I definitely appreciate Ffamran's input on the Falco matchup but I'd like to just add that, from the current games that have been played that I have seen, Ryu has beaten the Falco even though the Falco is 100% the better player. An example is DMG_Hooded vs. LoF_Keitaro found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdR9oWQ7rt0
Now, the Ryu was not in a massive advantage throughout and did get combo'd fairly well by Keitaro, the threat of TSRK was too real and multiple times DMG_Hooded U-Tilt locked him for big damage. I want to continue to make it clear that I think Ryu has the advantage but it is not to the point where Falco ALWAYS loses. Falco obviously has traits which hurt Ryu's gameplay (multi-hit moves and combo game) but I still continue to think it's Ryu's advantage.
Times like this make me wished more prolific players discussed here. Outside of Keitaro, I can't think of anyone, but maybe Larry as capable of saying much about the Falco and Ryu MU from Falco's point of view while outside of Emblem Lord - you have fought Keitaro's Falco multiple times, right? -, I don't know anyone else who can discuss from the Ryu point of view.
I never said Falco doesn't win or go even against Ryu, but he doesn't get demolished that hard against Ryu in my opinion. The main issue is that Falco is not a good character when you factor in he can't play at range at all. In a meaningful way, Falco's long-range and mid-range game is bad when he's limited to basic things everyone can do at those range: move. For someone like Captain Falcon, that's move at high speed, a meaningful ranged game by breaking it or someone like Link who controls range. Falco has nothing and against Ryu who does everything Falco can do and even better e.g. Falco's Blaster is *** for stage control versus Ryu's Hadouken, there is absolutely no threat when Falco's at range compared to Ryu and even Fox who does no knockback, but has high speed to break zones. Then there's some shenanigans Falco has to deal with. In particular, a jab that anyone with a frame 5 below move - theoretically, he's at a -8 frame disadvantage on Mario, so... - can punish him. In Ryu's case, that's a free hard punish and a free stock when Falco's at ~50% to ~75% if Falco hesitates or goes for a jab mixup. Ryu's not the only one: Luigi can hard punish him with a Nair kill, Jigglypuff can even Rest during his rapid jab, and if Roy's on the ground, he can armor through with Blazer.
At the same time, having a good close-range game and being able to keep up and hit fast enough against Ryu and other close-range fighters is a boon. The issue is how he gets in; Ryu can probably zone Falco out, most characters never have to approach even without projectiles or high mobility, and if they can't or aren't fast enough, they can tank his pitiful lasers like Ganondorf or Triple D while Falco has to deal with an extreme amount of recovery.
The other issue with Falco is like Emblem Lord said: if Falco makes a mistake, he suffers even harder than other poor disadvantage characters like Captain Falcon or Fox because of his light weight, lack of combo breakers, and not really much of an escape option other than Falco Phantasm which has half a hitbox to Fox Illusion and his low mobility making it difficult to just run. It wasn't rare to see Falco take upwards to 40% from Luigi pre-1.1.0 within seconds just like Fox, except Fox can at least run away if that happens and try to reset to neutral and it's not common for him to have really one-sided matches if everything goes wrong. It won't be uncommon for Ryu to take Falco's stocks within seconds of the set while it takes minutes for Falco to take Ryu's. At the same time, it's not uncommon for Falco to rebound because of his high damage output and strong edgeguard game. This is one reason why I felt that while Sheik does win against Falco by say, 70:30 at a minimum, a Sheik who doesn't know what they're doing or has trouble securing kills can make it 40:60 since Falco's difficulty with killing is just landing hits and not having few kill options which pretty much his entire kit does. This is one key thing Falco excels over Fox: high damage through minimum amounts of moves and an unpredictable level of danger - he can be the easiest character to kill or the hardest to avoid getting killed by. That's the volatile nature of Falco vs. Ryu: if Falco makes a mistake, he's going to die almost instantly, but if he doesn't, he can take stocks normally.
Short answer: at this point in the game, without knowing what Falco can really do and without knowing Ryu enough - we know he's a threat, but how much do we know about him is still kind of muddy when he's not as common as Fox, Mario, Luigi, Captain Falcon, and Sheik - I'd say Falco is a +1 to +2 for Ryu and a ? like with many other characters. Now, a discussion with Fox vs. Ryu would be more meaningful as Fox is much more common. It's negative, but who really cares if Ryu beats Falco, a random character in the lower ranks of Smash 4? Even if a Ryu had to encounter a flock of Falco players in a major, would it really matter? Falco's similar attributes to light weight fastfallers can let Ryu do the same thing he does to Fox, Sheik, ZSS, and more. It's also kind of pointless since Falco's ranged game is bad enough where he's not going to do well in any important MU. Sure, he could go toe to toe with Diddy or Captain Falcon up close, but once you figure out he can't do anything at range... Time to play smart; don't play his game, make him approach, and watch him crumble. It's kind of karmic that Falco's being forced to play everyone's game when in past games, he controlled everyone's game.
Your term of broken is, I can't call it wrong, but it's not right. You are saying anything good is broken. Broken means unbeatable, way above the rest, wins 99% of the time. Fox is not this. Fox isn't even a tier above Falco and Marth so he can't be way above. Falco and Marth both have even MUs with him, even beat him on stages. His shine is really good but far from broken, by this aspect you're calling Falco's d-air broken because it has better gimping (but more startup). If Meta Knight is called Broken, yet Fox in Melee is also called broken (who isn't even a tier above other top tiers) vs Meta Knight who is 2 tiers (1 above ICs) above the rest of the top tiers, that is a HUGE GAP and it makes your point simply unreliable.
Broken doesn't have to mean "unbeatable"... that's what unbeatable means. Broken means when something is not working properly. On the side of broken in way too good ways, you have moves that are working beyond what they should be. Melee Fox's Uair should be a rewarding move when you land it, but it shouldn't be that strong while being able to combo letting Fox rack up damage fast and hard, how Peach's Down Smash can do 70% for no real reason if all hits connect, but if not, still 12%, or D-throws seemingly are supposed to have low knockback to setup things, but because of the developers not assuming people would abuse it to grab again, chain-grabs are broken in Brawl and even in Melee where some chain-grabs exist. On the flipside, you have bad broken where characters are under-performing really badly. That's anywhere from a character being really under-tuned, the game just not playing well with them like Zelda in every game, or issues like poor hitboxes like Roy in Melee. Wolf for instance, was broken in Brawl; unlike everyone else, he had to deal with a frame 60 meteor cancel while everyone had an average of 25. Or perhaps Meta Knight in Smash 4's launch when his hitboxes just did not work properly.
Melee Fox doesn't need to be a tier above Falco and Marth. The top tiers in Melee are broken when their options are way too good. There's a difference between being good like Iori was in KoF where he was basically a jack of all trades with really good options versus being way too good like Melee Fox who's supposed to be a glass cannon, but ends up fulfilling every other role and escaping weaknesses by very strong options through raw speed, a move that not only is beyond reaction time, does almost everything Fox needs to win, and very over-tuned options like his Uair. Take Melee Ganondorf who's strong and while he can make use of the engine as well, doesn't have as much extreme options Fox, Falco, Marth, or Sheik have. Even in Brawl, you have characters like Meta Knight, Falco, Snake, the Ice Climbers, and Triple D who either have way too good moves like Meta Knight, a blatantly broken option limiter like Falco, or exploit the game so much that characters can end up being invalidated like the Ice Climbers or Triple D. Take Captain Falcon who while being handicapped by the game mechanics, was actually a good character without any shenanigans like Meta Knight's sheer speed, range for a shorty, and ability to control the pace of the game for all characters.
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