Why not weapons based VF spinoff?

They could approach it several ways. The main thing RTP would bring to the table would be neato animation. The reactions, the actual movements etc could potentially manifest in a whole bunch of ways. Just that little bit of visiual variety would freshen things up quite a bit IMO.

The other stuff's possible as well, which I think will eventually have to be added to the genre at large if the it ever wants to grow again. We have endless refinement, but no evolution right now, and the userbase continues to shrink.

 

I think there's value in seeing the same animation every time a situation occurs from a gameplay perspective... hit checking again being the most obvious example. Better animations look cool and all, and I don't disagree that they're overall a good change, but if it's at the expense of gameplay in any way, I'd toss them out in a second.

I'm sure everythign will gradually get better, as people keep refining, but it has to be gradual, especially within a particular series. I would fully support another spin-off fighting game from AM2, the way Last Bronx worked... but I don't want to see sudden drastic changes in VF6.

And as far as the userbase shrinking... you gotta be specific to say something like that. There's still an extremely active ST scene, ten years after that game was released. It's honestly like pulling teeth to get some of those players to put down the dreamcast, and try out VF, though when I've been successful, most of them come away enjoying the game. The fact that each new fighting game released is perhaps not selling as well as it did in the past doesn't say anything about whether people still enjoy fighting games in general, though. It is, unfortunately, a genre where you really need to dedicate yourself to a single game, unlike FPSs, where clans can happily switch games every 3 months or so, and remain competitive players.