It really does carry over to other games. This is also a reason why I sucked at the Pyro (reflecting) because I'm really bad at anticipation of attacks or I get nervous which ruins my game. I also like to attack all the time and hate waiting, which is why FPS (not simulations) suited my style. Of course, this led to many stupid deaths due to impatience, which I've reduced by looking at my replays.
Leixia is fast and she's usually on the offensive with the mindgames and trickery. Her style is beautiful and fluid, which makes it fun to play and watch. It's like watching a dance unfold. One of her attacks is crying on the ground and it actually does damage (though very little).
Mitsurugi is average speed, but quick enough that most people can't react. I find Mitsurugi not that fast even in Soul Calibur II. He's strong and has stuns. He's a samurai, so if you like that fighting style, then you'll like Mitsurugi. Mindgame is reduced because stances were removed, but he's a good character.
Natsu is really strong in this game (at least right now). She has fast moves and she has damage. She's great for mixups and mindgames with her stances. She jumps around or teleports and is great with kicks.
Patroklos, Pyrrha, and Omega are sword and shield users. Overall, great characters on offense and great damage. Pretty straightforward. You have jump attacks, rushdowns, and fast attacks. The
Voldo and Yoshimitsu are what I like to call the crazy characters. These characters are some of the best character designs ever made. Voldo can kill you air-humping, spider crawling, and doing the worm. To be the best (from what I've seen in competitive Japanese SCIII and some SCIV Voldos) is that you have to have that feel of the character. You must become crazy or understand crazy in order to truly play them properly. This is extremely evident when you see a competitive player play him like a normal fighting game character. These players get punished and are far worse than those who really know their characters as if they were the characters themselves.
Yoshimitsu's the crazy samurai. Waaayyy better than Mitsurugi. He's extremely fun to play. He can fly around with his banner, burp attack, use both his samurai swords as stilts, hop around like a kangaroo, and even regain health by meditating. Namu namu! I love these characters and I wish I could get good at them, but they're far too unorthodox for me and I've tried, but they don't fit my playstyle in anyway.
Both aren't that fast and have decent damage.
Cervantes would fit the medium speed, strong damage. He was that way in SCIV and that's his character type. He can teleport and play mindgames, but he's actually more straightforward.
Viola and Algol is area control. Think of those businessmen in SFIII: 3rd Strike. Algol uses bubbles to deny you options to move around and Viola will use her orb to trick you and deny options at the same time. Algol is like Urien and Gill from 3rd Strike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Tf4fjUSTuHg#t=67s Urien's the one using orbs of energy and energy walls.
ZWEI is trickery through his pet wolf that he summons out of nowhere. He's more for the type of players that likes to use indirect parties to attack and also use that as an advantage to trick the opponent. Think of Eddie from Guilty Gear except you only control one creature (
).
These are medium speed characters that might interest you. I like to base it on my own criteria and what I enjoy and these are some of the categories.
ranged (Ivy, Algol, Hilde, Xiba)
fast (Alpha, Leixia, Maxi, Natsu, Raphael)
medium speed (Aeon, Algol, Patroklos, Pyrrha, Omega, Tira, Cervantes, Hilde, Ivy, Mitsu, Voldo, Xiba, Yoshi, ZWEI)
too slow (Nightmare, Sieg, Asta)
crazy (Yoshi, Voldo)
indirect (ZWEI)
area control (Viola, Algol)
They overlap, which helps me choose which ones are best for me. You can also get a feeling of which characters are more suited for you as you play all the characters. You should try them all out because you eventually need to learn them to face them in battle. Also take my speed assessments with a grain of salt as this is my perception of their speeds. I don't know the frame data, so I could be wrong. It's just that certain characters may seem faster or slower than they really are. But, I do know which characters are fast enough to actually pass the test and which characters make up for their slow attacks with their weaponry and stances. All the medium speed I listed are what I would usually call too slow for me. Too slow is actually way too slow to be remotely fun. I don't like nunchuks and his fighting style, so Maxi is out. Raphael is a pompous poker (fencer) and I'm not really good at that style, though it's fun on occasion to be pompous. Alpha's fun, but I suck at just frames and I suck at proper counters so he's out. Alpha is more of the type of player who will counter after a miss and will hit, stop, hit, stop, combo, stop, etc. which is like the samurai style he is based on. That leaves Leixia and Natus and I've already told you why I like those types of characters. I like Ivy because I like ranged (and I'm better at that than close range) and I like her stances (mindgames) and I like her weapon's versatility from close range to long range. However, she is slow and she doesn't jump around, but she makes up for it with all the other fun stuff.
I know plenty of people who choose characters they like based on appearance, but I think the playstyle is more important. I used to hate that I was good at all the female characters over the male ones. I wanted to be good at characters like NIghtmare and Voldo, but they really didn't fit me. After hours of play and success, the character begins to grow with you. Now, every time I see Ivy I have a sort of emotional connection with the character because it's what I played the most with and it's what I was good at. I also found her character to be very mature and with an iron will. She was strong and she was and still is a dominatrix in the battlefield.
