It's not that they try to be different, it's that they are nowadays trying too hard to be accessible to newer players. The problem with fighting games is, for starters, it's impossible to make a fighting game so accessible that everyone and their mother will wanna learn to get good at it. Fighting games, by nature, are impossible to pick up and play with any particular sense of what to do to play well...so the accessibility thing does nothing more than cause extra issues to arise (Perfect example is some of the things present in SFIV). Secondly, the accessibility they apply is usually just things that allow lower level players to mount comebacks even against better players, which ends up making all levels of play really inconsistent (See Dieminion's blog entry about SFIV in Japan...or just watch Marvel).
MK9, ironically enough, is one of the few games made in current gen that can't be won by doing herp derp shit. Others actually include SFxT. TTT2 is possibly another one...only reason I don't list it without a doubt is because it does have a lot of screwy things that make you go wtf. However, herpy play doesn't get you very far if you don't have the skill otherwise to back it up.
Games being enjoyable back then, however, only partially had to do with that. It's also that arcades existed. Back then, arcade games were usually way better than the console versions, and the arcades usually existed everywhere. But now, because consoles are so powerful and online play is so much more viable, there's not much point to going to arcades other than the social atmosphere, which you can obviously see, people don't really think about when it comes to them. Tbh, arcades are much more dead than they are moreso because it's too expensive to keep playing at them. The way arcades were designed worked back then...it doesn't work now. And a lot of arcades don't bother to really change that format at all. GGA is one of the few arcades that actually gets it when it comes to the expenses problem.
