What Itagaki tried for happened after he left, gotta love that irony. The VF characters certainly add credibility to the game since it's generally been regarded in past versions as a "**bleep** & bruises" series. How it's recieved will determine if it lives or dies. The new TN already has a strike against it courtesy of the most recent NG title which, at best, got lukewarm reviews.
On the subject of the VF characters incorporation into DoA5. First the code will need to be flawless, both for online & offline play if they intend on doing them any justice. Secondly will be the moveset. Anyone who's played any of the VF games will tell you that each of the characters has a large moveset, which in part is one of the reasons said moves must be done precisely (the average DoA character has just under 100 moves, the typical VF character easily has double this). While with DoA the moves can be "close enough" for you to pull them off. One of 3 things will be happening in terms of the movesets:
- The movesets for the VF characters will be drastically reduced, though hopefully in a way that doesn't hurt what makes those characters unique & dangerous in their own right. Perhaps some moves will be consolidated into others.
- The DoA characters will generally be getting a larger moveset in order to compensate to some extent with the VF characters, or
- A bit of both.
It helps that DoAs fighting mechanics were originally patterned after the VF series.
