I just picked the game up this afternoon and played through with Haomaru and Nakoruru so far. I like the weight of the hits, and that an air game should be used with caution more so than other fighters given how easy jumps are to block and punish. I really like that there aren't systems layered over systems like in some other fighters; the stripped down 'meat and potatoes' approach to systems is actually pretty refreshing and I find I can devote more time to getting good at a few things as opposed to mediocre at a lot of very specific situational stuff. Is it just me or is the block grab kind of tough to capitalize on? It just seems like there's so much animation from the grab that the opponent recovers almost at he same time as the attacker.
I know most people don't play a fighter for the story, but it would have been nice to have something that didn't feel thrown together in that regard, and the boss is very generic and feels like an afterthought.
All in all, niggling issues aside, this is a great fighter with more depth than is apparent, and a nice return to form. I really wish SNK (love that they're using the old logo again) would have marketed this game properly. Amazon.ca didn't even have it listed when I checked the last two days, EB only got one copy, and I hadn't heard that the release happened until I was flipping through the latest GameSpot news on their app and saw a 'review in progress' article about it.
Again, this game is a return to form, and so I hope people will find out about it so that SNK can really start to gain traction again.