Disclaimer: Everything below could be simply due to the fact that I chose to main Crow. And the fact that it's day 1. Of a fighting game that's still in alpha. And while it might not seem like it, I had a ton of fun playing so far. Crow is a really fun (yet slightly frustrating) character.
I posted this on the RT forums, but cross-posting here for discussion's sake.
Anyway, here are my impressions after like, 3-4 hours of ranked matches and hitting silver.
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What's awesome:
-The designs rock. Especially crow.
-The animations are quite nice.
-Single hit damage is awesome. Stuff hurts.
-There is something good here, though it needs some working
Regarding comboing and general game feel:
-The game wants the pace and short-combos of a streetfighter 2 or 4 (and tries to do so via arbitrary limitations on canceling+juggling, and SEVERE damage scaling)... but then rather than removing the ability to do long combos, it puts them behind the same execution barrier that it purports to be eradicating: FADC-styled kinetic attacks, lack of chaining, handling juggling in a complicated manner... RisingThunder claims to want to put strategy at the forefront, but getting rid of QCFs is only a partial job. Extra 100s of damage are hidden behind convoluted things like height-restricted, juggle-point rationing combos.
It's like, RT wants to look hype, but then doesn't want to simplify the system enough that doing hype stuff isn't a chore.
If RT really wanted things accessible, yet constricted/simple: drop that stuff, give me useful normals, and build the game around simple hits into specials, and knockdowns.
If RT wants things to be freeform: chains for all normals, normal canceling as a standard, no invincibility after hitting a launched opponent, actual juggle state, cancel dash attacks into normals....
As it is, it's an unsure, fence-straddling, slightly dissatisfying mixture.
-Crossups are really good, walk speeds are slow, and normals aren't that good. The end result is that the game feels like it wants to be super-footsies based, but because of how normals are, folks realize that their best bet is to jump: so at anti-air normals/specials are put to good use. Oh, and what's the point of light attacks?: Cant combo off of them, can't link after them, do no damage, have no range... Why would I ever press that button?
-As fun as he is, Crow's buttons suck. His standing M and H are cool anti-airs, but that's all he's got. And thanks to the combo system, as well as the inability to cancel my dash into an attack, I basically have to jump like a madman (go for that crossup) or play footsies with normals I'm not allowed to do anything off of (back/far H hits like a truck, but it can't even be dash-cancelled; You can do close M into far M, but unless you dash cancel all you get is the right distance for a jump-in/crossup; you get nothing off of crouching L, M (basically the same thing), or H except maybe a jump cancel? And you cant even special cancel them on hit from what I remember). I understand that a lot of his game revolves around the projectile setup and invisibility shenanigans, but speaking strictly of his buttons in the neutral game, he comes up short.
-Moving during the superflash: This creates all sorts of weird problems, unless RT is just trying to be different from other fighting games for the sake of being different. Example: I did an unsafe super, dude jumped it, tried to punish me during my recovery using his own super, but I recovered DURING his superflash (because I can still move and my animations still resolve), so was able to jump it and kill him. Shouldn't have happened, but it did.
-For a game that's supposed to be about ease of use, why are even basic combos hidden behind kinetic attack? Crow basically cant do anything without Kinetic Attack (M>Disc Toss>FADC>Close-H>FlippitySlash), or landing a close-Heavy. And the best way to land H? Jump-in. Jumpin' all day.
-Why isn't normals cancelling into specials a standard thing?
-autocorrected one button DP punishes are annoying as heck.
-Feels like there are a lot of moves with invincible startup. Sucks when we aren't talkin' DPs
-Why give me a juggle counter, but not a juggle-state? It wouldn't be as annoying if combos weren't already so restrictive. It's basically a SF4/Alpha-ish juggle system. Once again, if the goal is ease-of use, then why a limitation like this?
-screen tracking/shake is a bit too much. Screws up juggles/jump-loops because its hard to know how far the ground is when the screen tracking/shake are so fierce.
-close/far normals? why? I thought we were trying to simplify things?
-Why are you allowed to burst/kinetic defense when you're dizzy? You should just eat the combo at that point. Totally lame.
-Why can't I see my opponent's kinetic defense/attack bars?