it’s funny, i keep saying how much more street fighter 6 feels like an snk or a sega game than what i associate with capcom

and city of the wolves—though the thematic lineage is clear, maybe real bout more than mark of the wolves, the physical vibe is… off, somehow, and in some ways reminds me more of cps1/2-era capcom than mvs-era snk

the play dynamics have more of those “mean” teeth that i used to avoid so much, in favor of snk’s more slippery texture and freewheeling dynamics

every move has such a narrow input window, such a huge punish window, and 2/3 the range i expect; every mistake is so costly yet so difficult to avoid

although in theory cotw retains much of that snk mobility, in practice it feels way more nailed-down and confrontational than sf6; it’s harder to get the opponent to fuck off and give you space to figure things out

the stress of which exacerbates the narrow margin of error to decisions and inputs

it’s kind of discouraging to engage with, like it shuts down every attempt to hold a conversation and tells you to mind your business (says the famous social butterfly azurelore), compared to the transparency and flexibility and radical effort toward diverse and confident inclusion practiced by sf6

none of this is necessarily bad; it’s just kind of alienating by comparison, toward anyone who falls outside a kind of narrow specific attitude about what sort of conversation they want to entertain

and that’s a conversation i personally am not hard-coded to entertain with ease or enthusiasm

there’s much about cotw that does fascinate me, that feeds the parts of me that push me toward the media that i enjoy

it’s just, i find it a little frustrating that the central design of the thing seems to keep looking at me oddly and asking what i’m doing there, like i strayed into the wrong turf