Well isn't this forum fortunate that I've gots the insomnia. I also want it noted before ANY of this starts that I didn't notice the walk-speed as being slow; I noticed that the stages were fucking huge.
You have weird anger priorities.
Really? Dash cancels are important in this game? I can't tell. I haven't played the game... Just the demo which doesn't exist to teach people about how to play the game, it exists so people who haven't preordered it yet can play as Batman until they agree to cough up the cash.
Think of the absence of dash cancels and supposedly shitty-walk speed in these terms:
Personally, I 100% refuse to judge what the average walk-speed of this game is/negative implications of no dash-cancels based on four characters, two of which are giants and probably should be slow, two of which have air-dashes, one of which has a means of latching on to the opponent and slingshotting his ass boot-first across the stage and into your face and two guys whose gimmicks are "walk through attacks like they're literally fucking nothing."
Seriously people. The word of the day is awareness.
You don't have less flexibility. You're going to end up having so many goddamn options by the time you get this game on the 16th and spend months learning how to play it properly you're not even going to miss it. Further adding to the flexibility you haven't lost is that the average character in this game is going to have 2.5x the amount of tools in their arsenal as an MK9 character.
Hell, look at it this way: Your imagination is as relevant to what the game will look like in six months as this demo is. Use it to think of some of the options characters will have available to them. Grundy for example. He's a dick-slow grappler in a game with unsafe dashing and tons of zoners... Does he really need a safe dash when he can stomp on the ground and stop you in place for a surprisingly long time from anywhere on the screen, then use his really far-traveling (though unsafe LOL) dash to get in on you? What happens then? Probably rape. Zoners don't usually have a functional reversal that costs less than 100% meter, if that. Then take Black Adam... his trait is basically "nullify three projectiles," not to mention a dive kick made by NRS.
Not forgetting that there will probably be are a ton of armored options.
I think NRS did a disservice to a lot of people with all that battle arena nonsense where they just throw shit out and the other guy doesn't block it. Created the impression that this game was going to play more like a mashy anime fighter... When all signs point to a more defensively oriented metagame like unsafe forward mobility, invincibility frames on backdashes (according to Arturo, IIRC), half the roster being zoners, most tools in the game being mid-ranged, and the developers clearly stating "This is not MK9 reskinned with DC characters." And it seems as though a bunch of people just didn't believe them for some reason.
But yeah. Let's all continue down the path of ignorant indignation.
Because, like I said above, they want this to be a different game. Dash cancels are only for aggressively minded fighter titles. Given that nearly 100% of the fighting games on the market right now are about dashing in and slamming your shit down on some buttons, maybe they thought it would be better to offer something different because there's a whole caste of FG players that have been basically given the finger by the industry for the last... almost forever, at this point.
At this point, I sure hope not. Is anyone even considering the implications of dash cancels? No, screw that: is anyone actually comprehending that dash cancels even have implications? It'll create some seriously busted combos, and change the entire game to the opposite of developer intent. The game was designed around non-cancelable dashes, probably for a reason other than "them dudes at NRS is stupid."
Probably had something to do with the fact all these characters have a ton of mobility options in their tool boxes already and given the fact that every character I've seen anything from gives me the impression "holy fuck, that looks like one seriously good character," maybe it's all based on that, at some point NRS also realized they themselves might have some kind of clue as to what was going on in this game that they fucking made and thought "Hm... You know, all of these characters are really fucking good... Maybe we should associate mobility with... Oh, who knows? Risk. Lest we create a game where everyone can do whatever the fuck they want at any point with no consequences."
See what I'm doing here? I'm extrapolating a theory and strategy concept based on what we have rather than pitching a fit because it's different from that other game this company made that I played a lot of. Because that's a skill you develop when you've spent thirteen years playing fighters. Thirteen years, of which only the last three or four have taken place during the "PATCH THIS GAME TO MAKE ME BETTER AT IT" era. Otherwise known as the death throes of an entire genre.
I'm going to get in touch with someone who can write code and develop a fighting game that just plays itself. I'll make millions.
