Hazama/Move List

Hazama can be a tricky-to-use character with a unique playstyle. Although his chains and slow speed are well-suited for a zoning character, he excels particularly well up-close, where he can make use of his numerous mixup and okizeme options. Unlike Hakumen, Carl, and Arakune, his “hop dash” is grounded and can be canceled at any time with normals, specials, or barrier, improving his short-range movement options, even enabling him to wavedash. It should also be noted that Hazama has one of the “de facto” best meter gain rates in the game, as almost all of his combos go into multiple j.Cs, which builds meter extremely quickly.

Although he is relatively slow compared to most of the cast, Hazama is excellent for applying pressure, as his drives make slow moves that would normally be safe at fullscreen (i.e. Jin’s projectiles) extremely risky, forcing opponents to play a close-up game even if their character is unsuited for it (i.e. Rachel). At the same time, however, Hazama can make the opponent’s rushdown risky as well, stuffing approaches easily with his Drive and his Fang Rising Leg (牙昇脚) (214D~B) special, which is invulnerable on startup and moves Hazama back enough to be virtually safe, and punishing holes in rushdown extremely hard with Snake’s Heaven Crumbling Wing (蛇翼崩天刃) (236236B), which can deal more than 7k damage in the right circumstances. At the same time, Hazama is able to punish opponents for playing overly defensively, poking them safely from a distance with his drives and punishing bad blocking with an extremely strong mixup game consisting of crossups, overheads, and command throws.

Despite this generally well-rounded playstyle, however, Hazama’s slow walking speed makes it difficult for him to catch characters fast enough to consistently get out of the reach of his chains and throw out projectiles from a safe distance. He has a comparatively difficult time against Hakumen and Arakune, who are both capable of both negating his mixup game and his approach options by hitting his chains, countering, or air dashing (Hakumen) or onslaughting him with bugs (Arakune).

In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II, Hazama gained several drastic changes that made him much less beginner-friendly. His normal bread and butter combos involving Tracing Fang (残影牙) have been removed, and replaced with complex OTG combos involving his modified 6C, which pins the opponent to the ground now allowing him to dash in and use 5C to start his air juggles. As with every character, Hazama’s style was changed to allow for better pressure when the opponent is trapped in the corner.

In Extend, Hazama has gained a powerful, but very difficult new tool to use. Making use of the Tiger Knee input (2369/2147) via his Flying Sickle Thrust (飛鎌突) and the right set of moves in a combo, it is now possible for Hazama to use his Fang Rising Leg and/or Rending Flash Fang in such a way that he can force the opponent into a loop. With this new tactic, Hazama is able to gain exorbitant amounts of meter in the corner while leaving the opponent utterly helpless as he combos into Snake’s Heaven Crumbling Wing from the loop for big damage. But at a cost, he seems to have lost most of his damage potential from the past two games.

His Overdrive is the Jörmungandr (ヨルムンガンド), it enables Hazama to not only rid himself of his chains’ “dead zones”, but it also grants him his infamous life-stealing aura from his Unlimited Form.

In BlazBlue: Centralfiction, Hazama has two new moves, Snake Corpse (蛇骸) and Dark Swift Snake (蛇冥迅), which replaces Flying Sickle Thrust.