He may or may not be strong, but he’s turning heads for more reasons than one
The Street Fighter 5 community is feeling a lot of excitement for multiple reasons as we anticipate the first major Season 5 content drop that’s slated for February 22, but can we take a moment to appreciate what Capcom has done with Dan Hibiki, the joke character who’s looking like less and less of a goof the more we see of him?
We’ve seen Dan SF5 showcases a few times now, but last week’s Winter Update gave us our most vivid look yet, and the bumbling master of Saikyo seems to have garnered more charisma than ever before in the eyes of fans. Also, he’s kind of hot now.
Mr. Hibiki was invented as a response to SNK, one of Capcom’s competitive rivals in the fighting game space, all but copying the likes of Ryu and Ken for two of their main roster members. Dan is a bumbling amalgamation of a few of SNK’s trademark fighters, and has been intentionally designed with in-game faults and an overly confident attitude concerning his abilities.
We’re all but certain Capcom is aiming to make Dan one of the worst characters in Street Fighter 5, but we don’t yet have access to his frame data, nor have we been able to test the character out with our own hands yet. Capcom showcased Dan’s V-System at the Winter Update, and the community seems exceptionally excited to try him.
The fact that his V-Skills build gauge for both combatants is one of the few evidences we currently have of Dan’s intentional developer sabotage, but many of the attributes shown are surprisingly enticing. His one-bar V-Trigger 1 is a major head turner, if for nothing more than the fact that V-Trigger cancels can be just as useful as the Triggers themselves in certain instances.
We suspect that developers will make sure that Dan is tragically negative after a cancel in his VT1, but this remains to be seen. His ability to do a bit of freestyling in combos (thanks to the nature of both of his V-Skills) looks to be reason enough for many to give him a shot. Even if he isn’t the strongest, he seems designed to be fun to explore.
Indeed we’ve seen many sentiments across social media exclaiming at both Dan’s intriguing design and his surprising potential.
“DAN IS SICK,” mentioned PG|Punk in his reaction video to Capcom’s presentation. The extremely accomplished SF5 player took intrigue with Dan’s troll design, appreciating how well Capcom seems to have struck the balance between making him simultaneously bad, but fun to use to annoy others with.
Pro player and fighting game legend Justin Wong was also impressed with the footage, noting, “Dan might be better than Ryu and Sagat in this game, that’s actually kinda sad,” in his reaction video.
We also have to shout out Dan’s alternate battle costume, yet another nod to SNK as he adopts a tengu mask extremely similar to the one Mr. Karate wears in his appearances across Art of Fighting and King of Fighters titles. He’s… better looking than he ever has been.
It’s not that Dan was ever in bad shape, but his physique has never been enunciated to this degree. His shirtless tengu outfit shows off a very defined and muscular upper torso that almost doesn’t fit the character’s traditional personality.
Dan technically had abs back in Street Fighter 4 (evidenced in his alternate costume 2) but otherwise often appeared to almost have a gut thanks to his non-formfitting pink gi. Even with muscles exposed, Dan never came across like he does in his latest iteration.
While he might not be getting quite as many phone numbers as “Hot Ryu,” (which kind of fits Dan’s theme as similar, but falling comically short of the standards set by Ryu and Ken) it’s undeniable that the glow up has been real for Dan here in Street Fighter 5.>
