From what I can tell every character seems well designed and its pretty well balanced!
I havent even played against a dhalsim yet so no idea how good he is
I think Manon seems super strong because to me it feels like she can control the pace of the match very well. If you let her get up to level 5 you are absolutely fucked. command grab takes 33%! I started to figure out the matchup a bit more towards the end of the set and was able to keep the set fairly close.
I played against a really good Ken this morning and he definintely has a great neutral. he has all the tools to get in and do stupid damage. Guy cleaned me out from 60% a few times off drive rush into a Low
Im pretty sure every character can deal 50% pretty easily so i cant even say that makes him stand out.
Honda seems a lot better to me because a lot of the things he is lacking in most games is not an issue here. i dont know if hes top tier but i think he is probably easy to figure out a pretty solid game plan with early in the life of the game to body people while they are still new! he is usually a more 1 dimensional kind of character with simple game plan.
in old games, a lot of time it is hard for honda to convert to big damage unless he gets right up close to you. not in 6. hands always reaches, headbutt always combos, or buttslam, its amazing. also if you are walking forwards, his st HP is very good but also you have access to parry in case the angle is wrong to use that button (which often happens). you actually have to COUNTER PLAY headbuts and buttslams instead of just block and punish. SF4 was kind of a mix of that but 5 was just stupid. had to spend ex bar to get in and characters with a parry or AA V Skill just shat on ex buttslam hard. also you can cancel off mediums now which honda has never had - one of the big reasons he needed to be closer to nail the jab. so you missed out on so many good punishes cause all you got was a shitty st MP for like 60 damage when some char got full combo into set play.