Pandora is one of the most useless mechanics in any fighting game....and I've played a shit ton of Blazblue.
Wasn't really talking about Pandora's irrelevance, since it's, well, irrelevant. Bigger problems are:
1. The garish visuals
2. A soundscape that literally makes the game more boring (not kidding on this one, watched some SFxT after I'd dismissed it because people praised it, was bored out of my mind. Yet when I logically looked at the match it should've been somewhat interesting. Put the sound on mute to focus just on the gameplay, and I had more fun even if I didn't focus that much in the end)
3. Walkspeeds that get bested by molasses in winter
4. Spastic camera, esp. the throw closeups are seasickness-inducing and need to die in a fire yesterday, but I think the camera swinging with every hit contributes to the next point:
4. Something about how the combo system / neutral game conversions play out that's bothersome that I can't quite articulate. I guess a lot of it is how most of match time is spent with the players on each other's faces pressing buttons.
There's little actual movement-based back and forth in there compared to what you'll see in games like UNIEL, GG, KOF13, Marvel that devolve into one player games just as easily, and compared to the other snail game, SF4, the spacing situations aren't protracted enough to have that special something to them. In short, there's a game flow problem that I think is fixable, but as the game is now, severe. This Sethlolol v. Zombiedriver match I'm watching now has some actual movement when they play Xiaoyu vs. Kuma, but it's the exception. Most of the time, it's just not there, not to the extent it needs to for the game to be entertaining from a non-RPS standpoint.
Contrast this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXg4Ouy9e54
To any of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnBGNISYYQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EOgxY05sFw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9qC1shBP8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoafCpvV5v0