Played it on the 360 at my friend's place. It seemed a very solid and straightfoward game. I found some of the links to be kind of broken though, such as Ryu's cMP > cMP > cHK and Ken's sWP > sWP > cMK. It kinda felt like Garou with all the Focus attack canceling except with a much wider array of possibilities.
I felt too that supers will matter a lot less in this game. The Super meter is very large, doesn't fill with whiffed normals like it did in Third Strike and you only have one. More important than that, Focus cancels use two notches of Super meter and they play a big role in the games' most damaging combos. On the other hand, the Ultra meter fills automatically (when you're hit at least) so you should have it up sooner or later. Personally, I'd much rather throws EX Hadoukens and Shoryukens and Focus cancels here and there to deplete every little bit of my opponent's life meter I can all while waiting for my Metsu Hadouken to fill and finish them off than waiting forever to have a Shinku Hadouken ready which might not kill since I probably did less damage.
I mained Zangief and boy his SPD is nuts. NERVER EVER use a Tatsumaki Senpu/Zanku Kyaku on him unless it is garanteed to hit or you'll be promptly FABed to oblivion. Banishing Flat is disgustingly quick but it has not anti air priority so, if predicted, you are an easy jump in target. Flying Powerbomb has like 2 seconds of delay, for the love of God only use it from up close (when it becomes Atomic Suplex and does more damage). Overall Zangief is very good but not overwhelming. Please Capcom don't nerf him much in the next version. Pleeeease :(
Edit: serious Capcom don't do it, this is probably the first time you have made Zangief top tier, don't take away his candy. If you have to nerf someone, nerf Sagat. But only to A tier. A bad Sagat would be retarded.
Edit 2: forgot to share my impressions of Akuma. He's very solid too, air fireball is always good. His EX moves are totally redundant and unimpressive imo, except of course for the EX air fireball, which makes for an excellent pressure game. His Super is actually better than his Ultra for it has only 1 frame of startup, but I suppose he will have a hard time filling it if he keeps throwing EX air fireballs. Anyhoo, it is possible to combo his Ultra by a Focus Cancel dash in but it is really hard. Nevertheless, japs are known for doing sick things in versus so I do not doubt we'll see an Ultra Shun Goku Satsu combo comeback once every blue moon.
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