Character balance: Arakune

This right here encompasses what you can expect from Arakune in Calamity Trigger. As part of the top three, he was typically 3rd or 2nd in the hypothetical S tiers, somewhere near Nu but definitely below Rachel. When you play Calamity Trigger, fighting against Arakune is a massive pain in the butt. His drive, or special ability, gives certain attacks a unique property that curses your opponent. Once cursed, Arakune can summon underworld insects (lovingly nicknamed bees) by pressing any of his four buttons. Arakune is known to have combos that do 6,000 damage without even needing meter to do supers (as a point of reference, Tager, who has the most health, has 13,000 points of health). His new form in Continuum Shift gives him a much more interesting dimension of strategy besides curse and spam bees.

Character spotlight: Hazama

This is Hazama, one of the new playable characters in Blazblue: Continuum Shift. As a new character, his true potential has yet to be discovered, but lots of veterans are counting him out because of his low damage output. While this is true, his attacks look really fast and his drive, Ouroboros, gives him interesting play styles. Ouroboros lets him shoot out chains with spear tips as a projectile, and regardless if it hits the opponent or not, Hazama can slingshot himself forwards and do some pretty trippy stuff. Here's an example of a player in Japan who had discovered some cool tricks with Hazama.

• 3:05 - As you can see when the match first starts, any good Hazama player can capitalize on a counter hit from his drive attack and immedietely reel himself in for a combo.
• 3:16 - After hitting Lambda with a low attack, the player goes for an interesting tweak on Hazama's bread and butter combo. Instead using his double jump and continuing the air juggle, he instead lands on the ground and keeps them airborne with another attack, and proceeds to use his chain again to keep pace with his helpless target.
• 4:10 - after another counter hit with his drive, Hazama hit confirms his Distortion Drive, which tracks the opponent's position regardless. An interesting tidbit to exploit.
• 5:19 - Hazama's forward throw seems to send the opponent into a diagonal trajectory. Hazama exploits this by hit them with his drive diagonally once, then canceling into a special attack that grabs the target out of the air and swings them down into the ground. He uses his back throw at 5:26 but instead follows up with a horizontal drive.
• 6:05 - Hazama wins the fight by time out. A lot of players have recognized that Hazama can play a really annoying runaway game since his drive can slingshot him to safety almost every time.

Hazama looks to need a lot of commitment to play correctly. Some may say Hazama only won because there was an actual difference in skill between the two players and not the characters, but Hazama's drive and fast normal attacks make him look like a fun character to play. By the way, his theme song is called Gluttony Fang, and I can't wait to hear the song itself when the CD comes out December 23.

New video of Blazblue: Continuum Shift

The new intro to Blazblue: Continuum Shift has been unveiled--courtesy of intrepid arcade goers at nicovideo and someone who of course transferred it to YouTube. The high quality version is here but you need to have an account at the nicovideo.jp website (and it's in Japanese).

A number of things you get to see besides the attention to detail Arc System Works put into highlighting in the video:

• At 00:20 you see how Noel's drive, Chain Revolver has changed. Not only is it darker, but apparently the rumors that you can jump-cancel it are true.
• At 00:26 you see a new move from Litchi.
• At 00:47 you see one of Tsubaki's distortion drives (or super moves).
• At 00:58 you see an ominous glimpse of Hazama's astral heat (do want).

Hazama looks like he'll be an interesting chaotic evil sort of character you get to play. Meanwhile, Tsubaki has had the Internet a buzz due to her unique drive which is reminiscent of Order Sol's charging gameplay. It's also interesting to note both Ragna and Jin attack Hazama together at the end, implying they may finally put their differences behind them and work together against a common enemy. As you can tell, I'm dedicated fan and am glad to bring you this latest bit of news about the sequel. Hopefully the wait for the console release isn't too long.