What kind of logic is this? How are they more competent than SF2? Graphics and roster are irrelevant - but if we're to talk that, NG's roster was very small and many SF3 favourites like Urien and Q didn't come around until revisions - , NG and 2I - more specifically NG - lack many systems and mechanics that made 3S great. You couldn't tech throws until 2I nor were there EX moves, no universal overheads until 3s, balance was a mess with stuff like 2I Ibuki making Chun seem tame. Being faster or having combos isn't naturally better, otherwise every game out there would be inferior to stuff like Blazblue with massive combos, a billion subsystems and whatnot.
They were shit games compared to ST and A3. I never said vanilla 2 and Alpha 1 were that good, though they weren't bad they were extremely flawed, SF2 was buggy to fucking hell and made Dong Dong Never Die look like ST balance wise
Okay, so from a playability POV 3S is overall the best of the lot. But there are some things 2I did better even there. Air parrying was much more balanced in 2I; you couldn't do it indefinitely like in 3S, so that favored ground parry. That favored a good gorund game over jumping, which indirectly favored footies and zoning as a result, since those are big parts of a good ground game.
It's not like IV doesn't have balance issues; vanilla might as hell had the subtitle "Sagat's Rise" b/c he was something unto himself in that game. And with a cast as big as Ultra's, there's balance issues. Every fighting game is gonna have "balance issues" to an extent, that's why tiers exist. If all the fighters were perfectly balanced there would be no tiers, and then that'd homogenize the cast.
You even mentioned a way they were more competent than 2, or at least one measure you can't use to say 2 is more competent than them; EX attacks. The 2 games didn't have them either, so how can you say 2 is better on that point over NG, which at least has multiple Super Arts?
I'm only talking technical competence here, not "artistic", like character designs, character roster choice, music or whatever. Even NG has a better combo system, faster default play speed, and deeper level of game mechanics than all of the 2 games. I don't see why it's so hard to admit that.
I assume there will be DLC characters out of the gate. Maybe 4 on day 1? or maybe 1 on day one and three more each month afterwards?
That wouldn't sit well with me. Wouldn't sit well with a lot of people, unless you can unlock them with Fight Money on Day 1.
And even then, grinding in SP better be worth it. The story better be tops, and closer to the III timeline than II (like IV was).
