I played the demo...It feels clunky. It could be the fact I've been playing MvC3 and the last time I played MK was MK3Ultimate before I knew what combos even were...but the controls and movement just feel weird. A block button in a 2D fighter just feels wrong and I know it's a staple of MK...but why? Cross ups are completely pointless. I'm not sure this game will have much competitive value. I see a lot of normals being useless outside of combos as well. Seems it will likely be a giant slow poke match into big juggles.
It feels like they haven't really grasped modern approaches to fighters, commands and strings seem randomly assigned versus convenience. Really every special should just be a QFC or QBC, it's pointless to vary it with double taps and other motions considering how small the movelist is and having no alternate strengths of attacks to occupy other buttons. Not to say it's hard by ANY means...it's just not logical. The game coud've easily been mapped to 4 buttons for fighting and 2 for stance shift and tag. Throw could be a simple simultaneous press and block is just weird to have button mapped.They probably could've condensed the movelist even more by making only a punch and a kick button and making a lot of command variations...cuz really the movelist is small enough to warrant that.
Combo system feels limited as your normals are dictated mostly by strings, you can't really form your own combos because there's no canceling outside of specials. Yomi in this feels very weak. Their is some element of it, but nothing like other fighters. Here it's know your frames, respond with a safe poke and hope it can't be beat by crouching or jumping attack. You can do a throw if you read block...that's about it. No special properties to moves or fancy set ups. Only real element to keep it interesting is a combo breaker system.
Still feels like the game's fun spawns from the aesthetic novelty. I never really felt like I was accomplishing anything significant with any attack or strategy. It was more about blocking and attacking at the right time with a very weak zoning element to tie it together. I'll have to see more, but right now this is no longer a day 1 buy for me until I maybe get some insight on elements I'm not seeing.
