Hakumen is one of the Six Heroes who combated the Black Beast in the series` backstory almost a century ago. After the war, he was sealed away in the boundary along with Terumi, who had betrayed the other five heroes. Kokonoe salvages a portion of his existence from the boundary and he resumes his quest for justice and to exact revenge on Terumi. His Nox Nyctores, Ookami, has the power to negate most Ars Magus and possessing the Susanooh unit allows him to freely slash through time and space.
On the gameplay side, Hakumen boasts a unique trait among the cast. His meter functions completely differently and instead has eight stocks for his "magatama" gauge. These stocks are consumed whenever Hakumen uses any of his special moves and as such, meter management is an important aspect to learn. However, his also one of the few characters who can cancel his specials into each other, which makes his offense even stronger. He also boasts having some of the best normal moves in the game, with his sword moves covering nearly the entire match start range of the screen. A solid defense with his drive described below, and his moves combined with his Overdrive give him extremely high damage potential. Overall Hakumen is a fairly well-rounded character with many high risk tools at his disposal for many situations. Mastering these tools turns him into a character who greatly rewards fundamental play.
Drive: Zanshin
Zanshin projects a shield-like energy barrier that, when triggered by an opponent's attack, will negate said attack and follow-up with a blockable, invincible counter-attack. If a physical attack triggers Zanshin, the opponent is frozen in place making the follow-up inescapable. Also, the guardpoint protects and triggers on either sides of Hakumen, allowing him to catch any cross-ups. This gives Hakumen an effective counter to use against many of his opponent's options. In addition, many of Hakumen's normals cancel into his Drive. This makes Zanshin not only a great defensive tool, but an offensive one as well, countering attacks that may exploit holes in Hakumen's blockstrings.
Overdrive: Kishin
Kishin greatly increases the magatama recharge rate as well as adding additional properties to his drives and Distortion Drives.
Pros/Strengths
- Above average health
- Passively gains meter through rounds
- Long ranged normals that make for excellent spacing tools
- Extremely high damage with OD and meter
- Specials can be cancelled into each other
- Can reset pressure in many places because of how his normals chain
- Counters can stop non-projectile oki
- Backdash is throw invincible
Cons/Weaknesses
- Poor mobility
- Highly meter dependent and therefore resource management is necessary
- Can't open opponents up as easily due to limited pressure
- Heavily OD reliant
- Needs to take risks to get optimal OD confirms to win
- No strike/projectile invincibility on backdash.
- Counters no longer stop projectile oki
- Counters have a lot of recovery and leave him vulnerable.