Good lord at VFs story. Is that for real? I thought Tekken was the king of crazy.
I really liked the story about the rivalry between those 2 VF champs (and how the game's mechanics/character weirdness played a huge part in it), along with the wrap-up/parallels involving the 20th anniversary Tekken tournament.
Conversely, the comparison between that real life rivalry and a fighting game story was really weird, off base and kind of ramble-y to me, especially when he gives praise to how T2 handled Kazuya.
He really lays into Tekken 2 here, same for Tekken 1
in the first video. I'd have to agree with him, however. I spent the majority of my time playing 3 when I was younger. When I played the first 2 for an extended period via T5, I was extremely put off.
As a more casual fighting fan though, VF really hasn't grabbed me at all. Tekken's one button per limb gamplay is personally grandfathered into my subconscious (the proliferation of the playstation vs the diminishing of Sega consoles helped); DOA is more explosive, "loose tolerance" and has a much lower barrier of entry despite having VF esque controls; and Soul Calibur is overall much slower and much more comprehensible (but has its own problems these days).
Sega doesn't really need to dumb anything down. They need to aim outward to grab the world audience: get a budget, inject some flavor into the presentation, make a console/PC game (SFV) first and a practically japan/asia exclusive arcade game second. Get a modern voice cast that doesn't sound like it was recorded through 15 coffee filters glued together. Do a reboot of sorts by adding a "Solid" esque flair to its title and start the numbers over again from there. Dedicate more resources into fleshing out your characters like Tekken and SF, rather than just match intro/end animations and attract enbu's (e.g. outsource more CG/anime material like Tekken/SF). People love Tekken, Smash, DOA, SF, and MK because of all that fluff. Gross, and extreme end of the spectrum tangent, but people don't want DOAX3 just because T&A, they want Kasumi's/Hitomi's/Ayane's/insert
besto-gurl's T&A. Use that (but not really
that, more like just the emotional attachment complex in general) to sell merch. Sponsor more visible tournaments in conjunction with a new game like smash has done.
Fighting games are a niche market, but I think there's plenty of room on that small stage if you just put yourself out there like everyone else instead of just being "that guy" over in the corner keeping to himself.