Dhalsim

Dhalsim(ダルシム) is a fictional character from the Street Fighter series of fighting games. In the story, he hails from Kerala, India.

Story
Generally a pacifist, Dhalsim fights to raise money for his village, but realizes that it contradicts his pacifist beliefs. The only significant part he played in the overall story of the series was to make Cammy White self-aware.

Dhalsim retired from fighting after the second World Warrior tournament, and continued to roam the world helping those in need.

Dhalsim makes his return in Street Fighter IV, this time to free the flow of water to his village which has mysteriously ceased.

Alternate storylines
In the Street Fighter II V, the UDON comic book series, and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Dhalsim is a wise and powerful mystic who aids Ryu in his quest to become stronger and defeat evildoers.

Appearance
Dhalsim is often depicted as having pupil-less eyes. His build is that of a normal man who exercises and weight trains regularly except for his abdomen and waist which appear much out of proportion and emaciated. He wears torn saffron shorts as his only clothing attire as well as saffron wristbands and anklebands. He has three coloured stripes adorning his head, and in the Street Fighter Alpha series, he wears a turban that he removes before battle. The skulls he wears around his neck are those of village children that died during a plague. In palette swap renditions of Dhalsim, his skin is often dark blue or other unnatural colors. He is the oldest of the original World Warriors.

Gameplay
Dhalsim is the original long-range fighter of fighting games. Dhalsim's intense training has given him the ability to contort and extend his limbs into forms physically impossible in real life; he can project his arms and legs outward in order to deliver attacks that would be out of the range of normal limbs. Dhalsim's fighting style involves keeping the opponent at bay with distance attacks and projectiles, and optimally, only getting close to strike with a surprise aerial attack or sliding kick. Due to his reach advantage, Dhalsim has both very low offense and defense, making it vital for him to avoid sustaining too many blows from a strong fighter. Dhalsim's sprite, while standing, is actually quite a small target, due to the total number of pixels Dhalsim's sprite occupies while not attacking. Dhalsim becomes a much larger target while attacking. As of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, the player can make Dhalsim do only short range attacks by holding back on the joystick.

Techniques
Dhalsim has the power to suspend himself in midair, stretch his extremities in ways beyond the average human, breathe fire, read minds, and sense evil, the latter abilities he uses to locate the sinister Bison, and doing his part to aid those who can defeat the villain.

Using the normal moves called the Yoga Spear, Dhalsim can spin through the air at various angles, ideally landing close to his opponent so that he can deliver additional hits or throws.

He can project from his mouth a rapid, immobilizing projectile known as Yoga Fire, and a stationary spread known as the Yoga Flame; later games incorporate the anti-air version known as the Yoga Blast. According to the English language Street Fighter II manual, eating spicy Indian curry gave Dhalsim the ability of fire breathing, but this was rewritten to being a gift from Agni, the Indian god of fire.

To escape opponents or otherwise change his physical location, Dhalsim can travel bodily through the astral plane in a form of teleportation, known as the Yoga Teleport. A glitch in the original Street Fighter II caused Dhalsim to disappear from time to time, rendering his long-reaching attacks invisible until the end of the round. While this was an unintentional error, Dhalsim was officially given the Yoga Teleport in Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting.

Dhalsim's super moves consist of the Yoga Tempest (an enhanced Yoga Flame), the multi-hitting Yoga Inferno, the aerial attacking Yoga Volcano and the low-striking Yoga Stream. Certain games also see Dhalsim with an anti-air grabbing super called Yoga Strike, and he is also able to use a multiple-hitting horizontally controllable super version of Yoga Spear called Yoga Drill and a midair combo assault called Yoga Legend in the non-canon Street Fighter EX series. In Street Fighter IV, Dhalsim's Ultra Combo is known as Yoga Catastrophe, which is a giant, slow-moving Yoga Fire.

Trivia

 * In episode 9 of Yu Yu Hakusho, Dhalsim is clearly standing in the background

Video
Dhalsim vs Crimson Viper in Street Fighter IV