In particular, the major complaint levied against BB is that it feels massively slower than its predecessor. While there is some truth to that, common ideas for why it's true are actually incorrect, and I want to detail them here, as well as offering potential other ideas.
First let's look at hitstop. This is the big one, the most egregiously false complaint about the two games. For some reason, people think hitstop in BB is a lot longer than in GG. At least since Continuum Shift II (released in May 2011 for home consoles), this has not been true. Hitstop values were actually identical between the two games. And with the release of Chronophantasma, Blazblue actually has less hitstop than Guilty Gear does.
Attack attributes tables, courtesy of the Dustloop wiki
A quick primer for those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the attack system: in both games, all attacks have a specified "attack level", and moves with the same attack level have the same frame data in terms of how long the target is put into stun state. Individual moves have different knockbacks and can induce other states that are not covered by these tables. And of course there are individual exceptions.
A level 0 attack in BB is equivalent to a level 1 attack in GG and so on, in that jabs are level 0 in BlazBlue and level 1 in Guilty Gear, etc. What we see from these tables is that in terms of how fast moves in combos or pressure must follow each other, BlazBlue is actually faster--by a large margin in some cases. Its hitstop is a full three frames shorter.
We also see that attacks themselves cannot actually be slower in BlazBlue--since overall hitstun is actually lower, moves cannot, in the aggregate, be slower, or else they would not combo. However unlike GG, BB often makes use of the ground in combos, as there is no OTG penalty, and wallbouncing induces hitstun, allowing more liberal use of slower moves in combos.
Another oft-cited reason that BB feels slow is that combos are longer and do overall less damage; this is mostly true. The game's hitstun and damage proration systems work such that combos often last longer in real-time than in GG. Additionally, supers tend to last much longer and be more cinematic.
One caveat, though, is that the Guts system in GG makes combos earlier in the round appear to do significantly more damage than they do in effective damage. A fairly optimal Millia combo can take many characters from 100% health to 40 or 50--but due to the Guts system, this may only be one fourth or one third of the character's actual effective health. BlazBlue has no such system, but characters do have different health values; the highest health character has the lowest character's health plus over a third.
It's also worth noting that throws are much slower in BlazBlue, at approximately 13 frames. Guilty Gear has one-frame throws, but lacks the throw reject miss system that prevents mashing throw break in its younger sibling.
But really, the biggest, actual reason that the newer series is slower is the characters actually move more slowly. Guilty Gear has a gravity system: different characters fall at different speeds. This is still true, but to a much lesser extent, in BlazBlue. But overall, the average falling speed in GG is much higher. In addition, stages in GG are not nearly as wide, and characters run and airdash significantly faster, making the game feel more mobile and interactive overall.
To give some actual quantitative numbers, the average jump duration in frames in GG is 39.16, and in BB it's 40.34. While in a direct comparison of two characters that single frame doesn't make much of a difference, it can contribute to a more sluggish feeling. To give an idea of this, even when playing on GGPO, with a 2-frame buffer you can still feel that the gameplay isn't as crisp as local, it's very noticeable but generally inconsequential. Halve that and you have something that can at least contribute to a feeling.
Even more intensely, the average backdash duration in BB is 22.08 frames, and only 16.07 frames in GG. Air forward dashing is two frames slower in BB, air backdashing a full four frames slower. And since the stages are wider, this covers even less effective space. It is unfortunately not a simple thing to compare numerical run speeds, since the actual values used in each game are calculated differently.
So we've established that a huge reason for the game speed difference is in character mobility, but I want to add another idea, which is less quantitative: game situations change much more frequently in Guilty Gear than in BlazBlue. By "game situation", I mean classifying an instant of the game as being in neutral, one character pressuring another, and one character comboing another.
We've already established, informally, that combos are longer in BlazBlue. In addition, the higher character mobility and overall space coverage in Guilty Gear (look at Anji's Fuujin, for example; that thing covers like half of the entire visible screen) means that less time is spent in neutral. Which leaves pressure. The existence of faultless defense and its fantastic behavior as a kind of pushblock, combined with overall faster jumping and backdash speed, means that it longer pressure strings are generally not viable in Guilty Gear. Contrast this with BlazBlue, where barrier (though improved in BBCP!) is not nearly as effective as getting people out, and movement is somewhat more sluggish. Watch a Litchi working her pressure string to an unfortunate cornered opponent, or Carl or Relius.
Throws work this way too. Most characters in GG cannot generally combo after their throws; almost every BB character can.
So overall, Guilty Gear changes state much more often and much more quickly. This and the greater mobility in both time and space are the reasons the game feels so much faster. Combos being shorter is true, but not significantly so. Hitstop is actually higher than in BlazBlue by a large margin.
So then, how did BBCP come to be felt as so much faster than its predecessors? By changing the second factor. I mentioned above that barrier received a boost in the new revision so that it's a better pushblock; this makes longer pressure strings less viable. The addition of Crush Trigger as a guard break mechanic means the threat is much more present than with the guard primer system that existed before, meaning a pressure -> combo change can happen more frequently. Hitstun proration has been attached to real-time combo duration, reducing overall combo length. And the reduction in hitstop shortens combo and pressure strings further.
All of this serves to decrease how long the game goes without a significant change in state, leading to a faster feeling. Without a huge paradigm shift in how characters move, especially relative to the size of the stage, though, the game will never be as fast as GG.
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