Fair enough.
Compared to most other games Capcom and SNK have put out? CvS2’s tiers and matchups are pretty goddamn tame by that standard. We might as well be dancing in the streets that it wasn’t a repeat of the CvS1 Nakoruru rape party. The game may be a little on the boring side (and quite frankly that’s why I like it so much)
Mind you, I haven’t seen much of CvS1 except [media=youtube]TR4krLaMf3g"[/media]. While I do kinda like the fact that CvS1 moves faster than CvS2, the game in general looks a lot messier. The hit pause on some stuff like Ken c. MK (or whatever command it was in CvS1) xx Hadoken looks really wonky. (Unrelated note: Holy crap, Ken with red life super is pretty nuts.)
But at any rate, I’m glad to see you actually know something about the game you’re talking shit on. Sorry for getting salty earlier but I love that game more than any other game except KOF '98 (and even then maybe just a little more than '98). Still, I think a lot of people hate on it for the wrong reasons and aren’t quite as objective about its faults as they like to think they are. (You can stop reading here if you like, the rest of this is just general commentary on the game not specifically addressed to you.)
First of all, the top tier – really, I feel the only serious problem with Sagat in CvS2 are his fierces (which are admittedly abusive); otherwise he has to do a lot more work for his damage than he does as, say, O. Sagat in ST or SF4 Sagat (or, hell, even SSF4 Sagat). He has to actually play footsies (at least for a little while) to kill people instead of just Tiger Shotting/Tiger Knee frame-trapping them to death…it’s just that what makes him top tier is that via standing/crouching fierce he has a pretty cheesy way to either set up (by clamming people up with those damn fierces) or land combos (OFF of those same damn fierces) into Tiger Cannon or Tiger Raid.
Cammy is basically '98 Ralf on crack with a nice ass, a DP, and an Alvin and the Chipmunks voice. She, too, thrives mostly by having really disproportionate fierce attacks that combo into level 3 super on her side. Close fierce should not give nearly as much frame advantage as it does given her punch throw range and how many other fast linkable normals she has…but on the other hand, it’s really hard for me to give her shit for being top tier, given that she will probably never be that good ever again. Capcom just seems perpetually confused about what direction they want to take Cammy.
Blanka has some cheesy pokes, but thrives mostly by being probably the least gimmicky of the top tier. (Yes, I just put “least gimmicky” and “Blanka” in the same sentence.) He does well in every groove on the select screen, synergizes extremely well with RC, and his Direct Lightning super is fucking amazing. Barring RC electricity, Blanka actually takes something of a brain and applied footsies to kill somebody. The way I see it, his dominance is probably the most legit of the Big Three in the Deuce.
Bison is pretty damn tame outside of A-Groove; he has good normals but can’t sledgehammer people to death with fierce -> level 3 the way Cammy and Sagat can. If anything A-Groove is probably the only groove where his full potential is unleashed, as his meter-building ability allows him to function well as battery (for Blanka) or anchor. And cheesy though they may look, customs take a lot more brainpower to land as top-tier big-damage options in CvS2 than many other options (whaddup C/K-Sagat)…“random activate” is not nearly as powerful as random in other games. And at any rate, he at least has to take somebody to the corner for his full paint-the-fence damage.
A-Sak has a cheesy, CHEESY custom but that’s about it. Without that custom or RC she’d be a thoroughly mid-tier character. Like Bison, she has good pokes but without the raw sledgehammer power of CBS.
Outside of A-Groove Vega has dick for combos. His pokes are top-tier but (thankfully) his lifebar isn’t, and without custom or meter his combo options are pretty limited. Basically he’s like having a second, slightly (definitely slightly, Vega’s not exactly a delicate little flower) inferior Blanka on your team, able to jump around and harass people with pretty much equal skill while charging meter for his uglier, more damaging friend.
As for SNK characters who I feel legitmately deserved better in CvS2, I can’t really think of any besides Ryo (who wasn’t bottom tier but he was the only non-bottom-tier SNK character who struck me as “underwhelming” rather than just “different” compared to his KOF incarnations), King (although she had her fun in CvS1), and Todo (I can’t believe I forgot Todo when I was rattling off the SNK roster before, I do feel sorry for Todo, he has some fun shenanigans but he still deserves better). Other than that, while certain characters are slower than in KOF I can’t say they’re rendered unfaithfully.
Athena, for example, she’s not the runaway powerhouse she was in games like '98 but her fundamental elements are still there (most pronounced in S-Groove where she has red life super on her side) – Psycho Ball, crouching fierce, command throw, Shining Crystal Bit. She’s basically '98 Athena on Prozac – not exciting, but nowhere near ruined. Same goes for Geese, Yuri, Beni, Terry [really in terms of fundamentals I see barely any difference between KOF Terry and CvS2 Terry…the same pokes are good, the combo setups and pressure are the same, the supers might actually be better in S-Groove] and particularly Iori and Kyo. Both of those two seem to have a lot in common with their '98 incarnations at basically half or 60% of that game’s speed. Less exciting? Yeah, I’ll grant that. Ruined? Hell no, especially not with Iori’s godlike roll and Kyo’s juggles.
Rugal, I think, would do well to translate some of the stuff he learned in CvS2 over to KOF; outside of his broken boss incarnations he was kind of ass in '98 (although they buffed him for '98 UM). Being able to juggle DM off of God Press in KOF would be pretty sweet.
Quite honestly, I like CvS2 Hibiki a LOT more than I do Last Blade Hibki. If it wasn’t for the Deuce we probably never would have seen her again, let alone as the beast she turned out to be.
The only real complaints I have about CvS2 Mai’s design (my favorite of the CvS2 SNK characters) is that she can’t do empty charge walldive like she can in KOF (although the actual travel speed to the of her CvS2 walldive is probably superior relative to its 98 speed, where she took her sweet time) and that (more crucially) you can’t pick which wall she flies to. Don’t really care that Kagero no Mai is complete ass because it’s not like she needs the move to defend herself (that’s what good spacing and standing fierce are for). I really like her CvS2 fierce normals a lot better than her KOF heavy normals; her KOF far C is pretty ass…her far D has decent speed but its short range really hamstrings its usefulness given Mai’s tendency towards zoning. Why try to space for stand D when you could space for stand B/Ryuu Enbu instead?
Is CvS2 perfect? Hell no, no game ever will be. Is CvS2 the worst possible crossover experience? Fuck no, I got copies of CFE and SvC: Chaos on my shelf that loudly proclaim otherwise. Bottom line, you could do a lot worse than the Deuce on either side of the silly Capcom/SNK divide.