I'm living in europe and playing vs people living in the same area is working fine. FRC's, combos, etc can be used well. Some mix ups are nearly impossible to react to, but that can happen offline too without match up-experience. And we're playing the jap./u.s.-versions over here since there's no eu-release yet. The matchmaking and options for online-mode in general are a load of shit, that's true but the netcode ist imo good. Like I said, I only play vs people in my area (germany), not other countries in europe.