Ah, Dan. Street Fighter’s perennially useless Shoto wannabe has always been fun to play, but no-one takes him seriously. Well, he’s back in Street Fighter 5 – and he actually looks… kinda cool?
The truth about Dan (at least as he worked in Street Fighter 4) is that he’s actually an okay character, but his moves look really, really stupid. His fireball is more hadoucan’t than hadouken, his throw like pulling teeth, his taunts – yes, his many taunts! – pointless posturing. Dan is Street Fighter’s joke character, a rubbish Ryu, a crappy Ken, but in the right hands he can win. Just about.
During the Tokyo Game Show, Capcom showed off Dan’s moveset for his Street Fighter 5 DLC incarnation, and I must say he looks like a lot of fun. There’s some quality animation work here – I love the little Dan flourishes after each heavy attack, and that new pulling teeth throw looks cool to me!
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And then there are the taunts. Yes, in Street Fighter 5, Dan has his Legendary Taunt, which sees the try-hard roll about, throwing shapes, taking the piss, and then… not really do much to impact his opponent at all. Although… the video does cut off just before Dan’s Legendary taunt ends, so for all we know he finishes by one-hit K.O.-ing his opponent.
Nah. This is Dan, after all.
Anyway, based on this gameplay, I’m certainly going to give Dan a whirl when he comes out as the first of five new characters coming to the game. In some Street Fighter games, Dan is pitched as super goofy, and as a result I’ve found him quite annoying. But here’s he’s a bit more going hard, and I quite like that.
I’m not saying I’m a Dan main all of a sudden, but he’s done enough to catch my attention.
Perhaps that’s all Dan ever really wanted.
