and MBAA not being as balanced as MBAC...just in case you missed it the first time:
Actress Again got the "Accent Core" treatment through and through with new artwork, VAs, levels, and especially when it came down to the balance and IMO because it got the "Accent Core" treatment characters who weren't as tournament viable (W.Len and Warachia) can finallly keep up with the rest of the cast. Melty Blood does one thing that a lot of fighters fail to do and that is balance the game to the point where everyone is able to win...you can't say that about 3/4 of the fighters that's out right now whether its old or new.
It's actually not as balanced as MBAC though. 80% of videos with machines with multiple players have either H Vsion, H/C Kohaku, H Tohno, H Akiha, or Wara players playing each other for hours and whenever someone plays a different character they tend to lose. It's not like most Capcom games where low tiers are unplayable, but it's really obvious Kohaku C/H and Vsion H are significantly better than every other character.
Also Half Moon is fundamentally better than other styles. This doesn't really mean anything but given the exact same movesets, Half Moon is better than the other two styles. The automatic healing makes them "safer" to use, and they get health back at 200% to Full Moon's RC Heat that requires 300%. The 6AAA autocombo also makes easier combos for Half Moon, and generally they always do more damage per combo because of it. There's obviously cases where movesets matter, but at the same time Half Kohaku is used more than Crescent and Half actually loses the most important aspect of MBAC Kohaku and only gained damage and health benefits of Half. Hell, Half Moon Kohaku even has less control over her normals and generally worse ones than Crescent (Crescent moon got 5C and 2B split into 2 parts, but Half can't split it and doing 5C is just plain 5C, not to mention Crescent has a really good 6C and 4/6B, whichever that kick is).
I think tiers are pretty set in MBAA, where they weren't in MBAC. Maybe the lower tiers weren't (no one stands out as bad like Wara or Wlen did in MBAC, or even close to just plain bad), but the high tiers are. MBAC high tiers have shifted for a long time, with lots of different characters being considered "top" and then getting moved down, or considered "high" and getting moved up. Akiha used to be high tier with Vakiha above her at a point, Sion used to be the very top until people realized without her infinite she wasn't the best any more, and Warc has floated between top and high too. Kouma seems to go up every new tier list, Mhisui used to be low-mid, and Nanaya/Tohno have traded places before and used to be higher than they are right now. As it stands, there's absolutely no chance that H Vsion will ever be less than top tier, and MBAA hasn't even been out for all that long.