I’m not going to do this question justice.
Phonological differences in the dialect that carry across to the accent:
- Lots of /n/s that have dropped off in standard Greek, and longer [n]s than in standard Greek. So it sounds nasal: not French, nasal vowel nasal, but lots of nnnns nasal.
- The Greek counterpart of the Onion has an article on a tech upgrade to RIK (Cypriot TV) eliminating their Cypriot accents. The title of the piece is Χωρίς κυπριακή προφορά τα ελληνικά στο ανανεωμένο ΡΙΚ HD • Το Κουλούρι (“No Cypriot accent in the Greek of the rejuvenated RIK HD”). The web page file name is more direct: rik_without_ni, “RIK with no n’s”.
- Different stop contrasts. Standard Greek contrasts voiceless [t] and prenasalised [ⁿd], which increasingly ends up as [d]. Cypriot contrasts [tʰ] (initial geminate t), geminate [tː], and prenasalised [ⁿd]. That means that in the dialect, there are unfamiliar geminates and aspirates; and when speaking standard Greek, the stops sound wrong.
More singsong than Standard Greek (which isn’t hard, Standard Greek is pretty rat-tat-tat). Because of the geminates and the long [n]s, somewhat slower and more deliberate sounding (again, in contrast to Standard Greek rat-tat-tat).