Oratan has passed submission at Microsoft

In the latest column over at the official Oratan 5.66 site it's been reported that the game has passed submission at Microsoft. This is the final approval stage for the game before it can go to market, so a release should be imminent. That said, there are worrying reports over on 2ch and other Japanese blogs that some of the close combat functionality has changed from the arcade original. Specifically the way in which quick steps function and how they're initiated. Normally, once in close combat range you press one of the turbo buttons and pull a direction. Doing this will have your VR do a semi-circular hop around your target. Combining this with a weapon trigger will produce a circle slash. This is core to how close combat works in Oratan and reports are that the timing for pulling a quick step off are much much tighter now, making it more difficult to use. This could be just one, of many, problems the game now has due to the lack of sticks (as the leverage of the stick would have made the timing more manageable). Though SEGA have said they're at least "looking into" releasing a twinstick peripheral. My robot fingers are firmly crossed.
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