It did neuter the fireball game. You could literally jump a fireball and then air parry the opponent's anti-air which is bypassing perhaps the fundamental example of controlling space in Street Fighter.
Game was still fantastic, though.
Oh no doubt. In fact I find all of the SF games fantastic for different reasons. SFV is the one I vibe with the most, but each game is so different there's something for everyone in that series.
The same could be said of many fighting games, but some take a little while to switch over (like Tekken, but then again they have more games full stop).
Parry neutered everything. There was a priority system, throws beat parry beat super beat special beat hard etc.
Fireballs were bad at ranges you could react to them. Fireballs were there weakest in this game at the time even before considering parries looking at damage and frame data but you needed to apply them for 3S. Some were better than others or you needed to use EX fireball. A good Remy fireball game was hard to deal with until you got good at the game.
Oro, Akuma, Ken, Ryu, Remy had good fireball games. Parrying multihit fireballs or Akuma air fireball at the wrong time/distance got you thrown or mixed up (Dudley/Sean taunts come to mind here too). Chun, Urien had bad ones for sure, no question.
Watch coop cup.
So then, fireballs aren't useful in a normal footies kinda way but for other options like mixups and shit? I watched coop cup, and it didn't seem like dudes were doing full screen or midscreen fireballs for that reason. In that case, would the application of the fireball be not traditional then? ST's zoning game is waaaay different than SF3 in that regard. SF4 had a pretty good footies game with fireballs though.
My point was more or less each game has different uses for fireballs in conjunction with their systems, and I don't disagree with you that SFV's fireballs aren't as powerful as SF4's, I feel like that's because they are pretty situational per character instead of being a more universal tool. Birdie uses his for setups, Laura for mixups, Akuma uses that shit for added damage in combos and building stun the farther you are on screen (and I think his air fireball is used for throw mixups and shit? I'll find the vid but there were some decent applications in that), etc.
Or at least that's how it all makes sense to me considering most characters aren't using their shit to play outright footies but use it for other things unlike previous entries.
Edit: That isn't to say you are wrong or right for hating the usage of fireballs. Just how I saw SFV using them compared to the rest of the series.
