Street Fighter V Devs Fix Dan’s Infinite Combo By Making Him More Random

As you may already know from our previous story, Dan Hibiki has an infinite combo in Street Fighter V. The fact that a perennial joke character would have such a powerful ability is delightful, which might be why it survived for so long. But now, months after his arrival, Capcom has finally seen fit to address Dan’s infinite with the latest Street Fighter V update, though in a unique way that actually makes him a much more interesting character.

One of the core components of Dan’s infinite is his fireball, otherwise known as the Gadoken. The attack’s a piss-poor attempt at Ryu’s more powerful Hadoken otherwise, but it’s a vital tool for stringing together Dan’s never-ending flurry of attacks. As such, the Street Fighter V devs have made it so that a more powerful, red Gadoken will come out randomly, knocking Dan’s opponent to the ground and screwing up the infinite.

Gadoken is a gacha move now pic.twitter.com/qXCGBoAFsk

— HiFight(ハイファイト) (@HiFightTH) May 19, 2021

“This adjustment is intended to suppress looped combos at the edge of the screen,” Capcom explained in the patch notes. “The combo made it impossible for the opponent player to control their character for a period of time and was stressful to deal with. In light of these issues, we made adjustments to prevent looping, and have made the solution consistent with Dan’s history of random move enhancement.”

While I personally don’t like fighting game developers removing tools (unintended or otherwise) from their characters, I really like this change. Dan’s infinite is still totally possible, only with a random roadblock that can actually provide more offensive opportunities for the middle-of-the-road character. It’s also a neat callback to Street Fighter history, specifically the red fireballs of Street Fighter II and Dan’s own randomly invincible uppercut from the Street Fighter Alpha series.

And, hey, it’s Dan, after all. He’s ultimately a big doofus who is constantly being humiliated in the Street Fighter story. That he would have access to such a cool, powerful technique but screw it up every so often fits perfectly with his role as a comic relief character. Sorry buddy, them’s the breaks.