Play as Fox in Super Smash Brothers Melee

If you want a fast and versatile character, Fox is the character for you. Fox is widely considered the best character in the game, due to his amazing combo ability, quick and powerful attacks, and his good projectile. If you want to learn how to use Fox, this article is for you!

Steps

Learning Fox's Playstyle

  1. Use Fox's positive attributes to your advantage. Fox has the second fastest running speed (behind only Captain Falcon) and is tied with Marth for the fastest walking speed. Use this speed to your advantage to combo opponents and to attack before they can. Fox is also a very combo-oriented character. Learn some of his bread-and-butter combos, such as up throw to up aerial, and use them to defeat your opponent.
  2. Learn all of Fox's special attacks (moves using B) and how to use them. Fox has very useful special attacks, that can help him get on stage easily, rack up damage, or combo into other attacks.
    • Neutral special (B): Fox pulls out his blaster and shoots lasers. It doesn't make the enemy flinch at all (unlike Falco's blaster), and doesn't deal very much damage, but shoots very quickly. Use the blaster if the opponent is far away and and doesn't want to come to you.
    • Side special (sideways and B): Fox shoots forward very quickly while leaving illusions of himself behind. It is best used to get back onto the stage, due to the fact that it is very quick. Since it does little damage and knockback, it is not recommended to use this as an offensive move.
    • Up special (up and B): Fox turns into a ball of fire, and after a few seconds flies in the direction the control stick is held down in. Useful for getting back on stage, but not good as an attack due to it taking a long time to activate.
    • Down special (down and B): Fox activates his reflector, also known as a shine. The reflector can reflect any projectile back at the opponent. While touching/contacting an enemy, it will push them a bit sideways if on stage, and diagonally downwards if offstage. Fox's reflector can be jump cancelled, meaning that if you input a jump Fox will stop using his reflector. This can be tied in with a wavedash (jump and immediately airdodge into the stage) to "waveshine" (down special, wavedash, down special, repeat) an opponent off the stage with little interruptions. Be aware, this requires quick button presses, and may take practice to do consistently.
  3. Learn Fox's strong attacks (lightly pressing in a direction and A), dash attack, and neutral attack, and how to use them. Fox has good tilts that can easily combo into other attacks.
    • Neutral attack (A), also known as a jab: Fox does a quick punch, followed by another punch, and then does a bunch of kicks. If A is pressed only once, Fox will only do the first punch. If A is pressed twice, Fox will do the first punch and the second punch, but no kicks. It is best to only use the punches by itself due to the kicks having extremely little knockback. The first punch is very versatile, and can combo into several things, such as up smash or forward smash. If your opponent is on the ground, and you use the punch part of the neutral attack, it will force the opponent to get up, allowing you to follow up with an attack. This is called a jab reset.
    • Strong side (lightly sideways and A): Fox sticks his foot out. This move can be angled up or down slightly. If used near the edge and angled downwards, it can prevent the opponent from grabbing the ledge.
    • Strong up (lightly up and A): Fox does an upward kick behind him. This move has decent range and power and pops opponents upward. Up tilt can combo into all of Fox's aerial attacks as well as up smash, another up tilt, or a down special.
    • Strong down (lightly down and A): Fox quickly sweeps of his tail. Can combo into aerial attacks well.
    • Dash attack (A while running): Fox sticks his foot out while running. Can combo into some moves, but is vulnerable to being shielded.
  4. Learn all of Fox's smash attacks (A on the ground or c-stick on the ground) and how to use them. Fox has good smash attacks that have high knockback and are quick.
    • Side smash (sideways and A on ground or sideways on c-stick on the ground): Fox does a roundhouse kick. It has decent range and moves Fox forward a bit, but if missed can be punished easily by your opponent.
    • Up smash (up and A on the ground or up on c-stick on the ground): Fox does a fast overhead kick. It is extremely powerful, killing enemies easily under 100%. If you use down special and wavedash out of it, you can follow up with an up smash.
    • Down smash (down and A on the ground or down on c-stick on ground): Fox does a strong split kick. It hits on both sides and it a great way to attack enemies that are coming off the ledge. It has very high knockback and can easily send enemies off the stage far enough so they can't get back.
  5. Learn all of Fox's aerial attacks (moves using A in the air or c-stick in the air) and how to use them. Fox has very good aerials that are powerful and quick.
    • Neutral aerial (A in the air): Fox kick out in front of him quickly. This is a good way to bring up damage with little risk. It has a unique property move because it it stronger when first used and gets weaker during the later frames of the move. It shares this property with Fox's back aerial as well.
    • Forward aerial (forward and A in the air or forward on c-stick in the air): Fox kicks quickly in front of him five times. This move is situational because it is very difficult to land all the kicks, and each kick individually doesn't do much damage.
    • Back aerial (backwards and A in the air or backwards on c-stick in the air): Fox kicks behind him. It is similar to neutral aerial because it is stronger in the first few frames of use and weaker in the later frames. This move is great for preventing people from coming back on the stage since it is fast and has decent knockback.
    • Up aerial (up and A in the air or up on the c-stick in the air): Fox quickly whips his tail above him and then kicks up with his foot. It is a very powerful move and can easily kill upwards if both hits connect, but is very weak if only the first hit connects. Use this after an up throw for a nice combo.
    • Down aerial (down and A in the air or down on c-stick in the air): Fox spins around and drills downwards. This move can combo into several moves if used near the ground, such as an up smash, grab, or down special.
  6. Learn Fox's grab, throws, and pummel. Fox has decent throws, with one being a great set up for combos. To grab, press Z or L/R and A.
    • Pummel (A while an opponent is being grabbed): Fox knees his opponent. Useful for racking up damage, but be careful not to jab too many times, or your opponent may escape from the grab.
    • Forward Throw (forward while opponent is being grabbed): Fox punches the opponent and they fly forward a bit. Useful for getting the opponent off stage. If used against a heavy opponent, they can be grabbed again right after, allowing them to be potentially "chain grabbed."
    • Back Throw (backwards while opponent is being grabbed): Fox throws the opponent behind him and shoots three lasers at them. Doesn't have much combo potential, so it is mainly used for throwing the opponent off stage.
    • Up Throw (up while opponent is being grabbed): Fox throws the opponent up and shoots three lasers at them. This is Fox's best throw to set up a combo, because it can easily be followed by any aerial, and up smash, or an up tilt.
    • Down Throw (down while opponent is being grabbed): Fox slams the opponent on the ground and shoots them with a bunch of lasers. Can combo into a down special, up smash, or up tilt; however, the opponent can roll away after the throw ends and avoid any follow up attacks.
  7. Learn and practice advanced techniques. Examples of these are wavedashing, L-cancelling, shine spiking, and drillshining. While the first two techniques aren't exclusive to Fox, they are still very helpful and important to learn.
    • Wavedashing allows a character to slide along the ground, giving them a pseudo-dash but allowing them to use any ground move, not just a dash attack. To wavedash, jump and immediately after airdodge into the ground diagonally. If done correctly Fox should slide along the ground a bit. Wavedashing is very useful for Fox because it gives him more mobility and he can use it to continue combos.
    • L-cancelling allows a character to act sooner out of an aerial attack when they land on the ground. To L-cancel, press L, R, or Z right before landing if you are in the middle of an aerial attack. This will allow you to act sooner after you land than if you landed without L-cancelling. L-cancelling does not work with special attacks, it only works with aerials.
    • Shine spiking is when Fox hits a character with a down special off of the stage. When Fox's down special hits a character off stage, that character will be sent diagonally down. This technique is effective against characters that don't have effective methods to get back on stage, due to the fact that Fox's down special sends them just far enough so they can't get back. After a successful shine spike, grab on to the ledge, and just as the opponent is going to grab the ledge, roll onto stage. While rolling onto the stage, the game still considers a character as holding onto the ledge; therefore, since only one character can hold the ledge at a time, your opponent will have to land on the stage instead of grab the ledge, which is more difficult.
    • Drillshining is a combo with Fox that involves Fox using his down aerial, L-cancelling it, hitting the opponent with down special, and then wavedashing out of it. This combo can be repeated, meaning that the opponent can be trapped in this combo indefinitely. While this technique is very useful, it requires quick inputs and proper timing, making it very difficult to do.

Practicing and Expanding

  1. Practice advanced techniques and combos in training mode. Training mode is a controlled environment perfect for experimenting with combos and techniques without the CPU player interrupting.
  2. Watch videos of top players playing Fox and study what they do. Some top players who play Fox are Mango, Leffen, and Armada. It may be hard to understand what is happening sometimes, so slow down the video at these parts and watch it several times to understand it better. Try to watch what they do and analyze why they do it in that situation, and then try to incorporate it into your gameplay.



Tips

  • Use X or Y to jump rather than tapping up on the control stick. This will make it easier to do up smashes (if you aren't using the c-stick) and up tilts, because you won't accidentally jump. Using X and Y also makes it easier to jumping lower (lightly pushing the jump button or stick), also known as a short hop, due to it being easier to press the button lightly rather than pushing the control stick up.
  • Know when to use the c-stick and when to use the control stick and A for smash attacks. The c-stick allows you to do a smash attack instantly, while the control stick and A allows you to charge the smash attack.
  • Flat stages like Final Destination/Pokémon Stadium are Fox's friends.

Warnings

  • If you are a beginner using Fox, be careful of running off the edge. Fox has a very high falling speed, which means that it can be hard to get back on the stage.

Things You'll Need

  • Super Smash Bros. Melee
  • A GameCube/Wii
  • A controller
  • A memory card (if you want to save your data)

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