- “I'll take the sky any day.”
- —
Falco Lombardi is a member of an avian race and the ace pilot of the Star Fox team. Although exact details on Falco's past are unknown, he himself was once the leader of a gang of space runaways. He is a longtime friend and friendly rival to Fox McCloud, and was specially hired by him to be an expert member of his mercenaries-for-hire team, and flown in almost every mission they have made, usually retaining his brash, cool, and collected attitude. Being the ace pilot and seen air combat as his second nature, Falco's Arwing skills rivals if not surpasses even that of Fox's, and he specializes in flying rings around his foes. Despite this, however, his rebellious, brash and stubborn personality, taken from his time being the former leader of a gang of space hot rodders, causes Falco to instinctively take more daring chances than most other pilots of the team and consequently pays dearly for his brashness, getting at times caught in deadly situations in which even he cannot escape, and must rely on Fox for assistance, often to his chagrin, as seen in Star Fox and Star Fox 64. While Falco is not keen on discipline and authority, his loyalty to the Star Fox creed of justice and freedom has himself never let his team down, always using his natural hunting instincts to keep looking for shortcuts and alternate routes to get to the action much quicker.
Falco debuted in Star Fox and appears in all Star Fox series games to date (although he was mostly absent in Star Fox Adventures), as well as the comics and the Star Fox Zero promotional anime, as a supporting protagonist. He also appears as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. games starting with Melee.
His Star Wolf team counterpart is Leon Powalski.
Biography
Much of Falco's early life is unknown as he apparently avoided talk of what he did before joining the Star Fox team, but he was likely born on Corneria, though a comment he made on Zoness implies he had visited that planet before or spent part of his life here. He may have enlisted in the Cornerian Flight Academy, but dropped out and became a rogue pilot. Not much is known after that, but it could be that his life before was filled with recklessness and adventure. He then formed the space hot rodders with himself as leader. He led them for a couple years, until he was asked by his friend Fox to join team Star Fox, where he agreed, although joining the Star Fox team may have been the result of a falling out between him and his partner, Katt Monroe, in regards to irritation about always having to save her that also resulted in him quitting the gang. He had made friends with the other members Peppy and Slippy and was involved in numerous missions.
Behind the scenes
Unused voice acting have revealed it was originally intended that Falco arrived earlier in Star Fox Adventures and to aid Fox in defeating General Scales, when it was planned that Scales could actually be fought as the Final Boss rather than Andross.
Trivia
- Falco is one of very few characters in the series who never wears gloves.
- Falco is currently the only member of the Star Fox team without any known relatives, hence why he keeps his past life secret and is hinted to find the team itself as his family.
- His first name "Falco" is the genus name for birds of prey that includes falcons, kestrels and caracaras. Falco himself looks like a red-throated caracara.
- "Falco" is also the Italian word for falcon.
- Falco himself also often calls his targets "prey".
- While Fox McCloud's personality is similar to Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars series, Falco's is more like Han Solo, whose ship is coincidentally called the Millennium Falcon.
- Falco Lombardi, due to his lone-wolf personality, cool appearance, and skills superior to Fox's story-wise, as well his role as a playable fighter in the Super Smash Bros. series, is a popular character among the Star Fox community, and some fans have wanted Falco himself to be a main protagonist where he can face Andross himself.
- In Star Fox 2, it is possible to choose Falco and eventually defeat the main antagonist as the player character.
- Lombardi is an Italian surname, with origins in the Lombardy region of Italy.
- Falco's Japanese surname, Rambaldi, was changed to Lombardi in the west. He was the only one of the original four teammates that lead programmer Dylan Cuthbert did not actually name. One of the creators named him after Carlo Rambaldi, the Academy Award-winning special effects animator for E.T. and the 1976 King Kong movie. Considering Shigeru Miyamoto’s love of puppets, and that he used King Kong as the inspiration of Donkey Kong, this isn't surprising (though Dylan Cuthbert thought Imamura named him).
- He shares his first name with Falco from Fist of the North Star, a sympathetic character but one who challenges the protagonist. Interestingly, his lover is named Myū, which is Miyu's Japanese name (a character who may have turned into Katt). Both Miyamoto and Imamura were aspiring manga artists themselves.
- It is believed that he may never have a romantic partner, since he has never shown signs of falling in love.
- Interestingly, in Super Smash Bros. Melee, like Fox, both of Falco's Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures' voice actors play a role for the character, for the Adventure mode cutscene and playable fighter, respectively.
Names in Other Languages
| Language | Name |
|---|---|
| Japanese | ファルコ・ランバルディ (Faruko Ranbarudi) |
| Chinese | 法爾科・蘭巴帝 (Fǎěrkē Lánbādì) |
| Korean | 팔코 람바디 (Palko Rambadi) |
| Russian | Фалько Ломбарди (Falko Lombardi) |
| Serbian | Фалко Ломбарди (Falko Lombardi) |
References
1993 Instruction Booklet
NINTENDO POWER: Official Nintendo Player's Guide. Redmond, WA, Nintendo of America. 1997.- .com
1997 Instruction Booklet; PAL
2002 Instruction Booklet
;Nintendo Power's Official Player's Guide; Nintendo of America Inc, 4820 150th Ave NE, Redmond, Washington 98052; (C) 2004-2005 Nintendo- 2004-05 Instruction Booklet
2006 Instruction Booklet
2016 Instruction Booklet
2017 Manual- http://starfox64.baldninja.com/sf64cast.htm
- http://starfox643d.nintendo.com/#/characters/falco-lombardi
- Nintendo Power No. 99. August 1997. p. 104.
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