That is one ancient manuscript to copy from.
And I'm surprised that a game like this on a Naomi 2 ended looking like shit (seriously, look at it and compare it to the original), though I guess they probably ported all that to the Naomi in a week or two. The original DOA looked really pretty like Soul Edge.
But I really like the fact that normal holds parry and cause little damage with only special mid holds (like Bass' qcbH) doing significant damage and that's only for things like mid kicks. Having normal holds parry makes the game really fast. I would definitely buy DOA5 if it has this sort of mechanic instead of the current holds.
And actually make use of specials again. I mean, maybe the "power blows" are actually the specials now, but more normal specials would be nice.