I didn't get to play the Beta, and the main reason I'm getting this one is because of a best friend. I hope to be pleasantly surprised in the end, but history says otherwise...
This is true.
There are a few characters in this game that I feel have really broken free of that NRS tradition, namely Swamp Thing and Dr. Fate. Both character's animations for almost everything is just fantastic and their personality really shines through.
Fate's victory pose bothers me, annoyingly enough. That final pose he takes, I expect something like this:
But what I get feels more like:
..and I just wonder "WHYYYYYYY...", lol. Swamp Thing is pretty good, he is one of the more consistent characters in this game, animation / design wise. I hope I like playing him!
You wouldn't say there's an over the top campiness in SF as well? I don't completely know how to respond to some of this because it's a matter of taste, and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you're wrong because... Well, you're not. I would argue that the voice acting NOW (not prior to MKX) has improved greatly. Of course, nothing is perfect and some things are hit and miss but it's like that in nearly every FG. There will always be characters that resonate with the player more than others, and how that is received is up to the player. I wouldn't even say Injustice is super serious, there's actually a lot of humor in the game through dialogue alone (mostly thanks to Green Arrow).
SF, and most other series, at least are very self aware. Not perfect, but not nearly as tone deaf, either.
SF fails more NOW for me, than it used to. Like I think Laura is horribly 1-dimensional and blah. Much of their DLC and extra costume design fails pretty badly. But even still, I think they're really good at showing their intent. I might not LIKE it, but I feel their vision is clear. Their key product is purposely saying what it wants to.
However, my commentary on Voice work is more for Gotham than the NR games, I like a lot of the actors and such in NR games. (I think the "Player ___ wins" announcer in IJ2 sounds incredibly boring though.) It's their animation work (and stilted gameplay) that brings that down for me still. It's like hearing an awesome voice come out of a poorly drawn character in a cartoon; a legendary actor won't make a bad cartoon worth watching, y'know?
And as you stated in your post, the "older NR/Midway games fail at this":
Again, I don't see anyone arguing with this. You're right. The problem however is it's always about the old games and how they failed. People have a preconceived notion about NRS games simply because of past flaws and for whatever reason can't seem to look past them and acknowledge the improvements and strides they've made over the years. Even to now when they have arguably made one of the greatest looking fighting games so far (I2), it's always about the past and not the present.
No, no, I said Neatherrelm games in general, including the old Midway games, fail at this! ;-) They still do some of these things poorly, unfortunately.
I acknowledged their successes with buying the MKs and IJ1 when they came out... the complaints still come from the fact they never seem to change certain things, and the new complaints comes from a lot of the stuff you'd think they'd change, still staying the same. I loved the optional special move shift to SF motions in IJ1, for example, but the button cancel windows and such still felt REALLY off to me. Even while fiddling with negative edge, or using different controllers. And then you go to MKX, and while some characters felt right, all had certain strings that just never felt right at all, and it's a constant "WHYYYYY?!?" feeling that is refreshed every time one plays a character.
Every largely hyped new title somehow contains many of the same issues, and it's... really odd they don't iron them out. It's less a pre-conceived notion, and more a bias that keeps repeatedly being affirmed. They work on issues surrounding the core, but never address the actual core.
Nice lighting, textures, facial mo-cap / animations, and densely-created Backgrounds are nice... but if the gameplay feel and response leaves one with an "ugh" each time a match ends, none of that matters as much as it would alongside excellent gameplay. An excellently realized character with 4 vocal lines is more meaningful and memorable than a mediocre character with 30 vocal lines, a nicely animated face, and a good light engine.
I do agree with you on the matter of iconic moves as obviously moves like the hadouken will always be instantly recognizable. But losing interest in a character because you don't like a jab animation, blockstring or win pose is about as microscopically nitpicking as you can get. You'll find those flaws in every game if you look for them, and again is a matter of taste.
But... not really? Like I said, I don't think there's another Fighter dev who manages year-over-year to make something so lukewarm, in a way. There's stuff in Skullgirls I didn't like, but they do what they do so well, that what they excel at can win one over. If not as a full game, at least on a "well, at least Peacock is cool!" type of way. Not to mention how refined Mike-Z has made the control responsiveness and input methodology.
Killer Instinct has a lot of animations that are... odd. Especially with the new ultimates. But at the same time, they nail characters like Hisako better than almost anyone has in GAMING, not just in fighters. And their stages tell stories better than any recent fighter.
Most fighters live and die by solid direction. There's something they do so strongly, that even a detractor can't deny that particular quality. It's normally a gameplay or character design aspect.
With NR games, it's... their SP stuff, for me. Their cinematic stories are like buying a DC animated movie. That's cool. But everything past that is like it's stuck at only 60~80% of it's potential.
Not a single character out of a decent sized roster makes me fully forget "this is a NR game!" for a moment, to let me feel "This is just awesome!!".
Every encounter is full of some weird caveat that brings down that moment, and that's uniquely maddening. Especially since they should be one of the most well-equipped to weed some of the obvious issues out by now, frickin'
decades later. I don't like DC stuff as much as Marvel, in general, but their animated works have often eclipsed such distinctions, because THEY'RE JUST PLAIN AWESOME. Young Justice or Batman TAS isn't cool "for a western cartoon" or "still worse than a movie"... they were solid works that could stand alongside my favorite...
anything.
I really wish their premiere video game franchise that makes use of those same characters and actors could mean as much to me.
Edit: My biggest issue with the way NRS games are perceived has nothing to do with people not liking the game, not liking the characters, art direction, etc. It's that it seems like people feel the need to tell fans why their game is inferior every step of the way. It's weird and obsessive lol.
As a big KOF fan, I know the feel. "Why'd you come in my house just to tell me how ugly my baby is?!?", lol. For NR, they've just laid this bed with YEARS of stuff. Just like SNK pushed 1996 Neo Geo sprites all the way to KoF XI in 2005. Some things are so against-the-grain they just demand attention until they're changed.
See, I think he is mad that the characters are not animated as what he feels they are versus what they actually are. Kotal is not a regal emperor. He's someone who's unsure of himself. Scorpion is filled with rage, which explains the hand movements and planted feet. I know when I get upset, I tend to stand very still, but can't really control my upper body movement. Mileena isn't a primal character, despite her biting attacks.
"He who chases two rabbits, catches neither."
The idea is that they're not communicating a solid theme with their motions; they're trying to do everything at one time, and thus achieving nothing. What you bring up are modifiers to the base design, not base elements of the design themselves.