Here is a simple theory for team crafting, just my opinion here
Top characters in this game in no order of preference
Bardock, C16, Cell, A. Gohan, Goku SSJ, Goku Black, Gotenks, Kid Buu, Vegeta SSJ.
Runner up : other strong characters that missing the top spot :
C21, Trunks, C18, Hit, Majin Buu, (Broly ?)
Strong Shell characters : if you use a combination of two of these characters, you can literally play anyone along them. Of course, if you play a top or a runner up character with them, life will be easier.
Cell, Kid Buu, Vegeta, Goku SSJ, Goku Black.
And thatās pretty much sums the game with its current meta.
Imo majin buu could definitely be in the running for being considered high tier. Heās just one of those characters that need more work than your basic high/Top tier
That 's pretty much it. His restand game is really good. He has a damaging loop in the corner and good neutral with one of the strongest air game. His j.H is the best in the game.
He has drawback like a so so assist and on its own he is not strong enough to be placed at a higher tier.
C21 can also be quiestionable in runner up as she is legit top tier for some people.
But the less quetionnable thing for me is the strong shell characters. Almost every team are composed with one and usually two of this 5 characters. This is why the game looks so samy at times.
I havenāt seen the games but, itās anyoneās guess however I will hazard this:
A gohan has a good amount of weaknesses:
Pressure game loses effectiveness against shorties.
Neutral is a bias suspect (no air beam, ground beam seems slowish or not great)
Super is hard to hit midscreen.
Heās a character that really needs to get in, corner you, and make sure you are a tall character for his offense to be at its best.
Bardocks 236L allows his neutral to be good, he doesnāt lose effectiveness against shorties and doesnāt need to corner you for his most damaging options.
At the very least this may be GO1ās counter for short stature teams like sonicfoxes and he may just be putting in work with this team to get it ready for foxes or to deal with players like dogura whoās kid buu gives GO1ās A gohan some trouble.
What Dime says and Iāll add that GO1 likes fast character that forces you to make quick decisions. Bardock has this ability like Gohan. And he has the ability to HKD after vanish with or without meter which is always strong.
His DHC game is way stronger than Gohan which is his main weakness IMO.
He is stronger midscreen than Gohan but less effective in the corner. Not to mention that his assist seems a bit more usefull than Gohan.
Yeah the characters and the mechanics of the game just make everyone play awfully similar to each other. Which is bad when you make a vs/team based game of super heroes do that. The fact that everyone only has one assist and one of them is in a top tier of their own and pretty much required to win events just limits things further in a series that is known for being expansive with options and assist tools. Like any team vs any other team is going to be lots of super dashing and homing so far range only takes place for like 5 seconds and then once someone gets close you see the same shit until they get hit. Even the grappler and big body characters move at mostly the same speed and have the same super dash and vanish options as everyone else.
GO1 most likely is just picking up Bardock to have an offensive character that can deal with short characters better as Sonicfox is trying to go full anti meta to deal with him now. Its effectively the same team minus A.Gohan.
Making common strings look flashier would help reduce same-iness. The only really cool looking characters when they combo are Cell (thankfully) and Hit.
They could easily make characters play very different, they just arenāt going to. The game is designed the way it is on purpose.
I think there is enough uniqueness to make the game enjoyable. When I try out a new character they definitely approach the game differently than other characters, minus a few.
Somewhat of an excuse, but the game is samey because of the game also. Itās like a double whammy instead of what it should have just been which is adhering to the lore.
The game would still be samey even without the source material because its just clearly designed that way. Zamasu might shake things up a bit though. Might. Even then still shit ass assists minus Vegeta and beams in a game where you only get one.
Well, I donāt know what to tell you. They surely could have designed a game with mechanics that fighting game players would have appreciated more, but it likely wouldnāt have been nearly as true to the IP. At a business level I really canāt fault their decisions, given the results.
And the assists are what they are, fuller assist options and no super dash would just push the game further toward being Marvel 4. Which would be great, donāt get me wrong. But it was Capcomās job to make Marvel 4, not ASW.
Fwiw, additional assists would just make it so that characters with some version of the Veg assist are the only ones you see in play. Itās that much better than the others. At least now everyone who isnāt Veg is on somewhat even footing (as far as assists go).
Itās not just the characters being similar though. The system mechanics themselves really reward a certain kind of playstyle, and seem to have been made with the purpose of making it as difficult as possible to actually control the neutral game. That particular part is SFV all over again.
Yeah itās a double whammy of the system and the characters just stifling shit it what should be really easy to be creative with how you approach and do things. If it was just one or the other it wouldnāt be so bad, but both is just mind numbing as hell.
Even in SFV you still get your basic things that differentiate characters like walk speeds, dash speeds/lengths, jump trajectories/speeds and things like that that can make a character feel completely different to control. Like when you pick up Dhalsim and realize you can float in the air and hover over most of the hit boxes and projectiles in the game, you instantly know youāre taking on a new character.
Like when I see Android 16 just running and and charging at people the same way Cell is as SSGSS Goku is and so on with the same exact 2 way air dash and homing mechanics with the same one or 2 assists that are viable in neutral its just eh.
SFV is slowly coming along with more characters that can effect more than just the close range and can do more than just frame trap like Guile, Juri, Menat, Abigail and now Falke who is probably the closest the game is gonna get to a Rose function.
Luckily BB Tag is coming out with pretty much exactly what I would want an anime game to be if I was to play one. Chaos but with real man chip and a lot more variety in team combinations and how many assists you can use. You can even use multiple assists at once on the same character and its the first game that allows you to turn your assist character into the point characters. Thatās the stuff DBFZ should have been doing with a rack of characters that have different types of movements and ways to get around.
