|
Dan's the man,
He'll kick your can,
He
busts out 'da rhymes
even Lieberman can't ban!
He's got the strength
of fifty (dead)
men,
'Ya better step back
when he does his Gadoken!
He fights fo'
his late father Go,
and
shouts "O-ra-ra!"
just like Jotaro!
But he don't need a stand,
'cuz Dan's the
man!
So pack your bags
and leave while you can!
HE'S A NEW WORLD
DAN...
 |
Hey, I finally have something to talk
about on this page! Anyway, it's been confirmed on
several gaming blogs that the home versions of Street
Fighter IV will feature additional characters, including
that master of Saikyo himself, Dan Hibiki. A
page scan from the latest issue of the long-running
Japanese magazine Famitsu was printed on Kotaku,
revealing an older, pudgier, and slightly balder
Dan. The redesign makes him look less like The Art
of Fighting's Ryo Sakazaki and more like his middle-aged
father Takuma. Oddly, while Dan has suffered the
ravages of time, Ken and Ryu look roughly the same as
they had in Street Fighter III... perhaps a little more
rugged, but certainly no older.
If you'd like to take a look at the
Famitsu scan, you'll find it on this page, but be
warned that it's very small and indistinct.
You'll get a better feel for how the older but no wiser
Dan Hibiki will look by clicking on this rough
sketch. As for how he'll fight, there is
no news yet on how that will change, but it's probably
safe to assume that Dan will remain the mediocre martial
artist he's always been since his Street Fighter Alpha
debut. It's also a safe bet that
Dan fans wouldn't have it any other
way! |
THE SONG'S NOT OVER
YET!
Dan Hibiki's still making headlines, thanks to
the recent release of Street Fighter Alpha Anthology for the
Playstation 2. All the Dan you could possibly handle is
packed onto this disc, including four Street Fighter Alpha
games and the razor-sharp parody Super Gem Fighter
Mini-Mix. There's even a hidden mode that gives you some
(but sadly, not all) of Dan's wacky attacks from Marvel Super
Heroes vs. Street Fighter. The Saikyo master's most
memorable move, the Premium Sign, is nowhere to be found, but
the super taunt can still be performed. Check the move
list near the bottom of the page for more information.
OH YEAH, WE'RE
HIP.
Just when you thought there was no new news to
report on Capcom's beautiful loser, along comes Onikage88 with
this Dan Hibiki tribute video. It's surprising that
Dan still inspires this kind of fierce loyalty, even two years
after Capcom gave Hibiki and the rest of the Street Fighter
cast their pink slips.
(Well, a few of the Street Fighter
regulars were taken out of retirement just long
enough to star in Capcom Fighting Evolution. However,
judging from how that turned out, they would have been better
off staying in line for their welfare checks...)
Anyway, click
here and check out what Onikage88 has in
store for you! The fight scenes could have used a bit
more impact (then again, this IS Dan we're talking about...),
but I dare you to keep a straight face when the training
session starts!
THIS JUST IN, FROM NEWS
COMBO 7...
After a year long drought of Dan Hibiki news,
we've finally got something new and exciting to report.
SNK vs. Capcom, the latest and most highly anticipated Neo-Geo
game in years, is currently being tested in a handful of
Japanese arcades. Contributors Chris Kohler and Matt
DelGuidice had a chance to play the game while on assignment
for the the gaming web site Insert Credit, and the two
discovered that Dan Hibiki was hidden in SNK vs. Capcom as a
midboss. The most surprising news is that Dan is one of
the most challenging adversaries in the
game. Neither Chris, Matt, nor the other testers at
Neo-Geo Land were able to defeat the master of Saikyo.
We're not sure what makes Dan so tough, but it's clear that
he'll be getting a whole lot more respect after SNK vs. Capcom
is officially released.
Here's a picture of Chris (left) and Matt
discussing SNK vs. Capcom after returning to their
apartment. Chris wasn't especially impressed by the
game, criticizing it for its unoriginality and similarities to
the Street Fighter Alpha series, but Matt really appreciated
at least one of its features...
CHRIS: "Even
though it includes popular SNK and
Capcom characters,
including Dan..."
MATT: ("Ooooh yeah...")
BEFORE THE DAWN OF
SAIKYO...
We've been scratching our heads trying to figure
out how to add new content to the Dan Hibiki fan page.
After all, our man hasn't been getting many starring
roles lately, and the last games he was in, Capcom vs.
SNK 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, were already released for the
Dreamcast a couple of years ago. Since the present holds
no new Dan-formation, we'll have to look to the past for this
update.
|
|
|
| Let's look back to the mid
1980's. The Saikyo style had yet to be
invented, but its most deadly attack may have been
inspired in small part by one of Capcom's
first games. The mediocre beat 'em up you see
here was called Avengers in the United States, but was
given the title "Hissatsu Buraiken" in Japan.
That's pretty darned close to the name of Dan's flurry
of punches and kicks, the "Hishou Buraiken". By
the way, you can find the game included in Capcom
Classic Collection Remixed for the PSP, but I hope
you've got a better motivation to buy the collection
than Avengers. Final Fight and Captain Commando,
also included on the disc, are ten times better than
Avengers could ever hope to
be! |
 |
Next up is
Kuri Kinton, another substandard beat 'em up featuring a
character that should be pretty familiar to fans of
both Japanese cartoons and fighting
games. Kuri bears more than a passing
resemblence to Goku, the star of Dragonball and its
sequel Dragonball Z. He's just as comical as Goku
was as a child, and has the ability to charge up his
inner strength and throw it in the form of a deadly
fireball, a trick Goku learned later in life.
However, if this attack isn't fully charged, Kuri's
attack fizzles out before it goes anywhere, leaving the
poor boy dumbfounded and the player wondering if
Capcom borrowed this idea when it created Dan
Hibiki. |
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN...
ER, DAN
We've got Dan fan art! Dan fan art... hey,
that's pretty fun to say. Anyway, these two drawings
come from reader David Graham, who contrary to the rumors
really DOES stay crunchy in milk. The first depicts Dan
as a less than stealthy soldier. You'd have to expect
that from him, but let's face it, he can't be much worse than
Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2. The second involves an
understandable case of mistaken identity. Thanks for the
pics, David... there haven't been many Dan Hibiki sightings
lately and your drawings give us a good excuse to update this
page.
TAKE NOTES, THIS IS
IMPORTANT!
Sakura is not related to Dan Hibiki. I repeat...
Sakura is NOT related to Dan Hibiki. I can understand
how people would get this impression after playing Match of
the Millennium on the Neo-Geo Pocket... when you team them up,
Dan and Ryo are collectively referred to as The Big Brothers,
and Dan mentions his "cute sister" in passing at the end of
the game. That cute sister, however, isn't Sakura, and
frankly, she's not all that cute either. You'll see her
in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter after you beat Cyber
Akuma with Dan.
It's probably more accurate to assume that Sakura Kasugano
(another sure sign that the two are not related) trained with
Dan Hibiki, since this was as close as she could get to
learning karate directly from her idol Ryu. In one of
the Street Fighter Alpha 3 endings, Dan proudly announces,
"This is Sakura! I taught her everything she knows!", to
which she replies, "Oh, give me a break..."
GET IN THE RING!
I always thought Dan would make a great character in
Saturday Night Slam Masters. Well, that's never
happened, but if you've got Fire Pro Wrestling for the Game
Boy Advance, you can introduce Dan to a whole new fighting
arena and even pair him up with his wrestling counterpart
Chris "Y2J" Jericho in tag matches. You'll need to
create him in the character edit mode first, but this list of attributes
should help you out.
HERE COMES A NEW
CHALLENGER!
It looks like Saikyo Crusher is catching on with my
readers... both Kao Megura and Mandi Paugh (he's the editor of
the first Dan fan page, she's the backbone of the Official
Mega Man Web Site) really enjoyed my work, and even Pat
Reynolds, the world's foremost critic of the Saikyo style,
admitted that he got a kick out of this page. But some
of the coolest letters I've gotten about Saikyo Crusher have
come from a martial arts Dan-sciple named Aaron Thacker.
A while ago, he came up with a great name for the taunting
Mortal Kombat ninja on this page. I considered calling
him Vermin, but Aaron's own Flamingo is a better fit, so from
now on, that'll be the character's name.
I've decided to thank Aaron for his help by answering some
of his questions about Dan right here on the fan page.
He asked about a lot of stuff that I didn't think to include
in Saikyo Crusher, so printing his letter and my response will
also help make this page a little more complete.
I wrote to you before and here I am again with some new
questions about your favorite Street Fighter and mine, the
pink panther of shotokan, Dan Hibiki.
Cool, fire away!
First off, I've read that Dan and his being a parody of
Ryo came from a background picture of Sagat beating up what
appeared to be an early version of Dan, and it said it was in
one of the earlier Street Fighter games.
Yeah, it was in a bit of press artwork promoting Super
Street Fighter II (which Dan wasn't even in!). You can
find it and a lot of other pics of Mr. Hibiki at another Dan
tribute site, Saikyo.com.
I remember in Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold that whenever
Ryu went up against Sagat (not vice-versa), Sagat appears to
have just finished his victory over another fighter. It
only lasts a couple of seconds, but I could just tell it was
Dan, except he was in an orange gi costume and wearing
sandals. Now was that Capcom's final attempt at making
fun of SNK's Ryo (even if Dan was in the light of day of that
game) or could it have been something else like Dan's
father?
I think it's supposed to be Dan. You see, Dan
desperately wants to defeat Sagat for killing his
father. If you play as Dan, it's actually possible to
beat Sagat, but if you play as Ryu, it turns out that Dan was
easily beaten and Sagat just tosses him away like yesterday's
garbage.
I'm sure that you know that Ryo is in the new Capcom
vs. SNK, but unfortunately Dan wasn't. Gee I wonder why
not? That would've been a neat fight!
Well, there's always Capcom vs. SNK Pro, which is going to
have a whopping two new characters... one of them is Dan, and
the other is Joe Higashi, the wacky gator-eating kick boxer
from the Fatal Fury series. Both of them made a cameo
appearance in the ending of the first Capcom vs. SNK, but you
couldn't play as them, which was disappointing (kind of like
the game itself).
(Pictures provided
by Chris MacDonald, aka Kao Megura)
Speaking of Capcom and SNK, you can pit Dan against Ryo
right now in Match of the Millennium for the Neo-Geo
Pocket. SNK's portable system is dead in the United
States, and they're only making girlie mahjong games for it in
Japan, but I still strongly recommend buying it. The
Capcom/SNK crossover games alone make the system worth the
investment... and there are a lot of other great games for the
Neo-Geo Pocket as well.
I also wondered... is Dan
really Chinese or Japanese? In Alpha 2 his background is in
Hong Kong, but in Alpha 3 he's in Japan and I know his last
name is Hibiki. I guess he must be Japanese like Ryu,
Akuma, etc., but I was just wondering.
I think the designers intended for this to be a mystery...
you know, like what Akuma does to his opponents when he
performs the Raging Demon, or why Capcom keeps making Resident
Evil games. I think I read somewhere (possibly Kao
Megura's old site) that Dan's heritage isn't clear, although
the name Hibiki is Japanese (suggesting that Dan is as
well).
And about Dan's background stage in Alpha 3,
I don't know about that simple swing set in someone's back
yard. Is it Dan's childhood home or yet another parody
of something from Art of Fighting/King of Fighters?
I never saw a round like this in any of the Art of Fighting
or King of Fighters games, so I doubt it's a parody of
them. I think it's more of a stab at Dan himself,
hinting that he's just a child (skill-wise) in a sport of
men.
I've also seen Dan in some beautifully drawn manga
parodies from Japan... (including) a flashback of Dan's father
Go fighting Sagat. Go looks different than what he may
be envisioned as, another parody from the Art of
Fighting. Did the final boss of that game wear a goblin
mask? Is that why Dan's father is envisioned in a very
ugly cartoony sense?
Yeah. I should have added this to Saikyo Crusher when
I first published it, actually. Ryo's father was
disguised as a cheesy villain named Mr. Karate (also known as
just ?) at the end of the first Art of Fighting. Once
you beat him, Ryo is about to finish him off when Yuri, his
sister, begs him not to do it. Now, in the end of the
Genesis and Neo-Geo versions, they don't actually come right
out and TELL you that Mr. Karate was actually Ryo's dad, but
Art of Fighting for the Super NES explains everything in great
detail. You can find this ending right here if you don't
want to actually play the game (and I couldn't blame you,
because the Super NES version of Art of Fighting was actually
worse than the other ones)...
http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/a/artfight.htm
That's from the Video Game Museum,
by the way. It's a great site for those times when you
want to see what a game looks like before you buy or download
it, or when you want to see the ending of a particular title
you were never able to beat yourself.
Anyways, Mr. Karate wears what's called a Tengu mask before
he's revealed to be Ryo's father. A Tengu is a creature
in Japanese mythology... he's a winged human with a very long
nose and an arrogant personality. Dan's dead father
always appears with a Tengu's face and nose for two reasons...
the first is because he's a parody of Ryo's father
Takuma. The second is because Dan is a little too
confident of his abilities... sort of like a Tengu, who also
has a high opinion of himself.
Oh, and Dan finally makes his animated debut in Street
Fighter Alpha: The Movie from Manga Video. I haven't
seen it yet, but from the cel photos he looks pretty hip, not
to mention he appears to have an earring on his left
ear! I read he goes up against Vega, but is defeated...
Oh dear, not good for his first anime appearance, but hey,
Akuma and Sakura are in it as well!
I heard Vega slices him up pretty badly... my fried Matt
DelGuidice was wondering if he could have survived after
that. But what the heck, the characters in Japanese
cartoons take an incredible amount of damage and still manage
to survive, sometimes with only a few cuts and bruises.
Well, if they're the main characters, anyways. In the
Gundam series, the heroes cut through dozens of rival mechs
with ridiculous ease... I have to wonder why the Earth forces
even bother to send out those Leos when they know they're
going to be nuked the minute they enter the battlefield.
It's worse than those episodes of Walker: Texas Ranger where
Chuck Norris never gets hit, even once. Wait...
nothing's worse than Walker: Texas Ranger.
Well, that's all I have to ask and sorry this letter's
such a long one.
Hey, no problem.
but since you're a Dan buff, you seemed to be the right
guy to ask.
Thanks. I hope I was of some assistance.
WHO WAS THAT BUSHY-EYEBROWED
MAN?
 That was, and
is, Dan Hibiki. Dan was created by Capcom as a release
for their frustration with rival SNK, which has been the Royal
Crown to Capcom's Coke for nearly a decade... ever since it
released the games Fatal Fury and The Art of Fighting for its
Neo-Geo. The Neo-Geo was originally designed as an
affordable arcade system with replaceable cartridges.
These cartridges usually contained games similar to popular
titles that pool halls, convenience stores, and arcade
operators on a tight budget just couldn't afford... for
instance, Burning Fight and Ninja Combat were a lot like
Capcom's Final Fight, and Magician Lord was a hybrid of Sega's
Shinobi series and Shadow of the Beast for the Amiga line of
computers (while this never was an arcade game, Beast was
hugely popular in the late 1980's, and SNK felt that its
stunning graphics and fast, simple gameplay would work even
better in arcades). Fatal Fury was created as a cheap
alternative to Street Fighter II, and it probably would have
been the Neo-Geo's last one-on-one fighting game... if it
hadn't been for SFII's surprising success. It wasn't
long before SNK changed its business strategy and transformed
the Neo-Geo from a system with something for everyone to a
weapon whose chambers were loaded with dozens of Street
Fighter II killers. At least, that's what SNK hoped
they'd be. Unfortunately for them, most of the fighting
games on the Neo-Geo just bounced off Capcom's chest like so
many contrived BBs.
 Capcom put up with this at
first... Fatal Fury wasn't exactly like Street Fighter
II, and its tiny selection of characters insured that people
would always play their game first if given the chance.
But then SNK released The Art of Fighting, and Capcom got a
little testy. I can't really blame them for that... the
star of SNK's game, Ryo Sakazaki, bore a disturbing
resemblence to their own wandering warrior, Ryu Hoshino (or
Hoshi, if you're going by the names in the Street Fighter
film... but who'd want to do that?). Their signature
attacks were similar, their outfits were pretty much the same,
and even their names were almost exactly alike. Oddly,
Capcom didn't break out the lawyers over this or World Heroes
(a game that could just as easily have been called I Can't
Believe It's Not Street Fighter), waiting instead for Data
East's Fighter's History... but they did do something about
it. They taunted SNK, first with a comic in a
short-lived Capcom newsletter. In it, Ryu stumbles
across a mysterious, yet achingly familiar fighter and manages
to defeat him only AFTER coming up with a new move he hadn't
ripped off yet. Then came the picture of Sagat with his
monstrous hand wrapped around the head of... wait, that isn't
Ryo, is it? SNK still wasn't getting the point, so
Capcom took its frustration and anger, pounded it into a soupy
pink mess, and sculpted it into a crude parody of the
character that had leeched from them for years. They
took this statue, put it on the world's highest pedestal,
threw a dozen blinding spotlights on it, and SCREAMED at the
top of their lungs, "THIS IS DAN HIBIKI!!!"
To put it simply, Dan Hibiki is Ryo Sakazaki on a bad
day... actually, his absolute worst day. In the first
two Art of Fighting games, Ryo had a spirit gauge which
emptied as he performed special moves. Once that meter
was bone-dry, his best attacks became hilariously weak, and he
was forced to taunt his opponent to leave them in the same
position so he could channel his energy and bring himself back
up to speed. Dan, however, is pathetic right out of the
starting gate, and his taunt is the best move he's got.
His projectile has all the distance of a thrown snowball on
Mercury, his jumping uppercut has plenty of lift but no
horizontal reach, and instead of a powerful hurricane kick,
Dan's stuck with a jumping kick flail that delivers about as
many hits as Vanilla Ice. This, of course, leads us to
the question...
WHY WOULD ANYONE WASTE QUARTERS ON THAT
LOSER?
 That's
my friend Pat's reaction whenever I choose Dan.
Actually, since there are no worthwhile arcades in the
mid-Michigan area, he usually just walks in the living room
when I'm playing as Mr. Hibiki in Street Fighter Alpha 3 or
Marvel vs. Capcom 2, mutters "Oh, brother..." under his
breath, and walks right back out. I'm sure other
Saikyo-ites have had to put up with similar putdowns from
their own friends, and that's a shame, because Dan is actually
a lot of fun to play. The reason I like him is that he's
not as thunderously powerful as Ryu or Ken, yet because his
fighting style is similar to theirs, I don't have to spend
endless hours mastering entirely different (but just as wimpy)
characters like Rolento or Cody.
Even if that doesn't appeal to you, Dan's amusing
personality just has to win your over. Now here's a guy
who just doesn't get it... he's a rotten fighter, probably not
worthy of the black belt he wears, yet he's absolutely
convinced that his self-taught fighting style will
revolutionize the world of martial arts, and thinks so highly
of himself that he gives out autographs in the middle of
matches! This apparently rubbed off on Midway, who had
its vengeance on actor Danny Pesina (who left its popular
Mortal Kombat series to create his own guild for actors
appearing in video games. Wow, talk about your major
league mistakes!) by reintroducing his character Johnny Cage
in the fourth Mortal Kombat game... and turning him into a
self-absorbed moron that nobody likes. Unlike Dan,
Johnny Cage's attacks weren't redesigned to make this obvious
(why would Midway need to? His moves already sucked!),
but if you beat the Playstation version of MK4 with him, you
get an ending that's quite different from those of the other
fighters. Johnny takes center stage at an awards
ceremony and makes the unfortunate mistake of taking shots at
the studio audience, who fire back with boos, hisses, and the
occasional beer bottle.
 Wait, wait, I was going somewhere with
this. Oh yeah... the reason why people like Dan
(although many of them won't admit it!) is because they admire
losers. There was this great episode of Coach that
perfectly illustrates my point. Jerry Van Dyke stands up
in a fancy restaurant and gives his friend this sage bit of
advice... "You know, being a loser isn't so bad. I mean,
if you're a winner all your life, you start to expect
victories, and when you finally lose you don't understand what
happened... it just eats you up inside. Losing doesn't
bother a loser, though- they're used to it! Besides,
winners have their goals set way too high. When a loser
sets his goals, he just puts the bar down as far as possible
so he can step right over it. Hey, check this out!
I'm setting my bar! And I'm clearing it, too!" As
Jerry also mentioned, losers don't have things like dignity to
drag them down. They can completely embarass themselves
and they'll just get right back up and try again, whereas
someone with more pride would be crushed by a single
failure. And that's why Dan keeps coming back for more
fights- and more punishment. No matter how many times he
falls, he'll never be discouraged... and when he finally drops
an opponent, that victory is far more special than any of
Ryu's, who's wandered around the world for years, searching in
vain for a battle that will truly satisfy him.
THE HIBIKI FAMILY TREE
As you can see from this chart, the Hibiki heritage is a
puzzle with a lot of pieces missing, and the few that are left
sometimes fit together a little strangely. At the top of
the tree is Donovan, the vampire hunter (D?) from the
Darkstalkers series. He's rumored to be the great
ancestor of Dan, and I can believe it... the family
resemblence is obvious. Not only is Donovan a parody of
a video game character, in this case Simon Belmont from
Castlevania, he's also got the same determined sneer and
hairstyle as his great great grandson, complete with a lock of
hair leaping from his forehead. Hundreds of years later,
Dan's father Go was born... and unwisely decided to compete
against Sagat in a Street Fighter tournament. It's said
that Sagat killed Go in a blind rage after one of his eyes
were, um, forcefully removed in that battle, but Marvel vs.
Street Fighter suggested that Go- or should I say GouKI- is
alive and more powerful than ever. Once Dan manages to
beat Cyber Akuma (Mech Gouki) in that game, he stands over his
bruised body and announces, "You've made a fool out of me for
long enough! Now we'll see who the REAL champion
is!" Before he's able to beat the 10W30 out of the
cybernetic fiend, a girl in a Japanese school uniform (who
looks disturbingly like Dan in drag) comes out of nowhere and
shouts, "Don't do it, Dan! That man is our...
our..." Although it's clear that this is a parody of the
ending in the first Art of Fighting, you've still got to
wonder if there's some truth to it. At the end of
NightWarriors, Donovan eventually surrenders to his vampire
urges and goes on a killing rampage, much like Akuma, who
hunts down worthy opponents and fights them to the
death. Don't worry, though... if Dan does have vampire
in him, it's been diluted to the point where instead of
sucking blood, he just sucks. ^_^ Last on the tree is
Dan, his still unnamed sister (Danielle? Daniko?),
and... wait a minute, how the hell did Balrog get in
there? The clue's in the 'do... both Dan and Balrog have
that crazy starburst on their foreheads that's a Hibiki
trademark. Could they be distant cousins?
THE EVOLUTION OF
DAN
SUPER STREET FIGHTER II: While Dan
wasn't in this game, he first appeared in some press artwork
promoting it. The picture in question showed Sagat
clutching an unworthy challenger's head like a
basketball. Surprisingly, Capcom built on the character
and presented a playable version of him in...
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA: The first
Street Fighter game with taunts was also the first starring
Dan. In fact, you had to taunt uninterrupted in every
round of the first five matches to get a crack at him.
Past this trademark association with taunts, Dan hadn't
developed much of a personality, and it seemed as though he
was shoehorned into the game... he shares voice samples with
Ryu, his Gadoken animation doesn't look quite right (just look
at the way he holds out his fist! Weird...), and his
ending is just terrible... all he does is roll back and forth,
irritating the hell out of a nearby M. Bison and probably the
player as well. Lucky for us, he was reintroduced to the
series in...
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA 2: Dan was
given full character status in this game... you didn't have to
memorize a ridiculously long code to gain access to him, and
he was given his very own voice, including such classic
exclamations as "Oyajiii!" and "Yahooie!". His
relationship to Sagat was finally explained in detail, and Dan
was even given the ability to build up his super energy by
taunting... and the opportunity to waste it with a very showy
(yet very risky) extended taunt.
SUPER PUZZLE FIGHTER II TURBO: Dan's
unremarkable abilities were made fifteen times worse in this
already tough puzzle game, starring characters from two
popular Capcom series (and that dumb mech game they released
in Japan... but let's not go there). I mean, sure, Dan's
Gadoken may not do much damage, but at least it doesn't circle
around and hit him in the back of the head.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens in Puzzle
Fighter... in the game, you fight your opponent by dropping
unusable gems into his playfield. However, these gems
don't stay useless forever, and will eventually change into a
color after a certain number of turns (displayed on the
counter gem's face). Each character has their own
pattern of colors for their counter gems, and Dan's is all
red, all the time. This leaves you three options if you
insist on using Dan... the first is to fill the opponent's
playfield with gems so quickly that he never has a chance to
play the red orb necessary to destroy them all. The
second is to create layers of counter gems, so that when one
batch of counter gems become red, you've got another line of
unusable gems covering them. The third is to, well, bend
over and take it right in the couch cushion. I have a
friend who claims he can beat half his opponents with Dan...
if this is in fact true, I hope he shows me mercy when he uses
that 10,000 point IQ to conquer the world.
MARVEL VS. STREET FIGHTER: Dan truly
came of age here... if he were Jewish, this sequel to the
popular tag-team fighting game X-Men vs. Street Fighter would
have been his bar mitzvah. And oy oh boy, what a
celebration it was! Some of Dan's best win quotes are in
this game, including the classic "I'm sorry... no, you
are!". Dan also invented two great new moves to combat
Marvel's powerful supervillians... the Premium Sign (which so
far has only appeared in the Marvel vs. games) and the Otoko
Michi, the energy hungry super attack that really puts the
"blow" in death blow. Dan even makes an appearance in
two of the game's endings, and both of them are pretty funny,
especially the one where he claims to be a cyborg and Akuma
responds by both stripping him of his costume and knocking him
into orbit with a single punch.
POCKET FIGHTER: I consider this more
of a walking billboard for Capcom than a legitimate extension
of the Street Fighter series, but what the heck... it was fun
for a little while, and it took licenses with the Street
Fighter and Darkstalkers characters that wouldn't have been
possible in Capcom's more serious games. The cartoony
environment benefitted the already amusing Dan the most...
now, instead of just fighting and throwing the occasional
autograph, he could break out the rhinestone jumpsuit and belt
out a few lines from Kentucky Rain as well! Dan could
even rely on his dead father as both a heavy blunt object (Dan
grabs his dad's corpse by the nose and swings him at
opponents!) and a panic button when things looked bleak.
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA 3: Mandi Paugh
suggested that I include this game for the sake of
completeness... I suppose it's only fair that I do, since the
Dreamcast version IS subtitled "Saikyo Dojo". So here it
is. To be honest, I tried to avoid listing it here
before this because Dan didn't really evolve at all in Alpha
3... his new win quotes are so-so (pretty dull in comparison
to his comments in Marvel vs. Street Fighter, actually), and
he only has two new abilities. One, the aerial kick
flail, is pretty handy, but the other, a super move that locks
him into taunt mode for a half minute, is both worthless and
not really all that funny... the Premium Sign was a lot more
entertaining. Worst of all, the Dan Factor has been
reduced to almost nothing in the Game Boy Advance version,
where he's forced to borrow his voice from Ken and lets out
only slightly self confident grunts while performing
taunts. The latest translation of Alpha 3 may have
been wonderful for the rest of us, but not for Dan... he just
doesn't have game here.
MATCH OF THE MILLENNIUM: Dan's
growth had hit a brick wall in Street Fighter Alpha 3... they
hadn't given him any new moves except for a rather lame super
that prevented him from doing anything but taunting for thirty
seconds, and he didn't even get to keep the Premium Sign that
made him so much fun to use in Marvel vs. Street
Fighter. Fortunately, when SNK made Match of the
Millennium for the Neo-Geo Pocket, they paid special attention
to Dan, giving him a hilarious super taunt (where he imitates
everyone from Mai Shiranui- minus the boobs, thankfully- to
Kyo Kusanagi from The King of Fighters) and some of the best
win quotes he's ever had. Unfortunately, SNK hints
throughout the game that Dan is a clone of their own character
Ryo... I guess they conveniently forgot that he was a PARODY
of a character that was quite obviously a store brand
imitation of Ryu, the star of the Street Fighter series.
Still, I'd have to say that this is Dan's best appearance in a
video game so far, and it doesn't look like it'll be topped
until Capcom releases a sequel to Pocket Fighter.
MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 2: Dan wasn't
improved in Street Fighter Alpha 3, and he wasn't getting any
closer to the right end of the evolutionary chart here
either. There are three strikes against Hibiki in this
game, and here they are... Strike 1: Dan's moves weren't
enhanced or improved. Strike 2: He's got nothing
to say (there are no win quotes for anyone in the game,
but this especially hurts Dan). Strike 3: You've
got to earn Dan with versus points, and he's more expensive
than a pardon from Bill Clinton in 2000 (or a gallon of gas in
2006!). I would be upset about this, but since the
game's got fifty-six playable characters, awesome polygonal
backgrounds, three player teams, and split-second load times,
let's just say that I've learned to live with it.
CAPCOM VS. SNK PRO: Talk about an
evolutionary backslide. Dan is supposed to be a wimpy
character, but Capcom took things too far when they introduced
him to Capcom vs. SNK. He's been (badly) redrawn, so not
only is he uglier than he was in the Street Fighter Alpha
series, his kicks and punches- especially the most powerful
ones- have lost a lot of reach. Similarly, his fireball
(despite whoop-de-doo transparency effects) looks like crap
and is even less effective than before. You don't even
have to block it... if you're close enough to Dan, it'll fly
right past you, cheating him out of any damage at all AND
making him vulnerable to your next attack. Worst of all,
the ratio system has definitely not worked to Dan's
advantage... now his attacks are practically useless even if
they DO connect because they do so little damage.
CAPCOM VS. SNK 2: That's more like
it, Capcom. Dan's still drawn a little strangely but he
doesn't seem quite as toned down (to nothing) as he was in
Pro. In fact, I fought a friend who created two custom
characters, a Ratio 4 Ryu he named after himself and a Ratio 4
Dan recolored to look like my picture from Karate class, and I
almost beat him. My friend's a tough opponent, too, so
Capcom must have put at least a little spike back into Dan's
punch.
[Speaking of improvements, Capcom vs. SNK 2 is a lot better
as well... it's got more characters and much more freedom of
customization, although the backgrounds, 3D or not, didn't get
my yayas up (the rooftop location is great, but the others...
I dunno. I never knew Woody from Toy Story was this fond
of beer...). That's fine, though, because like I said,
there are many more fighters in this game, and unlike Capcom
vs. SNK only a couple were bad choices. I'm really
impressed with Eagle... he was the best character in the first
Street Fighter and he's definitely pulling his weight in this
game. I'm hoping he'll be just as fun to play in the
Game Boy Advance version of Street Fighter Alpha 3.]
SNK VS. CAPCOM: SVC CHAOS: Hey, look
who's back! Playmore managed to piece SNK back together
from the scraps its previous owner, Aruze, had left
behind. To celebrate its return, Playmore has pitted its
most popular characters against Capcom's in a Neo-Geo
exclusive. Among the fighters included is Dan
Hibiki, a hidden character who challenges you in the
third round of the game. SNK's done a great job with
their interpretation of the master of Saikyo, giving him
additional moves, a slick new look, and some of the best lines
of dialogue in the game. You haven't had this much fun
with Dan since the golden days of Marvel Super Heroes vs.
Street Fighter!
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA ANTHOLOGY: This
isn't so much a new release as a collection of old ones.
Submitted for your approval are translations of Street Fighter
Alphas 1, 2, Gold, and 3, along with the hilarious Pocket
Fighter and an exclusive versus mode that lets you mix and
match characters from all the Alpha games. Dan appears
in every one of the titles in this package, including the
bonus game. There's even the option to use the
Saikyo superstar's fireball from Marvel Super Heroes vs.
Street Fighter... although I'm not sure you'd want it, since
it's even wimpier than it was in the Alpha games!
DAN'S GOT THE WAYS TO MOVE YOU,
YEAH...
Here are the building blocks of Dan's Saikyo fighting
style, including fireballs, jumping flail kicks, and most
importantly, a wide variety of taunts. Also listed are
the joystick motions for each move, for both Capcom's Street
Fighter games and SNK's Match of the Millennium if the motions
differ.
SPECIAL MOVES
GADOKEN
  (all games)
 Dan takes a handful of his inner strength and tosses
it at his opponent in the form of a powerful ball of
light. Unfortunately, he can't put any distance on it,
so the attack won't do him much good unless he gets in close
to his opponent or uses it to counter other projectiles.
The Gadoken varies in effectiveness from game to game.
In Match of the Millennium, it's a pretty nifty move since the
Neo-Geo Pocket's small screen keeps the fighters fairly close
together, but in, say, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you're not going
to get too much mileage out of it since that game's super jump
allows your sparring partner to keep a safe horizontal and
vertical distance from you. The best use for the Gadoken
is to first jump at your opponent, throw a kick or punch, then
perform the Gadoken just after you land to drive him
back. It won't knock him down, but it should give you
just enough distance to escape before he tries a jumping
uppercut or another similar move.
KORYUKEN
 (all games)
 Dan leaps upward with his fist raised to the
sky. It's your ordinary, average jumping uppercut with
both a flaw and the occasional benefit... on one hand, Dan's
Koryuken doesn't have much horizontal range, but on the other
hand, Dan will sometimes flash before taking to the air... if
he does this, he can't be countered until he lands. The
frequency of this flash varies from game to game... it seems
to happen most often in Match of the Millennium. On the flip
side of the coin, Dan can't flash at all in the original
Street Fighter Alpha, and was given the special point draining
"What Gives?!" in Card Fighters' Clash instead of a small
chance to avoid damage while attacking (in my opinion, this
would have been a much better ability).
Aaanyway, the Koryuken is basically a toned-down dragon
punch, and can be used just like one, although you'd be wise
to get in close to your opponent before letting one fly.
Like most of Dan's moves, it has limited range, and
overestimating its reach could land you right into the open
(and unloving) arms of your opponent. Also, when
performing the Koryuken in SVC Chaos, be sure the joystick is
held in the down-forward position before pressing the punch
button... otherwise, the game won't recognize the motion and
Dan won't perform the move.
DANKUKYAKU
  (all games)
 Dan's jumping flail kick is one of his better moves,
although it's still nowhere near as cool as the attack that
inspired it, Ryo Sakazaki's Hien-Shippu-Kyaku. Ryo would
leap into his opponent like a bullet, plant a flaming foot
into his stomach, then knock him away with a roundhouse kick
to the head. The Dankukyaku is a bit more humble,
dishing out up to three jump kicks with just enough pause
between them to allow the opponent to sneak in a quick dragon
punch. Still, it puts pressure on your foe, and a strong
Dankukyaku can really leave a mark if all three of the kicks
connect. In Street Fighter Alpha 3, Dan gained the
ability to perform the Dankukyaku in mid-air... this is a
superb escape tactic because if you perform the flail kick at
the top of a jump, it sends Dan safely over his opponent and
to the opposite edge of the screen.
SHIN GADOUKEN
  (SVC
Chaos only)
 Oddly, Dan
doesn't have a super fireball in his latest game, SNK vs.
Capcom: SVC Chaos. The good news is that he can break
out a really large Gadouken anytime he feels like it, even if
his super meter is bone dry. After the move is
performed, Dan leans backward slightly, charges a ball of
energy in his hands, then unleashes a projectile that's more
firewall than fireball. On the downside, it takes a
couple of seconds for Dan to fully charge the attack, making
him vulnerable during the entire time. Worse yet, the
Shin Gadouken has little to no reach, just like Dan's smaller
projectiles. Don't expect to get a lot of mileage out of
this attack... it was included as a tounge-in-cheek reference
to Dan's similarities to both Robert Garcia and his friend Ryo
Sakazaki.
COUNTERSTRIKE
  + (SVC
Chaos only)
 This is Dan's first ever counter
attack, a parody of a similar move used by Takuma Sakazaki in
the King of Fighters games. Dan summons all
his power (what power he has, anyway...), intercepts his
enemy's attack, then strikes back with a devastating punch
that knocks the assailant away. Unfortunately, since Dan
hasn't quite mastered his newest move yet, he sprains his
hand on the opponent's chest! Dan then crouches down,
clutching his injured hand with his back turned away, probably
to hide the tears streaming down his face. He continues
to nurse his wound for about a second before he turns around,
gives a reassuring thumbs up to the player, and stands to
fight once again. Once again, this is more of a novelty
than a useful attack. It's surprisingly tough to
perform, and the player is left vulnerable while
Dan recovers from his self-inflicted injuries.
Luckily, the opponent is knocked so far away that they're
rarely given a chance to retaliate.
PREMIUM SIGN
(Marvel vs. games only, NOT
the M-ism mode in Street Fighter Alpha Anthology)
 Trust me, I'm not keeping anything from you... the
Premium Sign was only recently introduced (in 1997's Marvel
vs. Street Fighter) and isn't available in most of Dan's
games, including Match of the Millennium. Consider this
retouched graphic a visual aid.
Anyways, the Premium Sign is and probably will remain Dan's
only long-distance projectile. Dan whips out an 8"x10"
glossy, signs it, then flings it at his opponent, who he
assumes will be ecstatic to get an autograph from such an
incredible martial artist. Instead, the photo, in true
Dan style, hits the other player in the forehead and gives
them a paper cut. To add insult to (minimal) injury,
you'll be rewarded with a screen flash if you can finish off
your last opponent with the Premium Sign. OK, so that's
not likely to happen, since it takes Dan a while to scribble
his name onto the picture, and even after he tosses it, it
doesn't exactly rip through the air at lightning speed.
Still, you could always use it if you're out of super
energy and still want to make it clear to your opponent (and
everyone in the room) that you've kicked his keister.
Also, you can use the light Premium Sign to snuff out
fireballs, or mix the occasional snapshot in with your more
substancial moves to annoy your rival and amuse your
friends.
Sadly, you're not going to find this signature move in the
recently released Street Fighter Alpha Anthology... Dan has an
M-ism mode there that's supposed to give him all his
moves from the Marvel vs. series, but the Premium Sign is
conspicuously absent. For shame, Capcom!
CHOHATSU (TAUNT)
TAUNT, duck and
TAUNT, jump then TAUNT
(in Match of the Millennium, +)
 Dan wasn't much more than a palatte swap of Ryu and
Ken in the original Street Fighter Alpha, but he did have one
ability that they, and the rest of the game's cast, didn't...
while they could only taunt once per round, he could do it as
often as he wanted. In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Dan could
taunt on land, in the air, and even in the sea (if that puddle
in Gen's round counts...), and taunting gave him a slight
boost in super energy, a feature that would become even more
useful when he was paired up with partners in Marvel vs.
Street Fighter.
There is a downside to this, of course... when you taunt,
you can't fight or defend yourself, and unless you've put a
good distance between yourself and your opponent, they can
drop a combo on you while you're nailed to the floor.
And if you're playing one of the Marvel vs. games, it doesn't
matter how far you are from the other player... they
can quite literally fire a screen-engulfing laser at you
faster than you can say "Oh-shabu-sha!"
Your best bet is to use taunts defensively, and pass the
super energy gained from them onto your partner unless you're
confident that Dan's own supers will do the job. And
whenever you jump away from your enemy, especially in the
Marvel vs. games, let out a "Yahooie!" so the leap will serve
two purposes... to preserve the life you've got left and to
charge up your super meter.
ROLLING
TAUNT
TAUNT
to roll forward (in Match of the Millennium, press +)
TAUNT to roll backward
(in Match of the Millennium, press  +)
 Rolling taunt! Roooollling taaaaunt! This
is Dan's answer to the defensive roll Ken earned in Street
Fighter Alpha 2, only Dan ends his with an insult. I
don't recommend using this because it gives your adversary two
chances to tag you- the first is while you're rolling away
(rather slowly, I might add), and the second is when Dan gets
up and shakes his fist. And the forward roll? Oy... You
might as well forget that exists. Only use the rolling
taunt if you're really desperate for super energy, because
it'll charge you up faster than the stationary or jumping
taunts.
SUPER MOVES
SHINKUU GADOKEN
(all games but SVC
Chaos)
An enhanced
version of Dan's fireball, this drains one level of his super
meter but has a lot more juice than the regular Gadoken, doing
a great deal more damange and travelling a lot further. The
Shinkuu Gadoken was practically a wrecking ball in Marvel vs.
Street Fighter, doing immense damage at point blank
range. The move lost a lot of that pepper in the Alpha
games, although you could get some distance from it if you put
a full meter of super energy behind it. Match of the
Millennium balances out the Shinkuu Gadoken a bit... however,
if you have a full super meter when you perform it, Dan
charges up for about two seconds and lets go of Ryo's
fireball, the Haoh-Oh-Ken, instead!
Generally, your best bet is to treat the Shinkuu Gadoken
like its less powerful cousin, softening up your opponent with
a jump kick or punch then letting them have it with the attack
when you land. That way, you'll be nice and close to the
enemy and the Shinkuu Gadoken can do the most possible
damage. It's worth pointing out that Dan has been robbed
of this attack in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos. However, he
has a similar move, the Shin Gadouken, which can be performed
at any time, with or without energy stored in your super
meter.
KORYUREKKA
(all games)
 Yeech! With a move like this it's no wonder
most gamers don't give Dan the respect he deserves. Dan
leaps into the air with a Koryuken, then does another, higher
one. Neither of them have any reach, and the odds of them
doing any useful damage are about as high as finding a parent
who would leave their child in an empty room with Michael
Jackson. The worst part about this mistake is that it's very
easy to perform by mistake, so practice a bit and try
to disassociate the kick button with double fireball
motions. In the games without the Premium Sign, don't
use fireball motions with the kick button at all... that way,
you'll never have to worry about performing the dreaded
Koryurekka by accident.
HISHOU BURAI-KEN
(all games)
 Way back in the original Art of
Fighting, Ryo Sakazaki was given a secret attack that could
only be performed when his life was low and his inner strength
was high. Once performed, Ryo would pounce toward his
enemy and invest his ki in a kicking, punching, clawing,
maiming, stop with the hurting dance of death that was without
a doubt the most powerful attack in any fighting game
available at the time.
Dan's Hishou Burai-Ken is a more conservative version of
this attack... instead of rushing toward his opponent and
hoping to connect with an opening blow, Dan wisely stays put
and strikes repeatedly even if his first attack is
unsuccessful. This is different from most of the
autocombos in Capcom's fighting games, which are an all or
nothing bet... in an attack like Wolverine's Weapon X, if the
first hit doesn't meet its target, you'll be left vulnerable,
and your opponent will get the chance to make you regret your
mistake. However, if the Burai-Ken isn't successful,
Dan's rapid-fire punches and kicks offer him some protection
against counterattacks.
Like the Shinkuu Gadoken, the strongest version of this
attack was enhanced in Match of the Millennium... after he's
done wailing on him, Dan pops his opponent into the air with
an uppercut, then cocks back and waits to intercept the sap on
his way down with an especially powerful punch.
Naturally, the punch misses and Dan's jaw hits the floor as
the enemy drops safely to the ground.
CHOHATSU DENSETSU (LEGENDARY TAUNT)
TAUNT, Marvel
vs. series (includes the M-ism mode in Street Fighter
Alpha Anthology)
, Match of the
Millennium
 People call this move
"worthless", but worthless is such an ugly word. OK,
well, in this case, it's also an accurate one. But what
the heck... even though a small child could knock you out of
this extended taunt, it's still fun to try. Dan's
actions in the Chohatsu Densetsu vary from game to game...
it's a rather plain series of rolling taunts in Street Fighter
Alpha 2, but in Match of the Millennium, Dan will leave
you rolling on the floor with his wacky imitations of
Kyo, Sakura, Chun-Li, Mai, and Akuma. This feature
wasn't included in Capcom vs. SNK 2, sadly, but it does have
the benefit of fully charging your super meter if you can
finish the taunt. It can be done, at least against a
computer opponent... one of my adversaries just stood there
watching the show while Dan spent several seconds rolling
around squealing insults.
OTOKO MICHI
(aka THE PATH OF MAN, REVERSE SHUN GOKU
SATSU, AND SUPER SUICIDE SMASHER)
(in Match of
the Millennium,  ) (not available in the Alpha series)
 Dan glides toward his opponent on wings of fury,
clutches him in a death grip, summons up all his inner
strength, and creates an explosion that rips him to
shreds. Dan, that is. Don't worry, though... his
opponent is injured, too. Well, a little. Now you
know what your parents meant when they said "this is gonna
hurt me more than it hurts you!" So what the heck use is
an attack that bruises your opponent and puts you in a body
cast? Well, it's a great finisher in the Marvel vs.
games if your enemy has lost one fighter and his other one is
barely standing... the Otoko Michi is just the finger flick to
the forehead you needs to take him down for good.
Just don't overestimate the Otoko Michi... the other player
may have enough energy to survive the blast, but once Dan
explodes, he'll be extremely vulnerable and won't be able to
recover any of the energy he lost. Also, the other
player can wriggle out of Dan's grip by violently shaking the
joystick and pounding the attack buttons... in this case, Dan
doesn't explode but he still loses the three levels of super
energy he needed to perform the attack. And what
else? Oh, yeah, as I'm sure you've heard (probably
either from Kao or Matt), the Otoko Michi is much more
powerful in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, changing Dan from the game's
comic relief to a powerful (but unreliable) smart bomb.
Just use Dan as you normally would, and when he's lost most of
his energy, perform the Otoko Michi on your opponent's most
annoying character (Wolverine comes to mind). That
fighter will lose half of their energy and all you'll have
sacrificed is three levels of super meter and a team member
who was already on the brink of defeat.
ATTACKS IN CARD FIGHTERS'
CLASH:
 |
 |
DAN, CHARACTER
CARD:
Dan has an instant ability called "What
Gives?!" in both Card Fighter's Clash and the sequel,
Expand Edition... when this card is played, both players
lose six of their special points (used for creating
teams of attacking characters or playing action
cards). This happens because in SNK's earlier
fighting games, taunting would make your opponent lose
super energy. However, when Dan taunts, he GAINS
super energy, so maybe that should have been his ability
instead. |
|
SAGAT, CHARACTER
CARD:
Dan makes a cameo appearance in this
card... begging for mercy while in Sagat's clutches,
naturally. Anyway, this B ranked card has an
ability called True Power... when used, both players
must reveal their cards to one another, then discard any
action cards they may have had. It's a pretty raw
deal for everyone involved, but on the plus side,
Sagat's 1000 battle points makes him every bit as
threatening as he was in the Street Fighter games.
The two special points he gives you are a nice plus as
well, although you obviously won't be able to spend them
on action cards in that turn. |
 |
 |
HEY! HEY!, ACTION
CARD:
Dan and Ryo from The Art of Fighting
team up for a double taunt in this card. When
played, both players lose all of their special
points. This card has a high rating (a B,
specifically) but I never used it much, and eventually
traded it and two other cards for something that packed
more of a punch. It can be useful if your opponent
has an enormous amount of special points and you suspect
they've got a lot of action cards (or a Blodia, which
gulps down ten special points the moment it's
played). Still, in my opinion, it takes up
valuable deck space that could be put to better use with
a Showtime! or a
Grace. |
|
BOPPER, ACTION
CARD:
This D-rated card allows you to knock
out one of your characters and apply the damage he took
to one of your opponent's fighters. As you can
see, both Dan and his father appear in this card... I
assume that it was inspired by the Jun Goku Satsu in
Pocket Fighter. Anyway, the Bopper is kind of
crummy. You can use it to flush worn down
characters out of your ring, or negate an opponent's
character with one of your own equally powerful cards,
but Card Fighters' Clash has a lot of similar action
cards with more beneficial properties (like the ability
to instantly knock out two characters- one in your ring
and another in your opponent's- regardless of their
current hit points). |
 |
ATTACKS BARELY WORTH
MENTIONING:
LOSER LASER: Dan calls out his dead
father, who fires a beam of light from the tip of his
oversized nose. So far, this is only available in Pocket
Fighter.
JUN GOKU SATSU: Dan's
father somehow reanimates himself and glides over to the
opponent. If Go manages to make the tag, the screen
turns white for a few seconds while hit marks appear in the
milky void. When the blinding light vanishes, Go is
shown with his back to the camera and the enemy is face down
in the dirt. This is very similar to Akuma and Ryu's
Shun Goku Satsu attacks, and again, this appears only in
Pocket Fighter.
MEGA FANTASTIC SUPER TAUNT OF
DOOM: Dan is possessed by his conceited nature
and for thirty seconds, all he can do is taunt. The
player can move him around the screen, but pressing buttons
just makes Dan insult his sparring partner. This is only
available in Street Fighter Alpha 3, and I must say that I
would much rather have had the Premium Sign.
YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON
THAT!
Perhaps it's because of his ego, or maybe it's just that
he's had so little experience with the situation, but Dan is
definitely not a graceful winner. Just check out these
insults he hurls at his rivals after he knocks them out!
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA 2:
"My father could beat you, and he's dead!"
(in response to the Asian martial artist Guy)
"Well,
grasshopper, you asked for it."
MARVEL VS. STREET FIGHTER:
"Ha! You're weak... just like me!"
"I'm sorry. No, you are!"
(the best line since
Golden Axe: The Duel's "Greetings from the land of
beatings!")
"I'm not tougher than you... just better than you!"
"It's more fun to mock you than to fight you!"
MATCH OF THE MILLENNIUM:
"I'm no match for you, snot!"
(presenting the world's
most ironic grammatical error!)
"You're lucky I held back, droolbag!"
"You had guts... mop them up!"
"I am the man, for I am DAN!"
CAPCOM VS. SNK 2
"In the name of pride, I will survive!"
"Check out my new exercise video series... Seven Minute
Saikyo!"
"Little girls tie bows [Tae Bo]... real men
Saikyo!"
(he's firing blanks today... namely, Billy
Blanks!)
"Dan is still the man! Yeah, baby, yeah!"
"I need to start the official Dan Hibiki fan
club!"
(Sorry, Dan, but I'm pretty sure one already
exists...)
SNK VS. CAPCOM: SVC CHAOS
"How about becoming my disciple? And with that
marvelous offer, you receive an outfit like me!"
"Huff. Puff. Passed out, eh...? Too bad.
J-just when I was getting warmed up! Gah ha ha!"
"My name is Dan Hibiki? Dan Hibiki! Dan
Hibiki! That's Dan Hibiki! Got it!"
(I
think I understand what the designers meant to say,
but this quote's still a little confusing...)
(after beating Sagat)
"I did it, Daddy-O!"
 THE RANMA
CONNECTION?
In Japan, there's an incredibly popular comic and animated
series called Ranma 1/2. In it, a father takes his
teenage son to China to perfect his martial arts skills.
Unfortunately, they decide to train near a series of enchanted
wells, and while sparring, they both manage to fall into
them. The boy, Ranma Saotome, takes a tumble into a well
that claimed the life of a young girl centuries earlier, and
comes out looking just like her. When the father, Genma,
tries to scramble out of his own watery predicament, he sees
two clumsy white paws clinging to the lip of the well rather
than the hands he expects... he's become a panda! Now-
oh, what does this have to do with Dan? Well, the thing
is, in Cyberbots and Marvel vs. Capcom, there's a mech pilot
who shares the last name of the main characters in Ranma
1/2. Oddly enough, Ranma's angry but easily confused
rival is named Ryoga... Ryoga Hibiki. I'm sure the
characters aren't related, but I get this feeling that the
names were chosen as a tribute to the terrific Ranma series
rather than just being a coincidence.
On a side note, there are Ranma 1/2 fighting games... two
of them were even released in America, although one was
stripped of the license (and its personality) and renamed
Street Combat. Unfortunately, none of them were
outstanding. Furthermore, the previously mentioned
Street Combat and the Japanese exclusive Ranma 1/2:
Renaissance are among the worst fighting games available for
the Super NES and Playstation... I haven't played the latter
game, but j-pop editor Jason Thompson warned me that it's a
hair-greyingly bad experience. Ironically, Capcom's
never had the rights to the Ranma 1/2 comic, even though its
Marvel vs. Capcom and JoJo's Venture game engines would more
than do it justice.
ANYBODY GOT A LAWYER?
The most painful part about being an innovator is that once
you've built that better mouse trap, half the people who beat
a path to your door are there to "borrow" your idea, and
months later, you'll find inferior versions of your product
ranging from the Mouse Clap to the Rodent Remover on store
shelves. When the Pokemon cartoon series became popular
enough to inspire a film, Fox churned out suspiciously
familiar shows and put them in suspiciously familiar time
slots, just to catch the attentions of kids who'd normally
spent the half hours before and after Pokemon bouncing off the
walls. When Brittney Spears jumped on stage and
mesmerized fans with her tit, I mean hit songs, you could
almost see the silhouette of Christina Augie Doggie (or
whatever her name is) backstage with a microphone in one hand
and a pair of soon-to-be-installed saline implants in the
other. And when Kao Megura created his own tribute page
to Dan, you just knew crappy knockoffs like Saikyo Crusher
were hanging on to the bumper of that bandwagon for dear
life. Oh, wait a minute, did I say that out loud?
Eh heh heh... Anyway, Dan's had his share of admirers,
and not all of them put that enthusiasm to good use by
creating tribute pages. Nope, a few of them have had the
nerve to leech from his Saikyo style, including the man who
inspired him in the first place. Apparently, SNK didn't
understand the point Capcom was trying to make with Dan and
turned their own character, Ryo Sakazaki, into a bit of a wuss
in the 1996 edition of The King of Fighters (he didn't get his
more powerful moves, like that totally cool machine gun fist
attack, back for two bloody years!). Even worse is Hyo
Amano, the arrogant goofball in The Last Blade who wears a
robe with a cherry blossom pattern on it and nearly trips
whenever he swings his wooden staff. He's the closest
thing to Dan you're going to find in a Samurai Shodown clone,
but it's just not as fun to use him. They say imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery, but in this case, it's just
obnoxious. After that, we've got-
Wait a minute, who's wooden sandals just flew in here?!
"I'll take those, thank you!"
Wow, it's really you! Ladies and gentlemen, it's
award-winning martial artist and Saikyo dojo founder Dan
Hibiki! So hey, what brings you here?
"Well, Jess, you were talking about fighters who've taken
my techniques and tried to pass them off as their own.
And while Ryo, Amano, and that punching bag guy from Waku Waku
7 have all ripped pages from the book of Saikyo without paying
me a cent in royalties, nobody's imitated my style more often
or more shamelessly than this jerk."
 Ouch! Son of a...! OK, Dan.
We're going to have to lay down a ground rule here... if you
want to show me any more pictures, you've got to put them on
this table instead of throwing them at me.
"Sorry, force of habit. As I was
saying, this Mizoguchi-bag guy has taken every one of my
favorite attacks and turned them into a sick joke. The
worst thing is, this karate klepto actually starred in his own
Super NES game... those are MY moves, dammit! If anyone
should get his own Nintendo game, it should be me! Just
imagine... Street Fighter Mythologies: Dan Hibiki.
I know I'd buy it."
Well, at least someone would. What's got you so hot
and bothered about Mizoguchi, anyway? He looks just like
every other martial artist in every other fighting game I've
ever played.
 "Looks like you're going to need to see another
picture. Check out the way this guy tosses his
projectile... with one hand. JUST LIKE ME! That's
a neat trick, though, making it look like a tiger like
that. I'll bet he's a real hit at children's
parties. I wonder if he can do a horsie or maybe an
elephant?"
Yeah, you have to wonder why he even bothers. I mean,
a fireball is a fireball. It doesn't matter if it's
shaped like a flaming orb, a predatory animal, or even Abe
Lincoln... it's still going to hurt like hell when it
connects. It seems like he'd be better off putting that
extra effort into making it larger and save the clever shapes
for his cigarette break.
 "Oh, it gets worse, Jess.
Here's Mizodouchie with his, or should I say, MY second
special move. Y'know, a little Tinactin would clear that
right up. It's the foot powder recommended by nine out
of ten overweight sports commentators!"
Do I detect a little jealousy there, Dan?
"Not really. I can do that,
but the whole Hien-Shippu-Kyaku thing never worked for
me. I threw some flaming kicks at a punching bag back
when I opened my first dojo, but the damned bag caught on
fire! And since I hadn't practiced my fire extinguisher
kick earlier that day, the whole dojo went up in smoke.
It didn't help matters that all the walls were made out of
rice paper. Stupid Japanese architecture..."
Riiight... anyway, I noticed you've got one more picture in
your hand. Let's see it.
 "Now this is just sad. People call my Koryuken
pathetic, but this guy doesn't even leave the ground when he
does his uppercut. How the heck can you put any power
behind an uppercut if you don't jump first?"
Well, most boxers seem to manage.
"Heh, well most boxers are dumb enough to make Don King
their manager."
Good point. I've got one question, though...
"Fire away!"
Didn't the Fighter's History games come out before you were
introduced to the Street Fighter series?
"Huh?"
You know, Mizoguchi was doing these moves a good two years
before you were.
"Really?"
Yup.
"Well, color me embarassed! I'd better tell that
helicopter not to dump the half ton of horse crap on his house
before... darn, it's past 4 'o clock already. Oh well,
mistakes will happen! I guess I'd better head back to my
dojo now, but before I go, here's an autographed snapshot of
your favorite martial artist and mine!"
"Ow. Dan Hibiki, ladies and gentlemen."
IS THIS THE END OF OUR UNLIKELY
HERO?
 Well, maybe. Dan hasn't appeared in any of
the Street Fighter 3 games, although Ken's eager martial arts
student Sean does refer to him when taunting defeated
opponents ("Rule number one... Don't be like Dan!"). It
was hinted in Street Fighter Alpha 3 that there might not be
enough left of Dan to wrap a black belt around... when you
beat the game with him, M. Bison seems to die of embarassment,
and Dan takes over his secret military base, turning it into
the Thailand branch of his famous Saikyo-Ryuu dojo and
inviting Blanka over to practice some taunts. As (bad)
luck would have it, though, that's just when Chun-Li and
Charlie swing by in their heavily armed harrier jet...
Charlie: "We've finally pinpointed the exact location
of M. Bison's secret base!"
Chun-Li: "Careful... I'm
detecting life signs down there."
Charlie: "Not for
long! Bombs away!!!"
(meanwhile, inside the base...)
Dan: "My mastery of martial arts and this great new
dojo guarantee that the Saikyo style will live forever!
Right, Blanka?"
Blanka: "Rrrowr!"
Was Dan turned into so many self-confident charcoal
briquets along with his hairy hombre Blanka? Maybe, but
hey, this is Capcom we're talking about! They've snuffed
Charlie twice, turned him into a cyborg, put their seal of
approval on a crappy movie that claimed he was Blanka, and now
has him buried in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, looking just like
he did before his supposed deaths and whatever else Capcom's
done to him. In other words, never mind the plot... if
Capcom wants Dan in another fighting game, he'll be there even
if they've thrown him into a volcano in the previous one.
SPECIAL THANKS
 This
tribute page just wouldn't be o-ra-ra-riffic without the
assistance of these people, who provided me with resource
material, emulators, games, and all kinds of other
support. Thanks to staffer Kao Megura for his great FAQs
as well as setting the foundation for Dan fan sites with his
own tribute page, the guys at Saikyo.com for their own fun and
informative site, Matt DelGiudice for catching the Hibiki
fever and creating his Marvel vs. Capcom 2 strategy guide,
Aaron Thacker for both his letters and for naming one of the
characters on this site, Carl Schafer for the Dan, er, fan
art, the boys at Sector: NGP, (now available at
Classicgaming.com!), Z-Force for his awesome guide to Card
Fighters' Clash, Judge of the Rather A Pokemon Emulator, the
anonymous creator of NGPocket, Gollum of NeoPocott fame, and
of course Capcom, for creating a great character, and SNK, for
ripping him off, and Capcom again, for turning that rip-off
into another great character, and SNK, for ripping HIM off,
and... well, you see where this is
going.
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