Kirby
Even though I put a disclaimer in my introduction stating that non-competitive Kirby players wouldn't benefit as much from this guide, I'm going make this section to clarify a bunch of things anyways.
1. Kirby can crouch under Falcon's grabs. This is very important because Falcon's grabs are really good. A lot of the time, you can approach with an aerial and crouch directly after your l-cancel before Falcon can grab you. The only aerial this is really difficult, if not impossible, to do this with is D-air.
2. Controlling Kirby's aerials is very important. Though Kirby's mobility isn't that great, even in the air, you're going to have to use what he can give you. Running F-airs are nice, but they can be even nicer if you can control whether or not you land behind or in front of Falcon when your aerial is finished. If you run and F-air, holding the analog stick towards Falcon at full speed can usually land you behind him. However, running at Falcon at full speed, starting the aerial, and immediately (if not before starting the aerial) slamming the control-stick away from Falcon is an effective way to slow down and space yourself, especially if you want all three of Kirby's kicks to be able to connect. Another example of this is approaching or camping with B-airs. You don't want Falcon to grab you. Fortunately, B-airs have more range than Falcon's grab. Use that to your advantage and control Kirby so that the B-airs are using as much of their range as possible to apply pressure to Falcon and his shield.
3. Kirby's wavedash is just about as short as his crouch. You can use this to space yourself against aerials in a bunch of different ways. Wavedashing backwards into an F-tilt is fun but Falcon can get around that pretty easily. When he starts to expect it, he'll start trying to land his aerials a little behind you to counter that wavedash. Fortunately for you, you have other options. Wavedashing forwards can put you either under or behind Falcon when he puts up his aerial. If you're really good you can use this with your U-tilt to intercept whatever crap he wants to throw at you. Yes, wavedashing forwards towards Falcon sounds scary. But Kirby is short and he can do things with his U-tilt against Falcon. Don't be too scared to try this once in a while. A lot of the times you don't even need to use the wavedash to space the U-tilt correctly. Just keep in mind how Falcon likes to land the most. Pay attention and you'll start to see patterns if the Falcon is sloppy.
4. F-tilt has range and a bunch of priority. Try to space these so that Falcon has a hard time approaching.
5. Kirby has relatively little lag after his aerials. Kirby's aerials have so little landing lag that if they hit Falcon's shield late enough in the aerial (so that Kirby lands relatively fast right after the attack), Falcon's shield lag will be just enough for Kirby to get either a jab, grab, F-tilt, D-tilt, U-tilt, shield, or crouch. Which of these follow-ups to use depends on what you think Falcon will do next.
a)If you think Falcon will try to shield-grab the aerial, you can jab, crouch, or D-tilt (if you're fast and if you have nice spacing, you can even add F-tilt to this list). This is because the jab comes out faster than Falcon's grab will, and the crouch will come out before the grab as well. And we all know about Falcons trying to grab a crouching Kirby.
b)If you think Falcon will jump out of his shield to use an aerial, use an F-tilt (directed upwards) or an U-tilt. These can intercept Falcon's aerials, depending on which one he uses. You can also crouch, but if Falcon expects the crouch he can time his aerials to hit you. You can also shield or sidestep, but these have their obvious risks as well.
c)If you think Falcon will roll, just run after him or wavedash out of your shield to follow. He's pretty safe here, though so he'll probably start rolling away a lot once he finds out Kirby's too slow to do anything about it. This is all simple mindgame stuff so if you don't know it yet, learn it fast.
6. Just try to experiment with Kirby's aerials and how to use his mobility in different ways to achieve different effects. I'm not going to type how every single possible combination of fastfalls, aerial starting points, speed changes, and jump heights can be used, but I'll mention most of them by the end of this guide. Just to give a few examples though, try full-jumping double B-airs, or starting a SHFFL'd U-air after the fastfall, rather than before it. There's a bunch of stuff you can do, this isn't the guide for it, though.
7. Kirby's throws are stupid and they need to be better. Unfortunately, Kirby has no range and even if he did, his moves don't really apply much shield pressure so we have to live with Kirby's grabs. All of Kirby's grabs are at least a little bit useful in this match-up, and that's a good thing. You just have to know exactly what you want to do before you decide which throw to use. Here's a list of the four throws along with when to use each of them and how to follow up.
a)U-throw. Depending on how confident you are on your mindgames, you might be using this throw the most. This throw does the most damage and Kirby usually doesn't have any good guaranteed followups to any of his throws, so the 10% with this throw comes in handy. No follow-up necessary, usually your opponent is smart enough to DI away from Kirby. If he misses the DI, though, you can usually follow up with any aerial. U-air and B-air are nice. Another thing to note is that at the higher percentages, sometimes you can even fastfall or waveland and pull off a short-hopped U-air before Falcon actually hits the ground. A last use (and I use the word "use" very loosely, since it's not too useful at all IMO) for this throw is for a Kirbycide.
b)D-throw. You'll probably be using this throw quite a bit as well. This one gives Falcon a bunch of options to tech (or not to tech) and it consequently gives Kirby a bunch of options to follow. After the d-throw, Falcon can either tech towards, tech away, tech in place, or choose not to tech at all (or miss the tech completely). Now pay attention, because I'm about to tell you how to tech-chase after this throw and theres a lot of crap to know.
Normally, relatively unskilled players will DI this throw the same direction they're going to tech. This makes it much easier for you to read the tech. To elaborate, after Kirby finishes his d-throw there is a split second of time where Falcon is in the air. You have that much time to react to Falcon's DI if you believe that he is going to tech the same direction he is going to DI. If you see him DI'ing to the right, start chasing to the right. Same thing with the left. Good players sometimes like to mix up their DI and their tech, so if you notice the Falcon player doing it stop assuming his tech and do it like every other Kirby player does it: read his mind.
If Falcon techs away from Kirby (either right or left, doesn't really matter) he's relatively safe because he usually has time to run away after his tech, leaving you really no option to follow up (there is an exception, however. If, as mentioned before, the Falcon DI's one direction and techs the other, Kirby can actually catch up to him and Falcon's not as safe anymore). When Falcon techs to the left or right, you either F-air him and hope that he ran away too late, or you expect the roll and keep on running. Either way leaves Falcon a bit safe, and this is why d-throw isn't incredibly useful. However, Falcon wants to be offensive sometimes so he won't always choose the safe option. Sometimes he won't run away after his tech. Maybe he'll expect your F-air and he'll shield. That's when you can grab him. Maybe he'll start jabbing, hoping to use his fastest move to rack up damage. That's when you crouch, shield, or full-jump an aerial (Falcon's triple jab takes up a bunch of time. You can usually get in a full-jumped aerial in this case. However, his single jab is fast and if he does this he has time to react to a full-jumped aerial so be careful). In any case, just remember that Falcon is pretty safe if he techs this to the left or the right.
If Falcon techs in place, you can usually put in an U-tilt or another grab. If you wanna be cute you can even start a smash attack right after the grab and he'll tech right into it. The Falcon's gotta have a lot of balls to do this, though, so he probably won't do it often. Just don't completely forget that he can.
If Falcon doesn't tech or he misses his tech, you can have lots of fun if you predicted it. I like f-smash and u-tilt, but a nice thing to do is reset Falcon's wake-up with a jab (if you didn't know, most character's jabs can "reset" a character that's lying down. In other words, it FORCES the lying down character to IMMEDIATELY use the standard wake-up option as if the player had pushed L or R). After the jab you can immediately charge an f-smash and time it so that it his Falcon when he gets up. You can also just be safe and go for another grab. A REALLY fun and embarrassing thing to do is use Kirby's ground hammer. =( Unfortunately every time I do this the hammer doesn't sweetspot, and I don't think Kirby has time to jab, space himself correctly, and sweetspot a ground hammer. In any case, the hammer is fun to hit with whether or not it's sweetspotted and you should do it once in a while just to show off. Also, if anybody knows of any way Kirby can have enough time to jab AND space himself for the sweetspot, please let me know. Short wavedashes and walking are too slow, though I haven't experimented much with simply walking to space the hammer.
c) B-throw. This throw would be SO much better if it were guaranteed. I hate how people can break out of it so easily at lower percentages. Because of this stupid disadvantage, you'll probably only be doing this throw at the higher percentages. Also, if you're near the middle of the stage this throw is pretty useless against a good Falcon as well because he can DI away and be relatively safe (if he doesn't realize that he can be safe by always DI'ing away, continue to use this move with the follow-ups I'll be discussing very shortly). However...
After about 60-70%, this throw can lead into a bunch of fun stuff. If you're a little near the edge and you use B-throw to send Falcon away from the stage, he really has very little option. If he DI's away from the stage, he'll leave himself a bit farther from the ledge than he'd like. This is where you edgeguard. Edgeguarding leads to kills or at least a ton of damage, especially against Falcon.
If he DI's towards the stage (and, as a result, towards Kirby ^_^), you get to have a lot of fun with a few options. At around 60-70%, you can wavedash backwards right after the throw and get an U-tilt. U-tilt leads to U-air or B-air so pick whichever one you can use. B-air is more guaranteed but if you have good aim then U-air is preferred. After about 70-80% you can wavedash right after the throw and get a free B-air. Just edgeguard after the B-air and you'll be fine.
Near the edge of the stage, both DI's are incredibly dangerous to Falcon, but remember that this is only true when Kirby is near the edge and he's b-throwing Falcon away from the stage. As mentioned earlier, if Kirby does this more inside the stage Falcon can just DI away and be relatively safe. If the Falcon doesn't DI properly, however, this move can still be useful in the middle of the stage. Just stop doing it in the middle of the stage if you notice Falcon DI'ing away all the time. In that case it's better to use U-throw for the damage or D-throw for the chasing possibilities.
d) F-throw. This takes longer to do than B-throw and it's pretty easy to get out of as well. I almost never use this, but if you wanna be cool just remember that at about 60-100%, this can lead to an U-air if the Falcon doesn't DI properly. That's all I really know about this throw, I really don't use it that much.
III. How and When to Approach
Approaching Falcon effectively is an extremely difficult skill to master. Falcon can do a ton of crap to stop Kirby's approach and it's very possible to have this match-up end up in a huge camp-fest. You need to know how to approach and what to do in certain situations. First I'll tell you how to approach Falcon.
Offensive Options of Approach:
-F-air. F-airs are really nice but it takes a lot of practice to control them well. There are a bunch of ways you can use the F-air, and I'll list them and how each of them can be used against Falcon.
There are two ways to use the F-air:
a) Starting the F-air as soon as Kirby's little feet leave the ground. This has very little landing lag and if you space and time it correctly, Falcon will have a very hard time grabbing you if he shields it. A running, SHFFL'd F-air is good because it hits 3 times in the air and, if you want it to, 1 time as you land. The last hit can sometimes prevent grabbing or break through a small shield.
b) Starting the F-air late so that the last one or two hits don't actually occur. If Falcon doesn't block this, Kirby can sometimes get a free grab because the first one or two hits stun Falcon just enough for Kirby to have time to grab him. However, these are easily intercepted because they are slower.
Also, don't forget to refer to #'s 2 and 5, and maybe 6 as well in section II: Controlling Kirby if you want to be creative with this approach.
-B-air. This is such an awesome move, at least compared to Kirby's other moves. It's probably the closest thing Kirby has to a sex kick, and we all know he desperately needs one of those. It comes out fast, it lasts a nice amount of time, and the hitbox extends forever all around his body. Of course, you all knew that. So how can it be used against Falcon? In every freakin way possible. I'm not kidding. Combo, edgeguard, kill, intercept, defense... as long as your spacing and timing are decent, you'll be hitting Falcon a lot with these.
Now, there's one important thing to remember with this move that's going to make it a bit harder to use than your other aerials. It gets the most range from Kirby's feet, which are stuck out behind him. That's a small problem when you're approaching with this move. You see, Kirby doesn't have much priority on his face even though it consists of 300% of his body. That means unless you wanna be cool and tell people that you hit them with your face, you gotsta be facing backwards. We all know Kirby's air mobility sucks, right? Well its even worse when you have him moving backwards. So before I tell you when you're supposed to use this move, I'm going to give you some little tricksies that everyone already knows.
1. If you wanna run towards Falcon with this, you're going to need to turn around somehow. Just run, wavedash to stop your run (doesn't matter whether it's forwards or backwards, depends on what you wanna do), turn around by running away from Falcon, and either B-air right there or put in another wavedash towards Falcon before the bair so you can have some sort of momentum and he won't just stand there and laugh at your feet.
2. If you wanna make some sort of wall of feet that Falcon will fear forever (probably because of the smell? Cuz Falcon can get through if he's fast, you gotta watch out for the infinity priority U-airs he has), slowly approach with shorthopped B-airs and full-jumped B-airs. You can fit two B-airs in one fulljump, so try to use those as well.
Okay, so you know how to use B-air. What can Bair do and how do you use it correctly? Main thing you need to know is to SPACE yourself. You do NOT wanna get grabbed by Falcon. Make sure you're at optimum range so that if he blocks, he won't be able to grab you.
Also, if you start the B-air late so that you hit Falcon's shield RIGHT before you land on the ground, he'll have too much shield-stun to grab you before you can U-tilt. So you can B-air and immediately U-tilt. If he tried to grab you and you did this correctly, he'll get hit. The only thing he can do in that situation is to keep on blocking or to roll away. If he starts to keep on blocking in that situation, you can substitute the U-tilt for a quick grab by turning around and grabbing him. Remember to start the B-air when you're almost landed. If you do it too early and too high in the air, he'll be able to grab you before you reach the ground and try your U-tilt.
B-air lasts quite a bit of time so don't be afraid to use it early. It's not as strong but there's still a hitbox there. Just watch out for Falcon's interceptions, watch out for the aerials that have a lot of range. Namely, his N-air and his U-air.
-Grab. Pretty self-explanatory. If you think the Falcon's gonna be a wimp and block when he sees Kirby running towards him, the easiest way to counter this is with a grab. You can even be cute and put in a quick, empty short-hop before landing and actually grabbing him (this helps bait the shield sometimes) or if you wanna be so cute that even Kirby gets jealous, start an empty short-hop and waveland towards Falcon before grabbing him (this also baits the shield, as well as give Falcon the impression he's safe because Kirby isn't going to land close enough to hit him).
One thing to note: Kirby's neutral+b (which I'll from now on refer to as Swallow) has all the properties of a grab, so you can even use this as well. You can reverse Kirby's direction in the air with Swallow, so you can be cute and use this in a short-hop, landing behind Falcon and swallowing him if notice him shielding a lot.
Refer to #7 in section II: Controlling Kirby to find out what exactly you can do when you get a grab in on Falcon.
Defensive Options of Approach:
-F-tilt. This doesn't have very many uses and if you space it incorrectly it's pretty easy to grab or intercept. However, it does have uses if the Falcon's starting to get unpredictable.
You should really only use this approach if you think Falcon's going to jump or block. If Falcon blocks, you better have good mindgames and spacing if you don't want to get grabbed. However, if Falcon jumps, one of two things can happen. 1)He full-jumps a little bit too early and he gets a free aerial or 2)he tries to shorthop and messes up his spacing, which leads to the F-tilt connecting.
Falcon can also screw up in a number of ways that can make this approach work, but I really only like it when he gets super aggressive with the knees. If you start running, planning on using this approach, you can probably bait him into intercepting your approach with a knee. If your spacing is good, you'll intercept the knee instead.
In any case, IT'S NOT SAFE. Don't rely on this if your mindgames suck. Against a good Falcon with decent spacing, this approach will be hard to use if Falcon wants to be gay and play safe and reactionary. Remember that Kirby is slow. Kinda like Luigi, he can only pretend to be fast. But even Luigi pretends better
-D-tilt: The use of this approach should be somewhat obvious, but I'll explain it in a bit of detail anyways. If you think Falcon's going to grab you out of whatever he thinks you're going to throw at him, you'll duck the grab. D-tilt also has range and D-tilt also ducks under a non-tilted f-tilt and Falcon's jabs. Additionally, if Falcon misspaces his knee by starting it early, you can also duck the knee as well. This move comes out fast and Falcon can't shield grab it, but if you use it a lot Falcon can mix in a bunch of D-airs to counter this so watch out for that. If the Falcon's really good, he'll even replace the D-airs with well-spaced knees, starting them late in the shorthop so they connect to crouching Kirby.
-U-tilt: You can really use this a lot against a crappy Falcon because they space everything wrong and it's easy to land one of these. A major plus to using this type of defensive approach is that U-tilt can combo Falcon pretty easily especially if his DI sucks. In any case, use this approach if Falcon likes to attack with a lot of full-jumped aerials or D-airs. This comes out fast so if you space and time it right, it should intercept a lot of crap Falcon throws at you.
HOWEVER
If the Falcon is really good this gets a LOT more unreliable because a good Falcon has good spacing. The better Falcon's spacing is, the harder it is to land this because this move actually has a disadvantage over Falcon's aerials if he times them right. It's nice to mix in once in a while but if it never works it's either because you're not spacing or timing them right (or you're using them in the wrong situations) or because the Falcon's too good for it to work on him too often.
You can mix this approach up with the F-tilt approach to some effectiveness, but meh, try it out and see if it works for you.
-Block, sidestep, roll: Nearly everyone knows the disadvantages of approaching with these, but just for completion...
Blocking stops all attacks except for throws. If you think Falcon can't space, this usually leads to a free grab. If Falcon expects the block, it usually gives him a free grab. Mindgames plz kthnx.
Sidestepping with Kirby is fast and it gives him decent invincibility, but Falcon is fast as well and he can usually get a free grab if you try to sidestep his aerial. However, if he does one of his slower moves or a ground move this is pretty safe as well.
Rolling is nice with Kirby because if you space the roll correctly you can be perfect distance for an U-tilt. U-tilt is nice against Falcon right right? Buuuuut of course we all know that rolls can get predictable and predictability leads to knees in this case. Knees = bad.
When to Approach
This should be simple enough but for those that don't understand or know the basic strategy involved in what level of aggression one should undertake in this game, I'm going to explain this in a lot more detail than I believe required. Generally, in this game, you are forced to approach when...
a)You're behind. Either the opponent has more stocks than you or you both have equal stocks but you have more % damage.
b)Projectiles are owning your soul. If your character doesn't have a projectile but your opponent does, you're kinda forced to approach to prevent projectile spamming.
Simple, right? In MLG if the time limit runs out, the person who has more stocks (or in the case of a tie in # of stocks, the lesser percentage) wins the game. Therefore, the losing player is always forced to approach if the winning player decides to play defensive and opts NOT to approach.
If a character has a projectile, he can force his opponent to approach by indirectly attacking with the projectile. If the opposing character has no projectile of his own, he is forced to approach because the projectiles will do damage while he will not.
Now, in the Kirby vs. Falcon matchup, neither characters have any projectiles that force approach (I've stated this before). Kirby has his Final Cutter, which is a projectile, but that hardly forces approach from Falcon. It's too slow. Falcon, however, moves at 23984732984 miles an hour and can himself be considered a projectile (especially considering how safe his defensive approaches are. I'll get into that later though).
I'm not too much into the Soul Calibur 2 metagame, but if any of you are then you can easily compare Captain Falcon (at least in this matchup vs. Kirby) extremely similar to Xianghua in SC2. Xianghua has some extremely safe pokes that allow her to gain an advantage and force her opponent to approach (since he/she is behind and time will eventually run out). We all know how camp-based SC2 is at its highest levels and being forced to approach generally isn't good since there aren't a lot of usable rushdown characters. Once Xianghua, with her extremely safe pokes, builds up even the slightest bit of damage, her opponent is immediately put under a lot of pressure since Xianghua is hard to hit in the first place.
Now how does this relate? Falcon is fast and he has little lag. His grabs are gay in this matchup and Kirby has little range. He can throw out a lot of buffer moves to space himself AND keep him safe at the same time. He can poke and poke and, if you make even the slightest mistake in spacing, or if you decide at the wrong time to block, he can get a easy grab or quick aerial. He's very SAFE in this matchup because there is little Kirby can do to even efficiently punish Falcon's mistakes. Kirby gets punished harder than Falcon does in most cases, so you have to be really careful.
Now, to sum everything up...Since Kirby is not as safe as Falcon, Kirby will be the one approaching the vast majority of the time. Of course, if the Falcon WANTS to play aggressive, that's his choice. However, Kirby doesn't have that choice if Falcon wants to play defensive. Keep this in mind when you're playing a Falcon because if you're too defensive, Falcon can gain control in a bunch of different ways. He'll have space to move and run around and create his OWN space while you're forced to evade or interrupt. He'll be able to use his greater range to poke and control YOUR space. He'll also be less pressured to do certain things, giving him more options.
You can play defensive, but remember that Falcon can play defensive much better than Kirby can, at least on the stage. Remember when you have to approach and when it's safe to play defensive.
Falcon's Approach
You have to remember that this guy is fast. A lot of the time he'll probably be running around the stage like a maniac with random shorthops and N-airs and whatnot waiting for the slightest bit of hesitation or shield or attack...so he can just get in a grab. Again, you do NOT want this guy to grab you. So you gotsta play it a bit safer sometimes, though if you think you have balls there are some tricky stuffs you can do to Falcon if you know EXACTLY what he's going to do.
Falcon's going to run around at some point; there's nothing you can do about it. You're not going to catch up to him, you're not going to be able to attack him until he feels ready to run up to you. And he probably won't run up to you until he sees you try to start up some sort of attack. This is Falcon's way of playing defensive. He might try to look offensive with some fancy N-airs but really he's waiting for you to approach so he can counter.
