Sifu is a meticulously sculpted love letter to Kung fu film lovers featuring an adrenaline fueled journey of revenge.
Some years ago, developer Sloclap released martial arts ‘soulsborne-like’ Absolver. Although meeting critical appraise for its complex yet intuitive combat and the beautifully interconnected yet hauntingly dilapidated world, it cruised unnoticed under most players’ radars. Sifu, on the other hand, has had the time and marketing needed to get the attention it deserves. Sloclap took everything that made Absolver special and dialed the notch up by x5. Sifu truly delivers on the premise of a Kung fu power fantasy.
As the all too known Kung fu revenge story, Sifu follows the blood beaten path of a nameless son or daughter (depending on player choice) seeking to avenge their father/Sifu (Teacher). To avenger the butchering of their father, they must embark on a literal journey of growth and wage a one-man/woman war on the 5 conspirators. Thanks to the mystical powers of a magical charm, their death results in rebirth but with each rebirth, they age. After an iconical training montage, the young child sets out into the city, a young master of Kung fu.
Combat while extremely complex, actually defaults to the all too common formula that Absolver had managed to evolve by allowing customizable movesets and changing stances mid-combo. Sifu proves to be a step back in this regard. You have the simple controls of a light attack, heavy attack, dodge and a block/parry/avoid button that allows you to avoid specific attacks by pushing the left stick in the correct direction just before it lands. You can also throw environment objects such as stools or bottles with a tap of the bumper and pick up weapons to awaken your inner dragon.
When you are on a roll, the combat allows you to feel like you are directing your own Kung fu film and you as the faster than lightning hero, can swat the enemies away like flies. But when you are surrounded, the unspoken rule of one enemy attacking at a time, that has been forged into game design for decades has been tossed out the window; as multiple enemies hit you from each direction together and all too often. While Sifu has given me the tools required to deal with these poorly disciplined and rude enemies, my reflexes are not on par with that of an actual Kung fu master.
What makes the game even more challenging is the amount of damage enemies can do. With just 4-5 hits from a regular goon, not even special enemies, can down your entire health bar; add in 7 enemies who can attack at the same time and that’s a problem. This would be all well and good if you had any kind of healing item, but the only way to heal in Sifu is to beat enemies. This is extremely satisfying when you do steamroll through a couple of enemies, going into a martial arts trance by using every tool at your disposal as second nature – thanks to all those re-attempts of the same levels over and over.
At least Sloclap didn’t just deal a bad hand to the player telling them to ‘git gud’ and get on with it. The interesting twist that Sifu houses is the Rise system. You begin your journey as a fit and young 20-year-old, but thanks to the mystical powers of the previously mentioned charm our hero has chained to their waist; grants them the ability to return from death at the cost of aging.
Dying will add 1 death to the death counter. This counter adds one each time you die and add that counter to your current age when you rise from the dead. When you die once or twice in a brawl this is no issue, as your counter will have only gone up by for example 3 and you will have aged that many years from rising. But die say 6 times without lowering the count and you will have aged from a 20-year-old to a 36-year-old in a matter of minutes.
When the player reaches any age above 70 they can no longer rise and it is a game over when they next die. This system can get out of hand quickly, as when reaching a 10-year milestone, for example; at age 30 your damage is slightly increased but your health is massively decreased. This means that dying multiple times in a level will snowball the player into an unrecoverable state to even bother finishing the run. If I am 67 years of age with only one rebirth left; not much point in continuing the third level if I have 2 more levels to go after, with only bigger challenges ahead.
Your age carries over into each level and the death counter only lowers by 1 when beating certain enemies. This is the largest challenge of the game. As you die and rise, the fewer revives you will have available the closer you get to the final level. When you do die, you are greeted with a skill tree that lets you unlock new moves with moves being locked out the older you are. These skills do not remain if you get a ‘game over’, but investing 5 further times into a skill does allow you to keep the skills permanently between runs – a small consolation in the grand schemes of things.
All these systems would be wholeheartedly welcomed if they were not so punishing. Everything about Sifu is extremely well thought out and combat is superbly satisfying. The gameplay is fun and fast-paced, the levels are interconnected to an extent delivering an amazing atmosphere to break some bones in and the soundtrack delivers that 1980’s Kung fu film feeling as you imitate film legends such as Bruce Lee and Jet-Li.
The gameplay works brilliantly in Sifu and thankfully the issues of difficulty/balancing can be easily patched out. So far Sifu has proved to be a worthy contender in the genre and while there are some missteps that just hold it back from being an instant classic, Sifu is worthy of any player’s attention.
Sifu is out now on PS4 | 5, Xbox One | X | S and PC. You can check out some of our helpful tips to assist you through the challenging game. Peruse our latest news updated every day by our writers – making sure you can stay up to date on all things gaming.
