I watched that video earlier and the point it tries to make is bad imo. more or less all the inputs in vf5fs, the greatest fighting game of all time, are easy as shit and there is a broad input buffer. sf5 wouldn't be a better game if it had stricter inputs (tho it's a bit funny how he uses parries in sf3 as some sort of example of difficult inputs when the input is literally the easiest shit and sf3 would have benefitted from having parry inputs that demanded a commitment, so you couldn't guess-parry and unsuccessful parries could be punished, aka giving the game a stronger neutral, but lol ok). "making combos easier to execute" doesnt do much to decrease the skill gap between good players and weak ones, as good players will simply out-maneuver weak players in in a fundamental way.
This also doesn't have anything to do with "players ability to express themselves" as that is mainly dependent on how broad the tool set available to any given player is. Laura has like three buttons that are useful and one meterless combo and one v-trigger canceled one. there arent situational tools in her arsenal. sf5 is bad because every character is so stream-lined they only ever want to do one thing, there isnt even any tactical decision making in choosing whether or not you want to use v-reversal or save for v-trigger since the latter is such a tremendously stronger tool – getting your opponent to use their v-reversal is basically a small victory in and of itself in that it delays their ability to activate v-trigger.
sf5 is also bad because the input lag was (& is still, i assume? i havent played in a while) too bad, they purposefully made the neutral worse by unilaterally reducing the range on your normal attacks, improving the dashing speed and reducing the walking speed, making anti-airs worse allowing more jump-ins, install v-triggers are basically the worst parts of sf4's ultra attacks and FADC rolled into one, etc, etc, etc...
there is lots wrong with the game that was done in an attempt to lessen the skill gap – which is inherently a fruitless pursuit, because, again, good players are just fundamentally better, you're never going to beat a good guilty gear player by just picking stylish mode (presuming you didnt take on a damage handicap in doing so) unless you also are able to play guilty gear as well as they do and out-perform them in the game. complaining that combos are too easy is missing the forest for the trees. A hypothetical game that manages to allow bad players to compete with good players simply by making the execution easy was never good to begin with.
I think there's a lot to disagree with in the video but I think your summation is kind of off as well.
Thing about SFV is every one and their mom has opinions on why it's bad now.
Core A Gaming is right but also wrong. They're right in that SFV has a low skill ceiling. Watch intermediate SFV and high level SFV and it looks the same. The problem is that Core A conflated with this low skill ceiling with just lower execution requirement. Lower execution is definitely a problem but not SFV's only problem. One problem is that it's a highly offense oriented game without the defensive capabilities of say, a Guilty Gear, to get out of a jam. His point about parries is also bad because Ryu's parry in SFV can whiff, which makes it punishable. SFV and SFIII are going for completely different things. It also ignores that there's more to fighting game skill than execution. It limits fg skill as merely execution. And as said, execution is a huge deal but so is knowledge and mind games.
You can't execute if you lack the knowledge, and you can't execute if you lack the mind games. Daigo predicted Justin would go for a super because it was the best play. Justin knew that if Daigo caught a whiff, he could get punished with a full combo. That's where respect comes in. Justin knew the cards, and he also knew that if he hit the super, if only one hit landed, he would have won. It was the best call to make. And Daigo called it. That's where mind games comes in and Daigo wouldn't have been half as prepared to parry that without expecting it. It was a full on read. This element is completely lacking in Core-A's analysis.
I kind of disagree with your thing about execution not being important in a fighting game just because VF isn't a execution heavy game (I honestly wouldn't know because I've never played VF competitively). But in Tekken, execution is a huge thing because it's required to master basic
movement. Bringing up VF is a completely irrelevant argument because each game has its strict emphasis. Tekken for instance, is a game of knowledge. Street Fighter blended execution with mind games but it's mostly on the mind games end of things as it has never been execution heavy outside of charge partitions and custom combos. Virtua Fighter, from what I know, is a mind game fg. Something like Guilty Gear or Marvel is an execution focused fg. It really depends on the game. SF isn't trying to be VF. VF doesn't have to worry about shit like qcf's and half circle commands, so bringing up VF's lack of execution requirement makes no sense.
SFV definitely has a low skill ceiling and it was kind of designed that way. Problem with the Core-A video, as good as it is, is that it presents fighting game skill as a singular element. However, it does bring up a good point but it doesn't go into hard enough. The fact that execution requires the player the become more invested in the game. In Tekken, you have to master movement or you won't get anywhere, much less any where competitive. in SF, if you play charge you better learn how to charge at all times. If you play Urien in SFIII:3S and you're not charge partitioning, you're fucking up. If you're not paino-ing your inputs as Chun in IV, you're fucking up - again. If you're lacking a fuzzy guard? Well, guard what? You're fucking up. These techniques and more are required in high level play, and they're also techniques that require execution, practice, and will power. When you're invested in your character to the point where you're trying to master something related to execution, you're investing your will into that character to be able to control them as your avatar and gain an advantage. This makes you
want to get better. Execution is the heart of competition, I think, and its lacking in SFV makes the game feel so incomplete. Once you've mastered two or so combos (providing you have fundamentals down), that's it. It feels so impersonal. In SFIV, in order for Chun to level up I had to learn how to piano. I had to research, look up vids, go into practice mode and put sweat and tears into my character. In SFV, my girl Chun doesn't even have mash for kicks. It's a fucking qcf. Charge partitioning isn't necessary. You've got IAL's, but that's pretty easy to master - it's just a half circle. The hardest thing about Chun execution wise is the timing of her bird kick ender combos. At that point, why play Chun even though she's my SF main? Character loyalty? When that's lacking, what drive is there to get better? Why even fucking play besides money? Where's the competition? Thankfully SFV isn't completely simplified and still has charge buffering:
I mean your initial argument:
more or less all the inputs in vf5fs, the greatest fighting game of all time, are easy as shit and there is a broad input buffer.
Doesn't even apply to Street Fighter. Again, look at piano-ing. This is tech, but it's also execution.
Comparing VF to SF on this makes no sense. VF has depth in
spite of its lack of execution. Street Fighter, sometimes has depth
because of the execution, because execution = tech, and tech = depth and builds upon the natural competitive drive to win. Execution is more than combos.
For an example of how this brings depth to the game, watch this match:
Hopefully this will show you the importance of execution, at least for Street Fighter. It's not end all be all, but in a game with charge characters and spds, it's pretty important. Execution, as far as SF is concerned, leads to new tech. New tech leads to an ever expanding game with depth (the main subject of the Core-A video). No new tech leads to a boring and stagnate game.
I completely agree with you about stubby normals, slow walk speed, and weak anti-airs limiting the games potential but I shouldn't have to reiterate the inherent flaw in comparing a 3d game that has 12 frame punches compared to a 2d game where the fastest are 3-4 frames. Bringing up VF5FS is essentially a strawman. But to be fair to you, Core-A framed the argument around execution being the sole creator of depth (which we both know is bullshit).
That's my take as a decent competitive SF player.