-blazblue uses 4 attacks layout (a,b,c,d)
-persona4arena uses 4 attacks layout (a,b,c,d)
-chaos code uses kof layout (4 buttons- 2 punches, 2 kicks)
-guilty gear uses 5 attack layout ( p,k,s,hs,d). 1/3 of the cast uses step style dash. Potemkin don’t have dash, airdash or double jump. Justice don’t have dash and airdash.
-melty blood uses last blade layout (4 buttons- 3 for attacks, 1 for parry). Kouma, satsuki and pciel have no air chains. 1/3 of the cast uses step style dash.
-akatsuki blitzkampf uses last blade layout (3 for attacks, 1 for parry) and step style dash. No air dash, no double jump ,no long strings, no airblock.
-umineko uses 5 attacks layout. No airdashes, no double jump.
-aquaplazza uses mahvel layout (4 buttons- 3 attacks, 1 assist). 5 chars can super jump, 3 have kof-like hop, 2 can double jump, 1 can airdash.
-yatagarasu uses aof/kof layout (4 buttons- 2 punches, 2 kicks), step style dash, 3s-like parry, no airdash, no double jump, no airblock.
-vanguard princess uses mahvel layout (4 buttons- 3 attacks, 1 assist). No air dashes, no double jump, no airblock.
-koihime musou almost uses mahvel layout (4 buttons- 3 attacks, 1 assist/grab). No air dashes, no double jump, no airblock.
What falls in “3 button fighters, air dashes, long combo strings, etc” is actually a exception.
In the recent years, there was indeed a trend in japanese cartoons (specialy shoujo) to use a alienish style. Big eyes, little to no nose (and no nose bridge at all), long and slim members. But almost every martial arts, historical or dark fantasy cartoon use a different style. Think about hokuto no ken, jojo, hajime no ippo, berserk, bokko or even the more recent gundam (unicorn). You will see larger arms, very defined noses, and eyes not so big.
SF ex, alpha, 3, fatal fury/garou, art of fighting, kof, etc pretty much uses this 2nd style. There was even that story about Samurai X artist beeing a big fan of Samurai Shodown, and paying homage in some of his character designs...and then SNK giving shoutouts to him back, in the design of some last blade characters. So we can say fgs art and japanese comics art influenced each other along the time. The same goes for american cartoons and japanese cartoons.
About mechanics...while sf2 is very limited in air movement and chains, Mahvel series got more mobility in ground and air (by dash, airdash, double jump, airblock) more freedom in combos (universal chains, launchers into aircombos) etc. Capcom pretty much created 2 archetype, but the trend became experimenting midterms. Darkstallkers and Cyberboots are the very definition of a midterm betwen the 2 archetypes.
In sf alpha series, they mantained airblock, and gave long chains to guy and gen. In sf3 series, they mantained dashes, gave long chains to ibuki and dudley and double jump to oro. SF4 have a lot of char specific things going in this way too. Viper having a super jump with faster recovery than normal jump, a lot of characters with ways to change trajectory in air for okizeme, and obviously gen/guy/ibuki/dudley having their chains.
SNK old stuff is more mixed. Samurai shodown goes for a even more restrictive air movement and combos than sf2. Fatal fury goes for a mix of 2D and 3D fg elements (vf chains and plane shift), specially in ff3 and rbff series. But kof and last blade have gone for a midterm between sf2 and mahvel too, falling in the trend.
And indie stuff takes influences from all of this. Depending on the developers, more on sf2 grounded style, more on mahvel, more in capcom midterms of those archetypes, or more in snk experiments. But they know they have to propose something new to differentiate themselfs from the others. So we see things like arcana "homing" and touhou "graze".