Overview
Hakumen notably requires heat to use any of his special moves. The amounts required are measured in multiples of 1/8th of the entire heat meter, but to make this easier for the player to identify, his heat meter is displayed using 8 "Magatama" stocks and the bar underneath shows the progress towards generating the next one. The magatama can still be used for universal mechanics such as rapid cancels in the normal way, with 4 magatama equalling 50% of a normal heat gauge and 2 equalling 25%. Unique to Hakumen is that his heat gauge will steadily increase at all times, rather than just at critical health (For Hakumen, this simply increases the gain further). Hakumen begins each round with one magatama available.
While it might seem rather limiting to need to spend heat to perform any special move, Hakumen is also one of the few characters who can cancel his specials into each other and none of his specials experience same-move proration, making his potential damage extremely high once he has the heat available. He also possesses some of the best normal moves in the game, with his sword moves covering nearly the entire match start range of the screen, generally only losing to Nine the Phantom concerning range of normal moves. Hakumen also has a solid defense with his drive described below, meaning overall Hakumen is a fairly well-rounded character with many high risk tools at his disposal for many situations, so his playstyle rewards careful patient play.
Lore: | 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 Susano'o unit allows him to freely slash through time and space. |
- 3rd highest amount of health (12 000).
- Passively gains meter.
- Has one of the best Overdrive in the game.
- High-damage ceiling with Overdrive and meter.
- Long ranged normals which act as excellent spacing tools (4C, J.C).
- Has access to a 18f overhead (6B).
- Can cut projectiles with his sword normals.
- Wide range of combo routes available depending on resources.
- Counters can stop both non-projectile and projectile oki.
- Mugen transforms Hakumen into a HnK character.
- Poor mobility.
- No strike/projectile invincibility on backdash; must block in a lot of situations where backdashing would be preferred.
- A lot of combo routes are distance, height or character specific.
- Has very few normal gatlings and therefore limited pressure.
- His main anti-air is slow and easily punishable on whiff.
- Needs to take risks to win.
- Counters have a lot of recovery and leave him vulnerable.
- Heavily Overdrive reliant.
- Can only assert dominance with 12k combos once a round because characters have small lifebars.
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 invincible, but blockable, 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. As an added bonus, a successful catch with Hakumen's drive will gain 1 magatama, which may be used immediately to special cancel if desired.
Kishin greatly increases the magatama recharge rate as well as adding additional properties to his Distortion Drives. If combined with his Mugen distortion drive, his heat loss is frozen for the duration of the overdrive.
Any of Hakumen's attacks that use the blade of his sword can cut the opponent's projectiles, creating an orb on contact called a
Fuumajin. This orb can absorb other projectiles and is a way to help Hakumen deal with zoners and slowly close distance or buy time to build more meter.