Falco dashes forward at a quick speed, leaving behind afterimages. The move is primarily used as a horizontal recovery move, and is a bit faster and reaches farther than Fox's variant of the move. The aerial version is also capable of meteoring aerial opponents, at the cost of doing 1% less damage, making it somewhat risky to edgeguard if the opponent is careless. By holding down while the attack goes to a ledge, Falco can prevent himself grabbing the ledge while the hitbox of Phantasm stays out, potentially spiking opponents trying to recover. The move is also used as an escape option from pressuring, usually by jumping then using side special, as it has very low landing lag, and in general is less laggy than grounded Phantasm, making it difficult to punish from afar. The move props grounded opponents upwards, allowing Falco to score combos off of it sometimes.
Phantasm also has several mixup options offstage. Falco has either the choice of Phantasming onstage, straight to ledge, or under the ledge, in which he can either double jump/wall jump/up special to ledge, or even go under the stage to the other side if timed correctly. Ledge dropping, quickly double jumping then doing Phantasm is also a decent way of getting back onstage, although can be punished when read properly. Even then, the move is easily telegraphed as a recovery, and lacks intangibility, unlike Fox's version, making it very prone to lingering aerials or projectiles.
Falco Phantasm's start-up increased: frame 18 → 19.
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Slash
