I wanted to make this thread earlier, but wanted to wait until the last non new SF character released to be sure. Now that Dhalsim is out and Dhalsim is probably the most changed of all of the old cast outside of maybe Birdie, it is obvious that Capcom is looking to make sure we are playing new versions of all of our old characters.
The only real exceptions to this are Ryu, Cammy and Chun Li. They have some nice nuances to them, but for the most part you can come from an older SF game and feel right at home with them. Pretty much every other returning character has a bunch of new stuff including their V Triggers that makes them play pretty abstractly from their old style. Some of them like Gief have reverted to just kinda being the old walking forward wall of buttons and grabs, but then has all of his new stuff like air grab, armor and essentially a vacuum to bring him to you.
People have been very vocal about their trouble with Vega being a motion character (but that has phased out a bit now), Gief no longer having green hand (even though that was only really relevant to him in ST and IV), and now Sim who is pretty much more reminiscent of a KI or anime character than Sim. Filipino Champ, Arturo, Ultra David and other known Sims have tried to crack him out at Capcom Cup and all have struggled to even get him to work. This character has so much new stuff including air yoga flame, different air normals and the ability to float in an area of the screen that most SF characters can’t even participate in.
What are your thoughts on all of the radical changes to the old cast? Do you think this is something they should continue for characters like Guile, Sean, Rolento, Honda, Boxer and others? Or is this too much and makes the characters too complicated and removes too much of their gameplay identity?
