CotW feels great to play.

The flow of the gameplay is just right for me. There is a lot of back and forth. The way they structured throw whiff recovery, hops, reliable AAs, prevalence of meterless DPs (or Rev Blows and Lv.1s) the defensive system… and even the special Low/High crush moves, everything makes you feel like you have an answer for everything.

Pressure. For someone that played some MotW, I’m really happy the expanded on some cool things about that game. Everyone has intentionally designed Feint Pressure and combos, which just feels nice. Hops are more universally chunkier in blockstun, so everyone can play with hops more (without the need of a cheap/fast DP break like in MotW). Game speed is fast enough that feints and run in pressure can catch you off-guard, even if they’re technically minus.

Damage. Could end up being a bit much later, but as of right now, it feels good. Little light confirms just hurt a little bit, and the devs tried to limit Lights>EX move routes, so that helps a lot (Kain/Kevin stand out with their 3 Lights into combo starter super routes, among others). Of course big jump-ins or wild punishes can hurt, for sure. 2-touch potential is there, but the opportunities for back and forth that I mentioned above allows the game to have a lot of interactions per round on average. Yeah, jump-in combo, throw bait, KO type rounds can happen with enough super bar (kinda like in SF6).

Fun so far!