by Doc – Owner, Founder, How On Earth Did They Figure Out Falco When I Can’t Get Little Mac to Stop Jumping
In case you didn’t know, there actually is a Japanese amiibo scene, and they have an Amiibo Doctor counterpart. Their counterpart is more of a blogger than an educational source, but let’s be real here – we take it easy at Amiibo Doctor as well.
I’d like to apologize to the author ahead of time. It’s been a long time since I did any interactions with the Japanese scene, so I forgot their nickname in the scene, and I don’t think I can find it on the website.
Read this before you continue this article to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
You’ve probably noticed that it’s in Japanese, and that Google Translate doesn’t help with translating much. I use DeepL to translate, and that helps a bit. However, it sometimes just rewrites the Japanese word into English phonics, so… use both if you can.
Alright, have you read it? You’re all ready? Let’s see how the Japanese train the Falco amiibo. (And here’s our Western guide for comparison.)
Pre-Training Knowledge
The author explains that Falco has minimal range but is very combo-based, and comes to the same conclusion that the American scene had – that Falco was buffed in the 8.0 patch. In case you ever doubted that amiibo AI changes do happen, here’s a pretty good reason to believe otherwise.
Then the author explains that, as best as I can tell, we should prioritize Up Smash more than Up Tilt. He says that it’s not a huge problem if it learns to use Up Tilt because it can follow up the Up Tilt with other aerial attacks, but really we should worry about Up Smash more than Up Tilt.
Training
Up Smash
The very first thing the guide recommends is Up Smash. It recommends Up Smash for three reasons:
- It can catch amiibo that are landing
- It works well on shields because it carries multiple hitboxes
- It’s a generally useful KO move
From an outsider’s perspective, this thought process makes sense. Falco is an aerial character and it’s in his best interest to keep opponents in the air at all times. That’s where his combos are, after all.
Down Tilt
The guide then tells us to teach him Down Tilt onstage. This option was pretty surprising to me, personally, as I had assumed Up Tilt would be the preferable alternative. However, the reasoning is solid. The author gives more reasons for Down Tilt:
- Its primary use is a combo starter, which it’s good for
- Both of my translators say that “If the opponent has a high %, you can aim to shoot them down”. I chalk this up to a translation error, as it sounds like the author believes Down Tilt is a spike, but it isn’t.
- Down Tilt can be used to interrupt stage movement, much in the same way that Musket Method Marcina uses Down Tilt.
This is a pretty smart look at Falco’s kit, if you ask me. I never once considered that Falco’s Down Tilt could be used for stage control, and the similarities between Lucina’s Down Tilt and Falco’s are actually pretty large.
Offstage
Offstage, we’re instructed to use Down Air to spike the opponent. The author warns us against using Down Air too much, as it’ll cause Falco to become too jumpy onstage. Do you think they know about the Ladder Method? We should tell them.
It’s also noted that while Back Air does have great KO power, the amiibo hardly ever lands it. The author states that his Falco amiibo doesn’t land it a single time in three games. It’s okay if your Falco amiibo learns it, but don’t let him do it a lot.
Grabs
The author doesn’t have much to say about grabs, besides that they’re pretty good for building up damage. However, we also shouldn’t use them too much, because the amiibo could get too invested in the aerial follow-ups to grabs.
Doc’s Perspective
One of my favorite things about amiibo is seeing how the Japanese train amiibo. This author has written quite a few amiibo training guides, so I’ll have to peek through them and see what he has to say.
As far as Falco goes, I hope that people take the author’s advice. I’ve always felt like the Japanese had superior Falcos to our own (when our communities first connected, they had Falco at the top of A tier while we had him in C), and I’m hoping that this leads to further innovation of the character.
Amiibo Doctor 