>>10830639As someone who vastly prefers Melty over Strive...if you're coming from a total lack of knowledge, pick Strive unless you're a Tsukihime/Saber/Type-Moon in general fan.
First of all, Strive's netcode is better by a pretty significant margin. Melty's netcode is better than the fanmade CCCaster, and the game itself could probably run on a smart TV, but I'd say it gets pretty unplayable after ~150ms (Strive is playable out to ~200ms). For context, NA East Coast to EU is right on the edge of 150ms for most people. If you're from the EU, apparently it's pretty miserable to find Melty matches there, which makes this netcode difference matter more.
Beyond that, the mechanical reason to choose Strive over Melty is also the exact reason I prefer Melty over Strive - there's way less raw complexity in Strive. For example, in Strive your average character gets two air actions before having to land, and those two options are either jump or dash, or spend both to superjump. By contrast, Melty has all of those, except you get two jumps + one airdash, plus neutral jump drifting, superjump only uses one air action, super double jump, jump after airdash, and a third jump during Moon Drive. Take that comparison and apply it to virtually every aspect of Strive vs. Melty and it more or less holds true. Having said that, as a Melty preferrer, I do usually feel that Strive feels like repeatedly running into invisible walls - ie not being allowed to even try XY or Z, whereas Melty is happy to let you experiment and fail as you please.
Having said that, from personal experience I'd argue that the Type-Moon fan part also matters way more than people give it credit for, because no matter what game you pick, you'll still have to practice and have a reason to stick to it. And considering how you're in /wah/ right now, there are decent odds you are at least familiar with something Type-Moon.
