This game confuses me a lot

[isomaniac8888]

I thought this was a beat em up game like Final Fight. Then I played it and discovered it was like a Street Fighter game but with WALKING TO THE RIGHT routine like Final Fight. The control, especially the JUMP confuses me a lot because when I was walking to the right side, I automatically assumed pressing A button meant to jump, which was not. Then I was fighting enemies I assumed pressing the UP in D-pad meant to jump, which was not either.
When my character moved up/down in the 3 lanes, the animation is NOT easy to tell. There is no zooming of anything to tell me I am moving up/down a lane at all.

[the yappiest cat]

Me when the 2d fighter plays like a 2d fighter:

But yeah, I can understand thinking it was a beat em up at first sight as the camera placement is similiar to that genre. But that's really where the similiarities end.

The game is a 2d fighter with the main selling point being the 2v2 component (usual fighters are exclusively 1v1 games and sometimes there's assists depending on the game)
I don't want to discourage you but if you're not familiar with the genre than I'm not sure if this is the right game to start with as it is quite unique. Then again, having a teammate to help you out might actually make the game more beginner friendly. It's hard to say but do give it a go as this game is absolutely amazing.

As for the lane switch animation, yeah I can understand having trouble with telling where you are sometimes but you'll get used to it. You can also adjust the lane lines intensity to have a clearer image of where you are.

[thelastgogeta]

In addition to using the lane lines intensity slider (you can have a faint line or something quite obvious which isn't too jarring) to make it more obvious what lane you are on, you can also look at the ring below the characters.

Other games which have a similar system have solved the visual problem by having alternative animation sprites (Fatal Fury 1/3) or significant background/foreground objects (Fatal Fury 1/2/Special, Bleach's first two DS games) but DL is pretty readable when you know what to look out for.

It is similar to Smash just making sense when you understand percents and how mid-air jumps/recovery work.