Nico stream was very enlightening. All the characters demoed so far look pretty good. Chang has some iffy stuff like his new crouching C(?). Reaches high and knockdown on hit (?) is nice, but man that startup looks PAINFULLY slow. Maybe he can cancel to specials on whiff to protect it somewhat? Or cancel it to ball cancel on block in case it gets safe jumped?
Regardless, he may be able to carry himself on the strength of his other tools, which all look pretty decent. jC/jCD (the core of his zoning) look decent as usual. His far D appears to be much faster than before, giving him a safer far poke, perhaps? His new far C (? the big ball “lariat” move) could be a good hard-read anti-air; it has a huge whiff profile, but looks like it reaches very high and is significantly faster than his other ground ball normals. So the biggest question for Chang’s ultimate strength will probably be “how well do his other tools complement jC/jCD?” He also wins on funniest Climax Art so far. Batter up!
Looks like most of Leona’s instant overhead normals require fuzzy guard setups now (assuming fuzzy guard is still in KOF 14). Maybe it was that way in 13, too, and I just wasn’t paying attention. But it looks like she has plenty of neutral tools to create knockdowns where she can set up meaty instant overheads to compensate. The core of her neutral game (crouch B, Moon Slasher, crouch D, jump normals) appears to be just as strong as ever. I don’t think they confirmed on stream if she still salutes Chang?
Kyo looks like no end of fun in this game. He can still combo into A rekka series from light attacks, regained his close C > df+D (1 hit) > special combo route from 13 “fireball/uppercut” Kyo, and in MAX mode EX hcb+K is a command grab. His new low route in the A rekka series is probably ultimately going to be a gimmick, but there’s enough of Kyo’s historically great '98 self in there to be a strong character right out the gate.
Aside from losing her air Venom Strike, King looks basically no weaker. She still has raw slide > Venom Strike to poke with, all her normals look as good as in 13, the midscreen reset from B Tornado Kick might be more consistent, and she gets bonkers corner damage in MAX mode. She looks like she’s gonna repeat her performance from 2k2UM.
Iori is Iori, effectively the same as ever. Kinda floaty jump but makes up for it with insanely fast (for a “Shoto”) ground movement, forward and back. Most notable new thing he has is that “fireworks” DM that puts out a multi-hit short-range fireball, but given that guard cancel rolls are still invulnerable start-to-finish to all forms of attack, its usefulness as an okizeme tool will depend mostly on the opponent being deprived of bar.
Robert looks fun, hopefully he’ll do better in this game than he did in 13. Nice to see the return of his f+A from older games; if it’s still plus on block and an overhead that jumps over lows, he might really have something going here.
Kula looks about the same, except it looks like they buffed the hell out of the travel speed on her reflected projectile from qcb+A. I don’t remember it travelling nearly that fast in older games; looks like it travels as fast as Yamazaki’s reflected fireballs now! The rest of her looks pretty standard, although I’m not sure if Ray Spin > f+K has short enough recovery to do stupid loops like in KOF XI. Wonder what the reset potential is like from her EX ice breath “Focus” crumple?
