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Official Captain Falcon Video Critique Thread

YvngFlameHoe

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 19, 2015
Messages
592
Location
Dade County
Learn how to move with Falcon in general. This means you really got to get in tune with how quickly he is able to move as compared to Ganon. You need to learn how to properly microscpace with Falcon with his incredible speed so that you can make quick adjustments in neutral in order to put pressure on your opponent. You really want to get good with doing pivot aerials with Falcon because of how quickly he can do them and how useful they are for zoning in neutral. Dash dancing is extremely important to how Falcon works and you don't want to do it too predictably nor too excessively. You need to learn how to move with Falcon in general without having to wavedash so much. You need to learn how to foxtrot all of the time and how to do it consistently. You should practice only being in your dash animation and never in the run animation, in order to keep your movement fresh and flexible. You are also going to want to work on traversing platforms and fast falling from them as Falcon is probably the 2nd or 3rd best character for getting around on platforms.

Movement is just one key aspect, but another certainly is learning how to combo with Falcon. You ca practice this with a cpu or against a friend but it's important that you look at videos of other top Falcons to see how they punish and combo people. A Falcon can only do so much if he does not have a strong punish game. Learning the percents that things work off of certain grabs helps a lot as well.

Essentially you just want to keep practicing the basics over and over and over again until you basically master them. Even lately pivot aerials are becoming more natural to me because of how often I practice them.
Locke I can't lose you anywhere can I?
 

BauxFalcon

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
86
Location
New Jersey
So I recently switched to Falcon, and I really don't know much about the character, maybe you can link me a few things. I have some/most of the tech down like Gentleman's, MoonWalks, Hax Dash, Inv Ledgedash, Pivots, Pivot aerials, Ledgehop aerial regrabs (bair, upair and knee), late upairs, Dash Wavedashes, platform movement. Is there anymore I could or need to learn? What stages do I wanna strike too as a falcon in specific matchups?
Most of falcon is improv.
Neutral can only come with time, just make sure your technical foundations are rock solid, especially movement.

Grab 20XX training pack, and just combo a CPU, work on tech chasing the CPU, etc.

Stay far far far away from FoD. The only exception is Falcon vs Falco, where FD is a worse pick.
Falcon generally does best on certain stages based on your playstyle. Most of the time, they like room to run around. YS is good for early kills, but limits mobility, DL is the best Falcon stage imo, lots of room to run around and combo, and recovery is better with good DI, BF is always a good stage for every character, PS is my favorite stage, and my comfort pick in most matchups.

Vs Marth
Pick BF FD DL PS
Don't YS FoD

Vs Fox
Pick BF DL PS YS
Don't FoD FD

Vs Falco
Pick BF DL YS FoD
Don't PS FD

Vs Sheik
Pick DL, FD BF PS
Don't FoD YS

Vs Peach
Pick BF DL PS YS
Don't FoD FD

Vs Jiggs
PIck any stage except DL and FoD
 

BauxFalcon

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
86
Location
New Jersey
out of curiosity, why don't you like YS against Sheik Baux?
In general, Sheik doesn't need a lot of room to move, and she can control a ton of space with bair. In contrast, Falcon needs more room to move, so Sheik stuffs pretty much all of Falcon's approaches and outzones him more significantly on YS

I don't think the early kills are a better tradeoff. DL significantly boosts Falcon's recovery, and Sheik's is really bad regardless. YS allows Sheik to recover and since she wins in neutral 6-7 times out of 10, she'd get kills easier on YS with fair. DL just is more lenient with Falcon and evens up the neutral for him.
 
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YvngFlameHoe

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 19, 2015
Messages
592
Location
Dade County
Played a best of 3 set. I won, but I know I made many mistakes in neutral and won because my opponent SDed alot.

Would like some critique on these two matches.

Vs Fox
https://youtu.be/DcWG8a-chm0
I won this match, but 20XXTE recorder stops functioning after a certain point. So it just seems like I didn't recover or sonething.

Vs Marth
https://youtu.be/K0BbKANP8ak
You look like you have very slow reactions, the l-cancel on your stomps needs improving, you kept trying to tech chase with downthrow only, when you could have just upthrew the fox onto plat, got an upair and that woulda sent him offstage for an edgeguard situation. Oh and you played blue, I hate the color blue #FirstCritique
 
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BauxFalcon

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
86
Location
New Jersey
You look like you have very slow reactions, the l-cancel on your stomps needs improving, you kept trying to tech chase with downthrow only, when you could have just upthrew the fox onto plat, got an upair and that woulda sent him offstage for an edgeguard situation. Oh and you played blue, I hate the color blue #FirstCritique
Yeah I know, I normally have decent reactions on Dthrow, idk what happened that day, and I tend to flub alot when actually playing vs practicing tech chases.

But I wanted to know more about what I was doing in neutral, I'm not as worried about my punish game.
 

YvngFlameHoe

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 19, 2015
Messages
592
Location
Dade County
You threw out a couple stomps in neutral, and with how wishy washy you were l-canceling them it would have been free punishes for the fox, don't randy knee so much, almost all the nairs you threw out got punished, use them with better spacing and not exclusively, upair is also a good move in neutral, but I don't really know all that much about neutral, I might be wrong
 
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adPEXtwinDoNG

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 1, 2014
Messages
58
Location
Oregon
Hey y'all, I've got a few questions about Falcon v Fox. I'm primarily looking for some input on punish game, but I'd love some general advice if anyone's got the time. Here's a set of me vs one of the fox mains from my region.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kydwJeR6wmI&list=PLFXOgPi6_N5TzA-whvJnHlZ37H16GJZ2_&index=11
In game 1 there were a couple times in neutral at low% where Fox punished your DD grab fishing w/ running shine. You didn't really give much for the Fox to respect so after a bit he just approached with a running shine.
You kind of gave away your hand by dd'ing on the platform at game start too.
3:56 is a good example of a trend in neutral game that you have where you do a lot of low committal options in attempt to read an aggressive approach. It works out at 4:22 because of the high corner pressure you establish but then you go for it again at 4:27 and he reads/adapts to it. Another example is at 6:02. I think you should mixup your reads and use different sets of movement. Use dash wd, shield stops aerials (Lord is really great at this) and pivots to present your opponent different situations. Imo the game is much more frustrating if both players constrain themselves to a small set of mixups when approaching.

There were a bunch of edgeguard opportunities that you kinda threw away by not immediately grabbing the ledge or getting ready to cover something.
At 3:48 after the uptilt you could've ran off an done a double jump upair.

You should watch Gravy's optimal techchasing video if you haven't.
Imo if you're not actively going for a stomp hard read at lower percents you should try to go for regrabs to build percent and potentially learn their techrolling mentality.

Sorry for talking mostly about neutral. I think your neutral game along with your edgeguarding was more of a bottleneck in your gameplay than your punish game. You did a lot of solid hard read attempts (like knee on notech after throwing Fox down to center stage from platform) that I wouldn't normally go for but you mitigated a lot of his punish attempts when you did go for them.
 

Mastodon

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 10, 2014
Messages
102
Location
North Carolina
Hey y'all, I've got a few questions about Falcon v Fox. I'm primarily looking for some input on punish game, but I'd love some general advice if anyone's got the time. Here's a set of me vs one of the fox mains from my region.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kydwJeR6wmI&list=PLFXOgPi6_N5TzA-whvJnHlZ37H16GJZ2_&index=11

your edge guards are like s2j's edge guards. You didn't contest the edge much at all towards the end of the first match.

You stop when you're waiting for your opponent to do something. I guess you can't say that's necessarily a problem, but I think dash dancing is always better in that situation.
 
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M-Tude

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 30, 2014
Messages
66
Hey y'all, I've got a few questions about Falcon v Fox. I'm primarily looking for some input on punish game, but I'd love some general advice if anyone's got the time. Here's a set of me vs one of the fox mains from my region.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kydwJeR6wmI&list=PLFXOgPi6_N5TzA-whvJnHlZ37H16GJZ2_&index=11
I think that @adPEXtwinDoNG was right to talk about your neutral, because you honestly didn't get more than two or three chances to punish fox the whole set. Your main directive in neutral was to space bairs defensively, and because you didn't fast-fall and you were fading away most of the time, you had the wrong positioning to convert those bairs into punishes. Actually punishing fox is easy--Up air him if he is above you, grab tech-chase if he lands. You should just work on your space control so that you're prepared to make those stray hits into death combos. Punishing on yoshi's is a bit different though because you don't have as much space for Up air strings, so because fox goes off stage much quicker but doesn't necessarily die, you need a really strong presence on the ledge to threaten his recoveries and threaten space so you can continue the punish.

That's what I think at least. cool set to watch
 

Twinkles

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 5, 2011
Messages
1,022
Location
SoCal
Some notes I have vs. Sheik:

-Sheik's ftilt is NOT SAFE ON SHIELD. In fact, overall as a move, it's awful, but Falcon's get rocked when they run into it. If Sheik ftilts your shield, shield grab if she's in your shield, nair OOS if she spaced it. The trick is just getting the action out fast enough (ftilt has really low shield stun).

-Sheik's ftilt is bad in general, it only is okay at catching people out of their movement. Baiting out ftilt though leads to a free grab, even dair/knee if you were baiting it out with jumps. From there, easy 0-deaths.

-If Sheik is on a platform, 99% of the time she's looking to run-off fair. Don't let yourself get hit by that. Or intercept it with uair before it comes out.

-Sheik's nair/fair are stupidly good aerials that generally AC into a move right after. If you want to DD grab either move, you have to literally be at their landing, otherwise just try to watch for what their reaction is after they AC.

I think overall, your biggest problem in this set is you lack (or show lack of) awareness of what Sheik can do in any position she's in. Keep in mind Sheik's not a super mobile dash-dancer or has a stupid long WD, so all you have to worry about are what moves she can throw out depending on where she is on the stage.
 

SpectreMagic

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
2
copy pasting my post from reddit lmao

http://www.twitch.tv/fatgoku/v/32668733

45:30, we play a full Bo3

Looking for any advice against spacies in general, I feel like my punish game is complete ****ing garbage and I sorta just wing it and pray every time I get a grab. I also have this really bad habit where I panic like a rabid animal and start spamming stomp because I'm scared and don't feel safe dash dancing. this mostly happens against marths, sheiks, and falcos when i'm cornered after a combo ends or something and i lose a lot of stage.

game 1 in particular is dog**** on my part. i sorta pulled my head out of my ass for a little bit game 2 (besides the 2-part spaghetti orchestra at the end lmfao) and then choked the **** out game 3. regardless, fatgoku is good af and i think i played sort of representative of my skill level, both ups and downs so LITERALLY anything you guys notice is appreciated, ty fam
 

GLUE_BearFortress

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 10, 2015
Messages
2
Hey,

Sorry for the late response. I read this post a while ago and forgot to post a reply. I appreciate everyone's input a lot!

adPEXtwinDoNG I think you brought up a really good point when you talked about my movement options in neutral. I often feel like I'm constrained to dash dancing when I play against Fox. Since you pointed that out I've been exploring more movement options in neutral with great success. Mixing up DD, WD/WL, and shield stops has spiced things up considerably. What do you think of platform movement against fox? You didn't mention that when you listed examples of movement.

M-Tude M-Tude You know, I was wondering why my bairs in neutral weren't doing anything for me. It makes tons of sense that even if they'd hit, I wouldn't get anything off of it 'cause I'd land too far away. I took your advice, lately I've been opting for dashing just outside their approaches range and sh bairing in place. Now I'm nailing them AND getting the followups.

Mastodon Mastodon Yeah man you're right my edgeguards were super booty. I went hyperbolic with my friend Arc to improve my edgeguard game, so hopefully I'll do better next time. Also when I'm waiting for something to happen I like to stand still because it gives me access to all of my options whenever I need them. Admittedly this doesn't apply when they're offstage and recovering... RIP
 

M-Tude

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 30, 2014
Messages
66
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7BAh2sjEc&t=2m20s

Got bopped, wanna know why. I'm not doing something right in neutral.

Honestly dude, I'm not sure it was completely your neutral. Game 1, you punishes were lacking. Game 2, you counter-picked yourself on stadium. Game 4 you were on tilt, you SD'd, and just had some pretty bad DI that got you combed and dtilted or daired for every stock.

Game 1 your neutral was fine. It was a close game, and like I said, your punishes were a bit lackluster. Both the raptor boosts that you hit on the first stock didn't net you much. At 3:30 you get a two grabs and you up throw into a trade both times, meaning you need to practice your speed after those. At 4:00 you get a stomp and miss the tech-chase on the top platform, which is hard, but would have been nice to hit. You down-threw into nothing a few times, and you didn't have a very strong presence on the ledge. I thought you should have grabbed ledge or invincibly planked more often to force the marth on stage for a knee, but you let him DJ to ledge quite a bit which is sort of a free recovery. You also started the Marth slayer sometimes but let it go or just did it when they were close enough to DJ to ledge. Force them low first, or don;t be afraid to fall to ledge ad then knee them.

That being said for game 1, your platform movement was spectacular, and your apparent comfort on them fun to watch. your movement on them and around the stage was tricky and was what I thought allowed you to keep up with the Marth for the most part. I thought it was a cool choice when you tried to set up platform tech-chases pretty often.

That platform movement is part of why I thought you counter picked yourself game 2. Fisrt of all, stadium's biggest benefit is its increased space for dash-dancing, and with your platform-heavy style of movement, you didn't take much advantage of the extra space, it just became more space for Marth to control. Often times you did a single dash back into running Nair forward, which isn't really making use of the space. That sort of mistake is part of the neutral, but I think you felt cornered a lot of the time without bigger platforms to play with and escape to. BF's platforms make up a large portion of it's horizontal surface area, which is not the case on PS. The smaller length of the platforms made them easier for Marth to cover, and gave you less opportunity to vie for stage control from them. Also the lack of a top platform gave you less space to escape to when Marth had control of center stage. In game 1 you used it several times as a place to jump up to and fall down as a way to push Marth out of the center, or to escape a combo, and you also recovered to it once (and it was a sick recovery by the way). Without that, I really think you limited yourself based on your style in game 1.

Game 4:
13:50--- DI this out, this is what made you lose the first stock. After that it just looks like you're on tilt. You;re not moving as well as game 1, you drop an edge-guard, and you SD the second stock. 14:46---- you mis-space your DJ and get D-tilted, that should have been death again. You panick Raptor boost after this. The trouble with Yoshi's is that it's just so easy for Marth to get you off-stage with F-throw tech-chases and then dominate Falcon on the edge and it's just so demoralizing. I don't want to talk that much more about game 4 just because I don't think it's a good representation of your playing ability. Also marth can mess up your platform movement here super easily, since up tilt covers an entire platform. You can't really come down on him anymore, or DD on platforms, they're small enough that he'll just catch you and then edge-guard you, so it's another style counter pick stage for you.

As far as actual advice on the neutral, I think you need to be a little more ground based. marth likes ground control, and usually he doesn't actually mind if you're DDing on the opposite side platform. I think you should try dashing around right at the edge of Marth's JC grab or fair range. This puts more pressure on him and the threat of you invading his space more than standard platform movement does because of how easy it is for you to simply grab him if he makes a slight spacing mistake. Dashing right around that range makes it harder for him to react to your Nairs should you decide to approach him. He won't have as much time to react with an up tilt as he might if you did the Nair from across the stage or from on a platform.
 
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Mastodon

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Dec 10, 2014
Messages
102
Location
North Carolina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7BAh2sjEc&t=2m20s

Got bopped, wanna know why. I'm not doing something right in neutral.
Just gonna add my thoughts real quick: falcon-marth neutral is all about footsies, and he clearly did a better job of that than you. There was a lot of times you just ran at him and nair-ed, and he just put out a fair and hit you. Against a competent marth you can't just run in and nair if you don't have a reason to believe he's not going to defend himself with any of his aerials or just dash away. So work on your mind games, I saw a few sweet approaches early in the set, but as the set went on you just kind of get stuffed more upon just running in and throwing out moves.
 

jaaj

Smash Rookie
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
4
Location
Long Island, NY
https://vid.me/qspr
i played this set a few days ago, would appreciate some input/general tips
i have problems flubbing inputs and i don't have a strong grasp on neutral yet, so any advice on improving in either of those aspects would help a lot
 

SNESter

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 3, 2015
Messages
9
Location
Texas
NNID
Daysonias
3DS FC
5086-2144-3450
https://youtu.be/QnGjl_5a2pc

Just looking for some general tips. (I messed up a lot of things just cause of nervs)

Also when you up throw someone onto a platform, would a full hop knee cover tech in place?
 

KingKirb

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 18, 2008
Messages
250
https://youtu.be/QnGjl_5a2pc

Just looking for some general tips. (I messed up a lot of things just cause of nervs)

Also when you up throw someone onto a platform, would a full hop knee cover tech in place?
I noticed these things:

  • You failed a gentleman at 1:20. Even though you killed him anyway, make sure to practice those.
  • It seems like every single time you have the enemy trapped in shield, you do a short hop aerial and get punished for it. Try to grab them instead. You can murder marth with a grab.
  • I think you need to be more patient and practice your movement more.
To answer your question, yes, a full hop knee is a great answer to tech in place.
 
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SNESter

Smash Rookie
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Jan 3, 2015
Messages
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I noticed these things:

  • You failed a gentleman at 1:20. Even though you killed him anyway, make sure to practice those.
  • It seems like every single time you have the enemy trapped in shield, you do a short hop aerial and get punished for it. Try to grab them instead. You can murder marth with a grab.
  • I think you need to be more patient and practice your movement more.
To answer your question, yes, a full hop knee is a great answer to tech in place.
Thanks so much for the input.

Yeah I need to practice gentleman-ing because I would just press a three times and randomly get the gentleman because I just didn't want to learn it but I will work on it.

Also, when good Falcon wavelands on platforms and all the cool movement, are they perfect wavelands?
 

KingKirb

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 18, 2008
Messages
250
There's a y
Thanks so much for the input.

Yeah I need to practice gentleman-ing because I would just press a three times and randomly get the gentleman because I just didn't want to learn it but I will work on it.

Also, when good Falcon wavelands on platforms and all the cool movement, are they perfect wavelands?
There's a YouTube video on how to gentleman properly every time. I'd find it for you if I wasn't on my phone. Basically what you wanna do is hold down the A button for a split second after the third hit. You'd be amazed how easy it is.

As for the wavelands, perfect is always better, but I think that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. You get nervous, so don't worry about being perfect, just have fun and try to remember your fundamentals (movement, L cancels, grabs). I think that will benefit you more than anything.
 

SNESter

Smash Rookie
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Messages
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There's a y


There's a YouTube video on how to gentleman properly every time. I'd find it for you if I wasn't on my phone. Basically what you wanna do is hold down the A button for a split second after the third hit. You'd be amazed how easy it is.

As for the wavelands, perfect is always better, but I think that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. You get nervous, so don't worry about being perfect, just have fun and try to remember your fundamentals (movement, L cancels, grabs). I think that will benefit you more than anything.
Ok thanks, again. :D

I'll find the video and hit the lab.
 

bleepbleep

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jun 13, 2014
Messages
15
How should I deal with falco/fox camping at the edge of a stage with a platform above them? I lost against last night by a falco who I didn't really know how to approach. If any of you could go over the vod and give me advice on my playing that would be greatly appreciated. https://www.twitch.tv/pressstartlv/v/56468319 starts at 2h:30m. thanks
 

SNESter

Smash Rookie
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Jan 3, 2015
Messages
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5086-2144-3450
Hey guys I played on stream again and I would like some criticism on how I played. Please be as harsh as you want. I know I played kinda sloppy and my opponent didn't even play the set right (he counterpicked his character before telling me what stage we're going to for game two)
https://youtu.be/6WkzgYQXIxA
 
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OmegaLubba

Smash Cadet
Joined
Apr 12, 2016
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The thing about Falcon is you need to understand his tech, like Wizzrobe does. You need to be able to do a reverse knee on command.:falconmelee::falconmelee::falconmelee::falconmelee:
 

Vall3y

Smash Lord
Joined
Jul 10, 2005
Messages
1,619
Location
Israel
Hey guys I played on stream again and I would like some criticism on how I played. Please be as harsh as you want. I know I played kinda sloppy and my opponent didn't even play the set right (he counterpicked his character before telling me what stage we're going to for game two)
https://youtu.be/6WkzgYQXIxA
I'm gonna quickly point out whatever I see that perhaps could have been better (it is possible you have seen these as well.)

0:42 you hit the second part of nair - this should lead into a grab imo (seeing as he didn't CC and got knocked up). Do know that its a very CC'able situation for marth

0:43 You've tried to combo that 2nd part of nair into another nair which is airdodged. Now he has air dodge lag, lands and shields another nair attempt. This was also a grab. In general you should expect him to come out of laggy moves with a shield, so you should grab.

0:44 That nair gets shieldgrabbed. It seems like you have finished it low enough, so I am not sure if it's a missed L-Cancel because you could have probably jabbed.

0:52 you hit the 2nd part of the nair again. I think these full forward short hop nairs is ok to aim to hit with the 2nd hit (especially if he does not cc those), but you have to convert it to grabs.

1:02 its a nice reaction by him but I think the 20gx thing would be to drop low and sweetspot the edge with the doublejump. By jumping high most likely you are getting hit again

1:06 after you throw to missed tech uair, it looks like you could combo another hit, or at least go for another uair. Marth is in a bad spot there above you and close to the edge. At the worst case he jumps above you or you trade uair for fair

1:45 you knee him off the stage and he immediately double jumps. This is a highly punishable edgeguard with bair

2:57 you end up landing close range to marth. Especially after reading s2j's falcon guide I have come to the realization that nair from close range is not that good of an option all the time and it seems like you using it a lot. Mix up with Knee on shields or even dair, pretty good and less shieldgrab-able I think

3:43 It looks like you flubbed the shffl dair, but I think turn around grab is the easiest punish. In general I like missing such air dodges with a grab when I can

3:57 I liked the reposition for center stage

Overall good game, thats all I got hope that helped at all
 

Uchihadark7

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
243
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Idaho

BauxFalcon

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
86
Location
New Jersey
Sorry its 20 minutes long. I recorded some netplay footage of me getting wrecked by some Falco. The second to last match I win, but I'm fairly sure thats just because I punished harder. Can I get some critique on my neutral? I feel like I give my opponent too much space, and I subject myself to free shield pressure.

https://youtu.be/X4WTAx89tqc
 
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