By special request, I’ve updated yesterday’s examination of the early PC versions of Street Fighter II with three videos of Dhalsim doing what he does best — KILLING YOU! Note also that Dhalsim is one of the few characters who can actually juggle opponents off of his throw (Blanka being the other notable one). If you’re good, you can even follow it up with a Yoga fire. Not that any of this finesse is necessary, though. On anything except the very highest difficulty levels, you can beat the whole game as Dhalsim by just jamming on the kick button. You’d take the occasional fireball in the face (the sick damage factor on the upper levels is what makes playing them a little tougher), but that’s about it.

Dhalsim vs. Chun-Li (674 KB)
Dhalsim vs. Balrog (859 KB)
Dhalsim vs. Sagat (589 KB)

The reason I didn’t have Dhalsim videos before: I hate playing as him. In this game, Dhalsim’s the guy that you pick because you have to, not because you want to. If his regular attacks weren’t so cheap, he’d be a terrible character. His jumps are the lowest of any character in the game and almost all of his airborne attacks hit at a distance — and because you can only be hit once by a jumping opponent, this gives your opponent plenty of time to set up a vicious counterattack. Projectile attacks aren’t terribly useful in this game, making the Yoga Fire not so great, and the Yoga Flame is absolutely worthless. (Actually, special moves in general kinda suck in this game.) But you pick him because if you don’t pick him, you have to fight him — and given his ridiculous cheapness, beating him can sometimes prove all but impossible.

I don’t like Dhalsim
he’s so goddamned fucking cheap
he’ll kick you to death

Until next time!