Falco (PM)

Falco; in Project M and Project+
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Universe	Star Fox
Base game appearance	Brawl
Moveset inspiration	Falco (SSBM)
Alternate costume	Classic Falco

Falco is a playable character in the Brawl mod Project M. He was remade to be nearly identical to his Melee counterpart in terms of attack hitboxes and animations.

Falco ranks 22nd out of 41 on the official tier list, near the lower half of the B tier, a significant drop from his 4th out of 26 and 7th out of 38 positions on the Melee and Brawl tier lists, respectively. His standing is slightly improved in Project+, where he ranks 20th in the official tier list, at the end of the A tier.

Attributes

Falco retains his strength of having an above-average on-stage game, as he possesses a rather powerful and formidable comboing game in his repertoire.

However, Falco has some major issues with his survivability, which compose most of his weaknesses. He is among the lightest characters in the game (he weighs as much as Lucas, Pikachu, and Pit), and is therefore easy to knock off the stage horizontally. Additionally, his recovery continues to be one of the worst in the game; this is due to a few factors, including a very low air speed, an extremely fast falling speed, and his two recovery options, Fire Bird and Falco Phantasm, not providing enough distance.

In addition, other characters have been buffed in Project M to the point where Falco's matchups are not as favorable as they were in Melee.

Given that Falco was among the best characters in Melee however, and has transitioned better than other Melee top tier characters (such as Jigglypuff) he remains a significant threat to most of the roster.

Changes from Melee to PM

Falco was slightly nerfed overall in the transition from Melee to Project M. He was reverted to become a clone of Fox again, rather than a semi-clone (as he was in Brawl). While he gained situational options from his Brawl incarnation, he lost a fair amount of his camping prowess due to the damage decay of lasers. Additionally, the strong hitbox of his down aerial now lasts less than half of its duration from Melee, forcing Falco to time his down aerial far more precisely than he had to before to approach, pressure, and KO with it.

Overall, Falco is still very strong and has the tools to take on any character. However, he is less effective in the metagame because he must now contend with not only his nerfs, but the prevalence of more floaty characters that he cannot combo as easily.

Aesthetics

Has Brawl's running animation.
Falco uses SFXs from Melee for certain moves, such as his down aerial and Reflector.

Ground Attacks

Falco's jabs use their animations from Brawl.
Falco retains his rapid jab from Brawl having shorter gaps between hits (7 → 5 frames), set knockback (10 (base), 80 (scaling) → 3 (set)/100), and different angles (80° → 30°/50°/80°). Altogether, these changes make it connect more reliably.
Falco's rapid jab has a higher hitlag multiplier (1x → 1.3x) making it easier to SDI.
Falco retains the ability to DACUS from Brawl although it covers less distance than it did in Brawl and Falco cannot perform the Gatling combo due to his decreased DACUS window.

Aerial Attacks

Down aerial's strong initial hit duration was decreased to 4 frames, and the late hit does slightly less damage.

Special Moves

Blaster shots decay in damage based on distance.
Reflector no longer has intangibility on the first frame of activation.

Revisions

v2.5

Falco's Jab 1 reduced SDIability corrected to be normal.
Falco's back throw and up throw lasers work like in Melee.
Falco's down throw now has an animation for the victim while being lasered and no longer freezes them in place before being thrown.
Reflector's initial graphical effects sized down to match the hitbox, and the hitbox made clankable.
Falco's hurtboxes adjusted.

v2.6

Lasers decay in damage based on distance.
Shine invincibility removed.
Forward Smash animation adjusted to match Melee.
Up aerial animation adjusted to match Melee.
Fire Bird's distance ported from Melee.

v3.0

Shine start-up animation has been improved.

v3.0.1

Forward smash charge graphical effects moved from his hands to his feet.

v3.5

Fire Bird now matches Melee's version of the move. It travels a slightly greater distance and Falco falls later into the move.
First hit of up aerial deals slightly less damage.
Down aerial's clean hit window has been reduced from 10 frames to 4. Its late hit does 1% less damage.
Can no longer jump cancel Reflector's recovery frames after reflecting a projectile.
Can no longer Gatling Combo due to the DACUS window shortening to 2 frames.
Ending Landmaster in the air now puts Falco in a helpless state.
AI is more intelligent when using Falco, utilizing his down special, but is very prone to SD's.

v3.6 Beta

Side Special no longer slides during startup, preventing a bug related to a sliding off and down of platforms.

Moveset

Up to date as of version 3.6.

	Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack		4%	Falco does a chop, another outward chop, and then tilts diagonally and spins very quickly with one of his arms out.
		4%
		1% (loop)
Forward tilt		9%	Sticks his foot out to the side. This move be aimed up or down.
Up tilt		9%	Does a quick upwards back kick that can be useful for juggling opponents.
Down tilt		13%	Falco performs a quick tail swipe.
Dash attack		9% (clean), 6% (late)	Runs forward and sticks his leg out. Sends opponents upwards.
Forward smash		17% (clean), 14% (late)	Flips his body in front and kicks in front of him. Similar to Fox's f-smash, but much stronger.
Up smash		14% (clean), 12% (late)	Performs a quick bicycle kick. Drastically weaker than Fox's u-smash, but has better juggling potential. Unlike the Melee version of the move, Falco's head does not gain intangibility frames.
Down smash		16% (legs), 13% (body)	Does a quick split kick. The move deals high knockback and semi-spikes opponents, making it is an excellent edgeguarder, though it has short range. Both of Falco's legs are intangible whenever he starts up the move, even while he's charging, all the way until the hitboxes come out.
Neutral aerial		12% (clean), 9% (late)	Does a sex kick that loses power the longer it's out.
Forward aerial		9% (hit 1), 7% (hits 2-3), 4% (hit 4), 3% (hit 5)	Kicks forward five times. The move as high duration due to the number of kicks, and it is very difficult to connect all the hits.
Back aerial		15% (clean sweetspot), 9% (clean sourspot/late)	Does a quick kick backwards, with sex kick properties. A good move for edgeguarding due to its high KO potential.
Up aerial		5% (hit 1), 10% (hit 2)	Whips his tail up and kicks immediately after.
Down aerial		12% (clean), 8% (late)	Spins around in place at a downwards angle while extending one foot. Always acts as a spike, even in the lingering hitbox.
Grab		—
Pummel		3%	Knees opponent. A fairly quick pummel.
Forward throw		4% (hit 1), 3% (throw)	Falco bashes the opponent forward.
Back throw		2% (throw), 2% (laser)	Falco throws the foe backwards and then blasts them with his blaster.
Up throw		2% (throw), 2% (laser)	Falco throws the foe upwards and shoots at them.
Down throw		1% (laser shots 1-4), 1% (throw)	Falco forces his foe onto the floor, and fires directly at them. The foe now lands at the place they were thrown at, taking away Falco's chain grab ability.
Floor attack (front)		6%	Falco does a kick in front and in back.
Floor attack (back)		6%	Falco punches forwards, and kicks backwards.
Floor attack (trip)		5%	Falco spins around, kicking foes with who are close.
Edge attack (fast)		8% (legs), 6% (head)	Falco lunges at the opponent with a kick.
Edge attack (slow)		9%	Falco slowly gets up and hammers the ground with a kick.
Neutral special	Blaster	1-3% (laser)	Falco fires his blaster. Unlike Fox's Blaster, it is slow but does stun the opponent. Falco fires his Blaster faster when used in midair. The lasers now lose power the farther they travel.
Side special	Falco Phantasm	7%	Falco dashes forward, leaving an afterimage behind him. Enemies hit by the move will be meteor smashed.
Up special	Fire Bird	16%	Falco charges up in flames and suddenly launches himself in one of many directions, depending on what direction is held.
Down special	Reflector	8% (activation), 1.5x damage for reflected projectiles	Falco activates his Reflector around him. When activated, it can do damage to opponents. Any projectiles are reversed back at opponents and do more damage than normal.
Final Smash	Landmaster	Varies	Falco summons his Landmaster. It has more aerial mobility than Fox's, but is slightly weaker and has less ground mobility.

In competitive play

Notable tech

Labbing Discord Tech Post

Most historically significant players

Any number following the Smasher name indicates placement on the PMRank 2019, which recognizes the official top 50 players in the world in Project M during 2019.

Captain Birdman (#37)
FingerStripes - Ranked 8th in Arizona.
Ivayne (#27)
Silver (#23) - The best Falco player in the world. Currently ranked 4th on the Massachusetts Project M Power Rankings.
Westballz - 9th at The Big Balc and BroCal's Gym: Bulking Season. Formerly ranked 3rd on the SoCal Project M Power Rankings.

Alternate costumes

Project M

Falco now has an alternative costume based off of his appearance in Melee, and Star Fox 64. There are four variations of this costume: the original and the three team colors used in Melee.

Falco's alternate costumes in PM

Project+

Falco has three new recolors for his default costume; a sky blue one similar to one in Smash 4, a pink one loosely inspired by Katt Monroe from early Star Fox titles, and a purple one inspired by his rival Panther Caroso from Star Fox Assault. The pink Melee outfit is similar to a hidden costume in the 20XX Melee training pack.

Falco's alternate costumes in P+

Z-Secret Costume: Star Fox Adventures Falco

R-Secret Costume: Star Fox Assault Falco

Trivia

Oddly, Falco's Melee portrait in the Character Selection screen is mirrored, with his reflector and holster being on the wrong positions, and he faces right. Whenever any of his costumes is used in battle, his portrait shows him facing left, which is the correct position.