By the way, Alice in th08 is absolute crap. (personal opinion)
Nah it's really more of a fact, she has the worst range in the entire series (Needle Reimus are significantly wider), her DAMAGE isn't even all that good despite this, and her bomb is super short and does next to zero damage. Isn't it sad, Alice? The two things going for her is that she can hit both Mokou and her wings at once for good damage, and that her laser lingers for a second after changing characters, allowing Malice Cannon shenanigans.
BUT THIS IS NOT A TH8 THREAD SO
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the 3 special things in the bottom corners for each character. Reimu's Orbs and Marisa's stars. They light up or go dim sometimes.
As for IaMP discussion, it's fabulously balanced (Apart from really bad Meiling, everyone is almost the same on the tier list that was made for it- there's like 2 characters that are sliiiiiightly higher, but it's barely anything!) and certainly far more technical and such. The downside is that it's not good for casual play, like... at all. Matches are kind of eh and drag on if you don't know what you're doing, and it's not easy to learn, especially for people new to fighting games in general. Even if you know one character pretty well, the others are still a mystery, unlike 12.3 where you can play anyone roughly the same and it works out okayish.
They're kind of like two ends of a spectrum- IaMP is a great game for higher level play, but awful for entry-level people/casuals/etc, and 12.3 is the opposite, as even if you play high-level it's easy to tell it's not designed for it, and deck/weather randomness can just be a wrench- not to mention the silliness like average-grade players being able to take out pros being an example of how the mechanics just don't lend themselves to tournament-grade play well.
...uh. In any case. Excited about this game! :V