Feels like it's a tie verdict between "how's it play?" and "who's missing?"
Yeah I agree with that... My thing is both Capcom and Namco made huge changes like that with both the SF3 series and Tekken 3. The thing that they still managed to do is keep some sort of consistency with characters though... Sure, Blanka wasn't available, but you still had Necro(for those electricity lovers), and you also had Urien (charged based players). The gameplay was very different, but there were characters who were accepted. Same with Tekken 3. People clung to Jin, Bryan, Tiger, Hwoarang, and even Forest Law.
Speaking of Tekken, I will say this: even though aside from new moves, a bigger nose, and a different name, there were no differences between him and Marshall Law, but people wanted the original back, so I do sympathise with Taki players, because that's who most people started with when they learned SC, even back in Soul Edge.
SCV seems like that game that tried to do something different, but they don't really have much to compensate for that major change. As it stands, tons of Sophitia players are pissed, and some won't even get the game now. I feel like guest characters are a waste of time. Just give the slot to a character that can stay consistent, and give the fans the tools to recreate whatever character they want in CaS mode. I still can't get past 3 mimics though...
I also wonder if there's gonna be some huge debate with banned characters. Last I checked, in SCIV too many people cried about Algol, when in fact he wasn't even the worst (read:most broken) character. A bunch of his full life combos where 1) very hard to do, and 2) they were patched out because the properties of the bubbles changed. People cried about those bubbles, when they weren't even all that great because you could GI them and use them to your advantage in rushdown. The only real thing Algol had was a great backdash. Anyway, Hidle was the real threat, but yet she was still allowed to be played with in tourneys, despite the fact that all she needed was to either sidestep your move and ringout from anywhere, or block your 2A and ringout. I understand banning Vader and Yoda (Yoda was still a joke though before and after the patch though).
Speaking of bubbles and Algol hate, I'm very surprised that people love Viola because she's practically "Algol-lite"; throw the ball down, rush, attack from 2 different angles, throw if they block. Wash, rinse, repeat...
Despite my somewhat newfound negative view on SCV, I do want this game to succeed... I'm not sure as to how it will do though now that all the characters have been revealed, and all the mimic hoorah... I like the gameplay's speed though. It's SC2-esque...
