Blazblue Continuum Shift is less then two weeks away, so I thought I'd bring back my character specific fighting game briefs with my main choice for Blazblue, Jin Kisaragi. This post goes over how he currently plays in Continuum Shift.

Jin Kisaragi is the cold, aristocrat who acts as the Ky Kiske to Ragna's Sol Badguy. In CT, Jin was considered to be one of the best, right below the top 3 of Arakune, Nu, and Rachel. He has since then been nerfed in CS but he also received a few buffs in other critical places to keep him competitive.

Creative Combos

Jin's drive, Frostbite, freezes his opponent on hit and generally have lots of stun on block. While most characters can and will start most combos or block strings with quick light attacks, Jin differs in that he can try surprising or poking his opponent with his drive attacks in order to start combos.

Another thing to note is that Jin can use 25% meter to turn his special attacks into drive attacks, essentially EX versions of his attacks which can refreeze and have extra untechable frames on their knock downs. Jin can extend his combos on the fly with the extra untechable frames so long as he keeps an eye on his meter.

Air Superiority

Jin is good in the air and can generally deal with threats that are airborne as well. Blizzard, his dragon punch styled anti-air, is a great counter to opponents in the air. The light version is a fast reaction attack while the medium version has moderate invincibility frames.

Violent Ice, the strong version of Blizzard, is a great counter with its invincible frames but has lost its combo potential on counter hit since Calamity Trigger.

But every Jin you face will probably be jumping and spamming their jumping strong, and for good reason. It's probably the best poke in the entire game with the exception to Hakumen's which is the exact same attack though he uses a longer sword. Jin can basically safely use this poke to fish for counter hits and go straight in 4D which will freeze them and bring them closer to start a combo.

Good Supers

Jin's distortion drives can be used as part of combos and punishing mistakes. Moonsong (or Hiyoku Getsumei), is his most commonly used super for combos. This super counts as freeze and leaves your opponent with a ridiculous amount of untechable time you can exploit.

The wave super, Ice Fang (also Touga Hyoujin), is an extremely fast, fullscreen projectile. So fast that you can punish things from full screen like air dashes. It also leaves grounded targets in stagger so you can rush in while they recover.

Jin is very easy to learn with a forgiving learning curve and easy to pick up combos. Compared to the other drives or gimmicks of the rest of the cast, Frostbite is decidedly normal unlike having a robot partner like Carl or Arakune's insane swarm of bees.

But with really good zoning tools, reliable damage off random hits (called abare) and counter hits, and efficient meter management from his drive specials, Jin can be great on defense all around while his offensive potential is multiplied in direct relation to how much meter he has. Jin with 75% meter is probably a bigger threat compared to Bang Shishigami with 75% meter.