Flight of Ganon

The Flight of Ganon (also known as Ganon Super Jump or FoG) is an advanced technique/physics engine exploit in Super Smash Bros. Brawl that only Ganondorf can perform (although Captain Falcon does have a variant of the exploit). It allows him to make a very high jump, significantly outleaping his short regular jumps (though it leaves him with no second jump left) by double jumping and using his aerial Wizard's Foot extremely close to the ground. When performed, Ganondorf will undergo a strong upwards force without actually using the move.

How it works

The Flight of Ganon works by exploiting two exploits with Brawl's mechanics. The first exploit comes with exploiting the game's buffer system. Normally when a player double jumps, they cannot perform an aerial on the same frame as the double jump. Attempting to do so will result in the player performing the aerial instead with no double jump. If the player buffers a double jump and an aerial out of another action, however, the player will double jump and perform the aerial on the same frame.

The second exploit is using a technique known as Second Jump Recovery (SJR). After every animation, there is one animation frame that acts as a transitional animation between one animation to another. This single animation frame usually has no impact on gameplay but if the player lands on the frame this animation occurs, they will still be airborne but they will also regain their double jump. Using this extra double jump in this state is known as an SJR and if Ganondorf buffers Wizard's Foot out of this SJR, this is what causes the Flight of Ganon.

What the player has to perform the Flight of Ganon is that they have to set up a situation where Ganondorf is in this aerial transition frame and within the game's 10 frame buffer system, the player has to first buffer a double jump and then they have to buffer Wizard's Foot. The Wizard's Foot has to be buffered otherwise, it will out-prioritize the double jump input.

Execution

As the technique is achieved by performing an SJR, it can technically be performed in most aerial situations, as long as the player can perform a complete air dodge animation. However, it is incredibly difficult to perform due to the frame-perfect or even multi-frame-perfect timing required to set up the SJR, as well as the player also needing immaculate spatial awareness to perform it in most situations. There are however two methods to set up the Flight of Ganon which make it more practical to perform.

Method 1

A Flight of Ganon performed with Method 1.

Method 1 of Flight of Ganon is the most well-known and easiest to perform. However, its ease of execution comes at the cost of being incredibly slow and telegraphed to set up. To perform Method 1, the player has to perform a grounded Wizard's foot and Ganondorf must end the move with the aerial ending animation (where he performs a mid-air roll rather than skidding on the ground) while still being on the ground. When this animation ends, Ganondorf is put into the transition animation frame, where he can then perform the technique. All the player has to do is buffer the double jump and Wizard's Foot at the end of the grounded Wizard Foot's animation. They do not require frame perfect timing or tight spacing, which makes it a lot easier than most other SJR-related techniques.

There are two ways Ganondorf can get the aerial ending animation on his Wizard's Foot while staying on the ground. The first method is by using Wizard's Foot to go from one platform to another which is not always available. The second method is available on every tournament legal stage but it is slower to set up. By standing on the very edge of the stage and facing towards the stage, the game thinks that Ganondorf is off stage when he performs the Wizard's Foot, which puts him into the aerial ending animation. The easiest way Ganondorf can achieve this is by rolling into the ledge which takes some time. This not only makes this method very slow but also highly telegraphed.

Method 2

Method 2 of Flight of Ganon is drastically more difficult to perform. However, it is far less circumstantial than method 1. The second method simply involves performing a traditional SJR to set up the Flight of Ganon. First of all, Ganondorf has to use an air dodge to set up the SJR. The reason Ganondorf cannot use any of his aerials is because all of his aerials have interruptible frames and an SJR only works when an aerial's animation has been fully completed and not when an aerial is actionable, this means that Ganondorf cannot buffer the Wizard's Foot, preventing him from being able to perform the trick. As Ganondorf's air dodge has no interruptible frames, it can be used.

The easiest way Ganondorf can set up an SJR is by performing a short hop and at the apex of his short hop, he then has to double jump and immediately air dodge. During the air dodge's ending frames, Ganondorf then has to buffer a double jump and then a down special. Ganondorf does have a couple of frames of leniency to perform the double jump but the air dodge has to be performed frame perfectly, which like any other traditional SJR, makes it incredibly difficult to perform.

As this is a traditional SJR, Ganondorf can set it up pretty much anywhere as long as he has enough time to finish his air dodge animation, and in theory he can also use this method to perform an infinite amount of Flight of Ganons without landing. The extremely high difficulty and precision of this method however limits its use. It is safer in a way than method one as Ganondorf's air dodge does provide him with some protection but the setup is still rather slow and if Ganondorf is hit out of it, he can easily end up off stage without a jump which can easily lead to him being KOed.

Application

While it may seem useful for the low-altitude Ganondorf to possess a high-leaping ability, the Flight of Ganon is a gimmick technique mainly due to the significant setup required for either method. Both methods take over a second to perform, giving the opponent plenty of time to heavily punish him if he attempts it if the opponent is on or close to the stage. The Wizard's Foot method is too slow and situational while the more theoretically useful SJR method is incredibly difficult to perform while still being slow. Additionally, when Ganondorf actually performs the technique, he is stuck in his aerial Wizard's Foot ending lag animation. This means that when Ganondorf is shooting upwards, he cannot do anything for around half a second, not being able to move or use any of his aerials. This leaves him quite vulnerable and overall makes the trick a lot less useful than it may seem.

It does have its uses, however: it allows Ganondorf to chase characters who are recovering high (most notably, Snake), or who have been sent high by an attack but not quite KOed. It can also be used to catch opponents stalling high in the air, although competent opponents will easily be able to see Ganondorf setting up the trick, allowing them to easily avoid whatever punish Ganondorf goes for. Ganondorf can also use it to set up a reverse aerial Warlock Punch on any stage although this is naturally incredibly slow and punishable, giving it no practical use when used in this way.

As a result of these factors, Flight of Ganon is an incredibly situational technique that has very little use overall.

Captain Falcon's Flight of Ganon

As Captain Falcon possesses a very similar down special with Falcon Kick, he possesses a variant of Flight of Ganon on his own. Both methods which Ganondorf possesses can be performed with Captain Falcon however, the down special method is much more restrictive. Captain Falcon cannot set it up on the edge of a stage so he has to perform the multi platform method. This is a lot harder for Captain Falcon to do as his Falcon Kick aerial ending animation moves him much further forward, which can easily make him slide off the platform before he can perform it.

Captain Falcon's Flight of Ganon grants him much less height than Ganondorf's, not even surpassing his double jump, while still leaving him in an animation where he cannot do anything. As a result, Captain Falcon's Flight of Ganon is even more situational as it is not only incredibly difficult to set up but it also actively puts Captain Falcon in a disadvantageous spot with no advantages whatsoever, with its only real use being as a very niche movement option. Captain Falcon is much better off performing an SJR into an aerial or an air dodge or just jumping and reacting to the opponent accordingly.