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Falco Lombardi

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“I'll take the sky any day.”
—97 Falco

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 had been 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 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 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. 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 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 leader Fox and was involved in numerous missions.

Falco played a major role during the Lylat Wars. He was horrified by the damage done to Corneria City. He also said with shock that Andross was insane when he saw the bio-weapon Vulcain. After the fight with Spyborg, he was annoyed that they had to rescue Slippy. At Titania he again received help from Fox and provided backup. After they rescued Slippy, he remarked that they always have "to save his hide". At Zoness he was angered that they polluted the planet. He was surprised that Katt had come to help, saying "Katt, what are you doing here?". After they destroyed the Sarumarine he noticed that Katt was missing. At Fichina and Bolse he fought with Leon of Star Wolf again and defeated him. At the Battle of Venom he again defeated Leon, and was ordered by Fox to stay while he fought Andross. When Fox came back he admitted that Fox did good. He was then seen going to the reward ceremony, and looked as if he wasn't paying attention to General Pepper. He was then seen, along with the rest of the team, to be seen running back to the Great Fox.

After the Lylat Wars[]

4 years after the wars the Star Fox Team had been involved in many different missions rounding up the remaining Venomian Army. Falco had been getting bored with them as they weren't as exciting as they're previous missions. Falco started to get more uncooperative than ever and it got even worse as he began to get into fights with Fox for entertainment. It is unknown if they did any other missions in this 4 year time period.

It should be noted, however, that four years after the events of the Lylat Wars, the Star Fox Team received a Distress Signal from Titania by Katt, which Falco acted upon without the team's permission. He then saved her and the other Hot Rodders from another Goras and he learned from her that Captain Shears is apparently researching Andross's projects, and she doesn't trust their motives. Katt asked Falco if he found anyone special in his life which he denied. Falco asked Katt the same thing and ambiguously replied that there was someone else she was interested in. The next day, Katt introduced Falco to the Hot Rodders gang on board their mother ship, River-Pig. The Rat was overcome with enthusiasm to have Falco on their team while Cool claimed he was just glad Falco didn't leave Katt to die in the desert. The team's ship was then attacked by Star Fox (Captain Shears previously told them that the ship belonged to the remnants of Andross's army), prompting Falco to get into a dogfight with Fox, which ended up in a draw, and Falco's ship being critically damaged, thus forcing him to crash-land in the desert to try and fix it, while commenting that, Fox seemed quite impressive in the dogfight (or Falco felt he had either gotten worse).

Later, Falco reappeared to save the Hot Rodders yet again from Goras by flying into its jaws and manipulating it's spitfire steam with his own shields and flying through its body at a high speed, this time, destroying it for good, as his first fight against it ended with it retreating. Falco noticed that Cool saved Katt from being crushed by the falling remains of Goras, guessing that there may be a romance forming between them. Then in the aftermath of the Titianian base battle, Falco flew off with his Arwing, mentioning how he's going to "go it alone for a while", also telling Fox (who had just defeated a newly resurrected Andross clone) to tell Katt and Cool to retire from the Hot Rodders.

Nobody knew what happened to him until he returned out of the blue to save Fox from the recently resurrected Andross who was about to eat him. He had probably heard of the mission team Star Fox was doing and wanted to get in on the excitement as there had not been any in 8 years. He came and helped Fox with the fight, giving him Smart Bombs to launch in Andross's mouth. After the battle, Falco seemed eager to rejoin the team as he docked in the Great Fox, who granted the request easily after a few tense moments from Fox. That is where he first met Krystal, nudging Fox to get closer and friendly with her.

Falco remained as the team's Ace Pilot when Star Fox were employed by General Pepper to end the Oikonny Rebellion against Andrew Oikonny in support of the Cornerian Forces. Falco continued to play an important part when the Aparoid race invaded the system during their invasion of the Lylat System. Falco stayed in his Arwing during all ten campaigns, occasionally getting tailed, but now regarding Fox's assistance with respect and gently shaming himself for letting it happen. He claimed during the Fichina mission that he let Fox go on ahead at the beginning because he hated the cold. However, after Fox was pinned down at the climate control center upon reactivating it by malfunctioning security robots, Falco was forced to board an Arwing to save Fox while the latter attempted to hold the robots off, eventually making it just as Fox was being overwhelmed. In addition to his rivalry with Leon Powalski, he also developed a slight rivalry with Star Wolf newcomer Panther Caroso. It's also implied that Falco acted as the Star Fox team's second in command during this time, as he guided Krystal during space battles and frequently scolded Slippy for constantly getting tailed, and during the Corneria campaign, Fox told him that should he fall, Falco should take over in regards to demolishing the radar jammers. Falco was still somewhat ignorant around authority as he looked uninterested when Beltino Toad made his speech before the Star Fox team and Cornerian fleet departed for the Aparoid homeworld. But like everyone else, Falco was reluctant about allowing Peppy's brave sacrifice, calling him a: "crazy old fool" for doing it. Falco later tried to ignore the Aparoid Queen's imitations of people they knew, while he tried to convince Fox it wasn't true, reminding him that his father was dead, until he was quickly cut off. Falco then helped Fox fight the Aparoid Queen by flying in close to attack the body spheres, then he guessed that the Aparoid Race was ended with her death, before evacuating the doomed planet at Fox's command. He reflected with apparent silent sadness at the thought of all who had fallen in the war after Krystal reminded them of Peppy and Wolf's team and so many noble sacrifices, until they saw the escape pod beacon, with Peppy and ROB on board. Falco then asked Fox with surprise if he knew about their escape all along before hearing Fox's thanks to the team for their help.

Around two years after the Aparoid war ended and Star fox had disbanded, Falco wandered the Lylat System in his customized Arwing called the Sky Claw, drifting from job to job while searching for the same thrills he had in the past.

Seniority[]

In one of the game's endings, Falco was tracked down and joined Fox's son Marcus as the senior member of a new Star Fox Team, apparently serving an advisory role similar to Peppy Hare in the original team. He had at that point apparently become a "legendary pilot".

Falco goes solo, again[]

In another ending, Falco was consumed by anger and self pity that he left Star Fox permanently after Star Fox defeated the Anglar forces without him. Listening to Katt Monroe, they form a new team with Dash Bowman named Star Falco.

G-Zero[]

In a third ending, he attempts to console Fox McCloud who is distraught over Krystal leaving him for Panther by converting his and Fox's ships into racing machines and retire as pilots for the Ultra-High Speed Galaxy race: G-Zero Grand Prix ). They become successful racers and forget their life as part of Star Fox.

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 a boss.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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 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 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.

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[]

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