Landing lag glitch
The landing lag glitch, also referred to as recovery carryover lag or RCO lag, is a glitch in Brawl and Smash 4 that causes certain characters to suffer lag under conditions that should not cause such lag. Specifically, certain special moves that place the user into helpless can have their lag "saved" if the user grabs an edge after using the move, but before landing. The next time the user lands on the ground, even if doing it by jumping from the edge or being hit by another player, they take the lag that would have been applied had the character landed in helpless. The only way to avoid the lag is to drop from the edge and jump back up without grabbing the ledge again. Of course, such lag should not happen because the character does not land in helpless, and such is the glitch - the game doesn't realize that it should forget about applying lag upon the next landing if an edge is grabbed.
The glitch cannot be avoided with specials that do not cause the character to become helpless and never disappear until landing on the ground; however it can be "overruled" by using an aerial that has landing lag, though with 35-40% more landing lag than would usually get for landing with that aerial. Preferably, one would use an aerial with lag to partially override the glitch, but still suffer more lag than the aerial would provide.
Characters affected by the glitch
Except for Donkey Kong and Bowser, who both get a relatively small extra two frames of lag, all characters listed have 15 frames for soft landing. Hard landing values are listed below.
- Mario (30 frames with Super Jump Punch)
- Luigi (30 frames with Super Jump Punch)
- Peach (30 frames with Peach Parasol if she closes her umbrella once; it does not go away if the player reopens it)
- Marth (35 frames with Dolphin Slash)
- Donkey Kong (7 frames with Spinning Kong)
- Bowser (10 frames with Whirling Fortress)
- Fox (19 frames with Fire Fox and 25 frames with Fox Illusion)
- Falco (19 frames with Fire Bird and 20 frames with Falco Phantasm)
- Kirby (25 frames - only with Hammer and Stone, not Final Cutter)
- Wolf (36 frames with Fire Wolf and 25 frames with Wolf Flash)
- Charizard (30 frames with Fly)
- Squirtle (30 frames with Waterfall)
- Pikachu (24 frames with Quick Attack - only when it moves the full distance in one direction or is used in two directions)
- Lucario (5 frames with ExtremeSpeed if it wasn't during its helpless animation, 30 frames if it was)
- Captain Falcon (30 frames with Falcon Dive and 20 frames with Raptor Boost)
- Ganondorf (30 frames with Dark Dive and 20 frames with Flame Choke)
In Smash 4
While the glitch no longer occurs after grabbing a ledge, most characters suffer a varying amount of landing lag if they are hit after the execution of their up special moves, but before they land. Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and Zero Suit Samus also remain affected by RCO lag after they connect with Falcon Dive, Dark Dive, or Flip Jump respectively and land on a platform. Any aerial used in an attempt to override the RCO lag will experience around 1.4x normal landing lag, like in Brawl, while if the aerial autocancels the RCO lag is experienced. Some moves, particularly multi-hitting electric moves like Mewtwo's neutral aerial or Pikachu's forward aerial, induce extra landing lag on the character they hit if they end prematurely.
