I didn't really have this game on my radar, but a friend told me to look into it since it's apparently more of a genuine VO game than I had initially thought. So, I did.
One small thing in particular that I've noticed from the trailer and other promotional materials that I haven't seen anyone else in this thread mention yet is that the Virtuoids are using the exact model numbers that they had in OT (not VO, Force, or something new), just with "VSL" (Vritualon Sports Line) tacked onto it. As in, Temjin is MBV-707-G (OT), not MBV-04-G (VO) or MBV-747 (Force). The visual designs also most-closely match OT, just with a new, tacky coat of paint. The only exception out of the 5 shown so far is Bal, which is the most significantly redesigned one of the line-up.
The overall pacing and flow of the game in footage so far also seems to follow closer to OT than the other games. It's not quite as slow as Force, it's 1v1, and it still has air-dashes and whatnot. And I think the new gameplay mechanics (Transition, point system) are probably there to tackle OT's problem of devolving into hit-and-run time overs at high level play. VOOT probably had the best gameplay base of the 3 previous games--movement in particular was snappy and it just felt really satisfying to play--but the combination of really high character mobility with relatively limited tracking on attacks meant that matches among equally skilled players who knew what they were doing often went to time instead of a decisive KO. Transition seems(?) to be there to help track the opponent without having to commit to a dash attack (but I'm not entirely sure how it functions), and the point system is probably there to stem the tendency of running away and hiding after obtaining the life lead.
The controls closely match those used in previous console ports, with a few exceptions. Turbo attacks have their own dedicated buttons instead of being mapped to dash + attack, so it seems that there's only one turbo variant for attacks instead of two. This is something that's more in line with Force than OT, but if there's no V-Armor system this time around then the utility of armor-stripping LT weapons would have been a little less important anyway. There also doesn't seem to be a crouch/block command on the control diagram, but I saw the players in the above footage using some kind of barrier as well as sliding attacks, which was something that you had to crouch to perform before.
The idea of making VO an e-sport within the universe of an anime is stupid, but considering that the lore (*cough*) of prior VO games had a corny meta element to it where the mechs were actually being piloted by kids playing arcade machines, this crossover is a perfectly "in-character" kind of stupid for the series.
