Sidespecial and downspecial are really bad approaches in general. Throw them out once or twice a match if your opponent is off guard, but don't use them consistently.

Falcon's best approach is running short-hop neutral air. It has a good amount of range and priority, consistently destroys some projectiles such as Samus' missiles, and sets up a grab or followup attack very nicely.

Another decent approach is run -> crouch -> down tilt. It helps against smaller characters and can dodge some higher moves that would stop your neutral air.

You can also go for running short-hop up air. It has a lower range than neutral air, but it sets up a followup attack very nicely, and can combo into knee.

If you're confident with it, you can go for reverse-aerial-rush running short-hop back air (it's much less complicated than it sounds). I usually use this if I'm desperate for a KO, particularly on a smaller character, as this reliably hits pretty low down and has good knockback. It's also nice for a mixup, and leads straight into grab at lower percents.

A good approach against projectile users can be full-hop down air, simply because it can catch them off guard whilst they're happily throwing boomerangs or whatever, and can lead into huge punishes.

Other than that, you can try approaching with knee (forward air) if you think the opponent is off guard, but don't rely on this too much. It becomes predictable and easy to punish if you overuse it.

Thanks.

Good match between Trey and i.

SSF2 is so fast. I think it would be more fun if it was slower. And no, it's not too fast for me and I'm not a "noob".

wow tac has that touch of death.. but the sideBs were painful LOL

I was playing horrible IMO
tbh idk why I kept doing side special lol. I play SS so much that it should never hit him.

"Mind games".

nah I think it was because I like hitting with it...
anyway, this match was a sad display of falcon.

I dont believe you.

Why do you assume I'm a noob? And what I am trying to say is, the game is very fast in terms of moving and attacking, even compared to Melee. Moving shouldn't be this fast and attacking shouldn't be this fast. Or maybe Fox and Captain Falcon are just the two fastest characters in the game, and everyone else isn't too fast. Sonic is fast also, but speed is his game.

I think it is OK for Captain Falcon to move very fast, because he is a racer. But Fox moves too fast in SSF2 in my opinion. He doesn't even move this fast in Melee. Movement should not be so "free". You should have to work to your position. For example, if I'm trying to position myself into Princeton I probably will work to position myself there. SSF2 is the same. Players work to move themselves to fight better. Fox should be fast, but he shouldn't be able to make moving so easy. Pikachu also moves very easily. Same with attacking. There is "opportnuinry cost", which is smething economists talk about. The cost of attaking is the fact that attacks aren't instant. Having very fast attacks makes the "opportunity cost" too low. If Fox can do his reflector very fast and finish it very fast, then that move is very cheap. Back-aerial also is very fast and very strong, which means it should cost a lot to use but it doesn't. SImiary Captain Falcon shouldn't attack too fast. I feel like a lot of my points acutually aim at Fox, but I wasn't aware of who I thought was too fast when I first commented. So, I'll post this here in this thread.

tfw this is what I sound like to other people

Whaddya mean, Fox is faster than Melee?

I see what you're trying to say with the whole opportunity cost thing, but I disagree completely. For example, even though in your example Shine is cheap, it can be out-ranged by nearly every attack. It actually can't be spammed, because otherwise you just get hit out of it, even if you could do frame-perfect multishines. Additionally, because of Fox's glass cannon nature, there is a big opportunity cost: if you get grabbed by Marth on FD, even if you were fairly safe in your approach, you're a dead Fox.

More to the point, Fox, Pika, Falcon, and the other characters you talk about are in many ways defined by their speed and mobility. It's a stat and a tool just like any other. You have a simplistic way of thinking about Smash in general: it isn't just about positioning, lag, and speed, but about range, punish game, edgeguarding, recovery, priority, OoS options, pressure, defensive game, and a bunch of other things. Fox is balanced by his weaknesses: he gets rekt when you land solid hits on him, and he has an easily edgeguarded recovery. He may be better than most of the cast, but he has serious problems, and so he has to really work hard to win just like everyone else in Smash. It may be easier to land hits with Fox than any other character in the game, but just look at any M2K game against a Fox in Melee: you can win the neutral game 90% of the time, but if you get zero-to-deathed 50% of the time you still don't win. Take another example: Pikachu is in many ways defined by amazing mobility and speed, but the whole character is much more complex: good edgeguarding and recovery, mediocre punish game, a weakness in range and how quickly he can be KO'd, and so Pika players have to work hard too: mixing up Thunder Jolt approaches, staying mobile constantly to keep from being hit, mastering the complex offstage game that Pikachu has, and spacing very well on attacks.

The larger point is that you're focusing on a couple aspects of Smash. Some characters would be OP if they had Pikachu's movement and quick attacks (no pun intended); Link, for example. Those characters have a weakness in Pikachu's strengths. But Pikachu isn't OP for having great mobility and quick attacks, because Pikachu doesn't have Yoshi's defensive game, Naruto's zoning, and DK's knockback resistance.

Additionally, having a lot of speed and mobility doesn't make attacks "free". No attack in this game is legitimately unpunishable on read, and most are punishable on block. Having attacks that aren't really punishable easily is part of what gives Falcon and others their strengths in approach and pressure. To take that away would make the game incredibly slow, and I don't want to play Brawl.

One more thing: not to be too inflammatory, but I think you saying that this game is too fast is more you than the game. The two main competitive Smash games (Project M and Melee) are both more technically involved and faster than this game. While I really do think auto L-cancelling is great, I think practice will make Fox seem more manageable and less fast. I used to never play Fox or Falcon because I thought they were too fast, but I made a resolution to learn Fox and picked up Falcon soon after. They really aren't that fast once you get muscle memory down: the only really difficult Fox tech in this game is multishines, and the rest is fairly easy to learn.

tl;dr There is no tl;dr for this: just read it!

Hell Fox gets a new weakness and strength in lag

He's more likely to SD if you mess up, but holy hell does he become a lot harder to edge guard.

you lost me at "There is "opportnuinry cost", which is smething economists talk about."

It's just a really convoluted way of saying that the more lag an attack has, the less useful, and the less lag, the more useful.