Ok fuck it. I might type up a long form review of Cody.
My concise opinion/thoughts are as follows:
He's aesthetically well designed. Quite well actually, though not perfect, and he falls shy of what I'd call excellent. All in all though, great job to Capcom. Lots of nice little animation and detail touches. They captured his street-brawler persona and style well all around. Except st.lk.. st.lk looks stupid.
Gameplay-wise he's also very well designed. His kit makes sense and seems to work together well. He has some solid options at various ranges and he moves well. I think his kit will support some creativity in how you can play him. His VTs both being 2bar, install style triggers I like quite a lot, as they add some really fun layers to Cody, and both being 2bar means you get into them earlier and more reliably, and thus get to use them to greater effect. He's an easy character to step in to, mostly very easy to play, but with a skill ceiling higher than it might seem at first. Zonk takes skill and work to learn to use properly (assuming it's worth using. Jury still out) and Cody gets a LOT out of 1hit confirms, really emphasizing your ability to confirm correctly at range. Cody heavily rewards screen-generalship (to steal and adapt a boxing term) and precise spacing as well. Lots to do when new, lots to grow in to.
Tier-wise, it's super hard to know. I really really don't see how he's outright bad, but is he tournament viable? No clue. I hope so, but I worry that he might fall into the "he's good, but such and such just does it better" trap. Tournament viability only matters to me because I want to see characters I like in tournament kicking ass. On the whole though, I'm reasonably confident in saying he is, at worst, a solid character that will take you as far in ranked and online play as you want to go and have the skill to achieve.
