It's decent fun. But this game represents both a dumbing-down and overcomplication of what could have been KI's best.
IMO, nothing nailed perfect KI fight mechanics better than the original arcade KI-1.
"Making it more accessible" has only made each fight less of everything the best fights can be, and more of a spamfest at even some more advanced levels.
Manuals are little too hard, combos are WAY too easy, breakers are way too easy OR too hard (depending on the scenario), and too many frantic button mashers have far too much opportunity to compete.
The first KI was made to cripple fireball spammers. Projectiles had to be used with great intellgence, prediction and timing.
Now, only certain meter-moves can pass through projectiles, which devolves most people's attack strategies down to only 3 basic choices; spam fire, spam low hit, or throw.
Sometimes mix in over-the-top if your opponent figures out how to block low in time.
But that's it. The best players are indeed great. But most successful players are so far from even decent that it's embarrassing to see them ranked so high.
That's how, before I even learned the moves, I was able to use basic skills (or resort to the same hyperspam that so many deploy) to beat so many of the higher-ranked players.
Every character once had a counter-spam getup that was a guaranteed stop-hit or combo-start against pressure-mashers.
Now one of the most common moves is to pressure hard knockdowns with quick moves that have no need to worry for safety, stophits, or block penalty--
No fighting game should EVER let players forget about defense. ***EVER***
The fact that this is possible in this fighting game is an absolute disgrace to the genre, no two ways about it.
So many KI staples are too nerfed, too many others are too buffed. Too many moves that are best followed-up as charge moves are rolls, too many moves that should be quick-dashes in, now require a backstep.
There is little need to learn fight fundamentals in order to advance decently; only how to keep up the most ungodly barrage with no mind for defense, feinting, or reading the opponent.
Sure, those features are in the game, but they're pretty much useless in the face of the best onslaughts--this game HEAVILY favors offense and cares pretty much only about combo and breakers, at the expense of good fight-making essentials.
All to make things easier on newbies. But it just devolves into barely more than "rock-paper-scissors" as opposed to a bare-knuckle fight.
Sure, sometimes interesting strategies do happen, especially among the world's best, and some epic things can come out of the new counter-breaker system, but by ratcheting up the franchise "combo vs. breaker" gimmick, and attempting to steer fights so exclusively into it, developers have neglected the need for good combat fundamentals and cultivated the vast majority of fighters into being frantic spammers who don't need to work hard or be smart to find an in.
In fact, there are many ways good defense and reads are penalized in this game; instead favoring those who best keep up the guesswork pressure and roll the most dice the fastest.
Players who've made dumb misreads and should be left open w/ jaws hanging to be smashed are instead able to keep up firing away w/ very little worry about being counter-punished, hoping one lands randomly and can get them an in.
The best KI fights were once two ppl who barely dared to move, b/c the opponent would crush for the even slightest twitch.
Getting in was a VERY hard-fought game of chess, feints and sucker-ins before you could even start a combo. Every fight was a brutal, knock-down-drag-out, skin-of-your-teeth beatdown of awesome.
The most amazing clutch saves by the more rare, more-difficult, more epic combo-breakers, were often what made whole arcades explode. Precisely b/c they were hard, but pulled off in the clutch when it counted most.
Now, huge combos and their breakers are a dime a dozen, and the payoff for both of them is far, far less.
This game may be more accessible, but it has firmly cultivated a lower-class, less skillful crop of players, most of whom cannot be described as fighters in the least.
I'm still learning the moves, and I win WAY too much for my skill level- against players who are WAY too much of a joke to be ranked where they are...
This game could be AMAZING. Instead, it's just a decently fun catfight.
A lot of incredible potential neglected.
To the handful of true fighters in there--see ya in Season 3. Happy hittin'.