SIFU – Review
Sloclap, the studio behind the multi-player martial arts fighting game Absolver, has released a new beat ’em up called Sifu. But Sifu is a one-man show about a young kung-fu student who is out for vengeance on five other fighters who committed a horrendous act. There are some similarities between Absolver and this $39.99 PC game, but there are also a number of differences that make this a much more enjoyable experience. People who aren’t looking for a challenge or who enjoy martial arts action films won’t enjoy Sifu because of its harsh retry options and steep learning curve.
Pros:
Gorgeous art design
Excellent martial arts combat
Memorable levels & set pieces
Offers a fun challenge
Cons:
Minor camera issues
Score – 9/10
There are a group of renegade martial artists who betrayed your family and dojo. Your protagonist is attempting to track them down. In the beginning, it’s a typical revenge plot in a kung-fu film, but there are some supernatural twists. The detective-like connections the protagonist makes to reach his goals can be seen on the whiteboard in the game’s menu. There are no unnecessary storey scenes or dialogue in this board, so you don’t get bogged down. Sifu, on the other hand, is surprisingly pared down in all the right ways. All the information about the game world is provided in-game, with no need for lengthy pre-combat diatribes or hard cuts to specific event sequences.
In any case, your fists speak for themselves. A bottle can be used as an alternative method of interfacing with NPCs in the game, if you’d rather not hear what they have to say. After all, you are on a mission of revenge, and there are plenty of punching bags in the way.
There are two buttons on the Sifu’s two-button combo system, one for light strikes and the other for hard blows: XP can be used to unlock additional moves by combining these two buttons in different ways. With some additional special attacks, you can change up your strategy. A palm strike that pushes your target into a wall or clears space is achieved by tapping backwards and forwards, then lightly attacking. A heavy attack and the same input results in a sweep that knocks down weak opponents. After a successful dodge, you can use a sliding sweep to trip enemies as you close the gap.
In addition to health and damage, you must also keep an eye on Structure. Structure is a mechanic similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’s posture system. At the bottom of each enemy’s health bar is a yellow gauge that shows how much damage you’ve done to their posture. When this gauge is full, the opponent’s stances are completely thrown off balance, leaving them open to a devastating finishing blow. Your situation is the same. You’ll be vulnerable to an enemy’s attack if you block too many consecutive blows with your Structure.
A parry or a block are options on the defensive end. Holding down the block button initiates a guard while parrying an incoming blow. Both methods have their benefits and drawbacks. When you parry an enemy’s attack, you open up a window of opportunity to counterattack. It’s easy to eat a knuckle sandwich if you mistime the deflection. It is safer to guard, but overuse of it quickly depletes Structure, which causes the guard to break.
With a dedicated dodge button, you can also evade attacks. By default, this is a back-step, but you can direct the movement in a specific direction if you want to avoid it. In order to create space for an attack, you can press and hold down the evasion button, which causes the character to sprint. However, evading has its drawbacks. Isn’t a full invulnerability like in action games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry; you can’t dodge through attacks. You can’t just dive into a horde and hope for the best, because you’ll be hit by an errant swing as soon as the animation returns.
The weave is one of your most effective defensive strategies because it is both subtle and effective. You can bob and weave under attacks while holding down the block button. Sifu’s weaves, like in God Hand, protect you from high strikes while also allowing you to maintain your position. The result is that a counterattack is possible much more quickly than if you were to use the dodge. ‘ With weaving, you can stand in the middle of a crowd and intimidate your opponents in a way that is both stylish and thoroughly entertaining while also defending aggressively and pseudo-offensively.
Additionally, you can perform a hop by tapping forward during a block, which allows you to avoid low strikes but exposes you to high strikes. Because Sifu’s actions depend on both of these skills, mastering them early is essential if you want to complete the game. If weaving and countering are slower or less arcade-like in Sifu than in God Hand’s defensive options, then Sifu is doing its job well. Learning the basic moves is a lot of fun, especially as Sifu keeps putting you up against increasingly difficult foes.
Focus Strikes can be used to replenish your metre, which can then be spent on additional attacks. You can unleash a powerful attack by holding the Focus button, which slows down the action and allows you to target specific points on your opponent. Using a God Hand analogy, these strikes are essentially the Roulette attacks, which are powerful moves that either deal a lot of damage or open a path for your opponent. Although they are useful, they are the most underutilised mechanic in the game. Focus Strikes aren’t necessarily bad, but I had more fun letting my fists fly than searching for an opening and deciding which target to strike..
Sifu’s combat style is fluid and easy to follow. Once you’ve mastered the game’s controls and abilities, you’ll be more effective. As far as gimmicks go, there are plenty of them. When it comes to kicks and sweeps, female opponents often outdo their male counterparts in terms of reach and power. Grappling is a favourite pastime for men who are larger than average. Sifu, like classic arcade beat ’em ups, necessitates mastery of the intricacies of your adversaries’ attacks. Remembering moves and reactions is just as important as taking action in Streets of Rage 4.
Powerful weapons and tools can be found all over the place. To use weapons, you can grab bottles, bats, and pipes, as well as throw them at your enemies. Kick and throw the objects, as well as chairs and small items, without having to pick them up. Incredible, Jackie Chan-style combat can be performed at any time during a fight thanks in part to the smooth and seamless animations of the game.
Sifu, on the other hand, is extremely difficult. Because the enemies don’t play nice, you’ll have to clean your clock a lot. When you kill an enemy, you gain a small amount of health back, but there are no other healing items to take advantage of. With Sifu’s weird system for restarting battles, you’re going to have to die quite frequently.
When he dies, the protagonist’s coin-filled pendant will bring him back to life. Returning to combat after a fall does not age the hero, but it does alter his appearance. In other words, each revival accelerates your ageing process by a factor of one year, two years, three years, etc. In addition to depleting the pendant’s coins, this results in an elderly man who is unable to be revived and instead sees a game over screen if they fall.
The gameplay is also affected by this system. As the protagonist gets older, he or she gains strength, but at the expense of health. A character’s structure and recovery skills improve as he or she gets older, but the system is a double-edged sword in that an aged martial artist can dispatch enemies much more quickly, but a few slip-ups send him or her to his or her grave much sooner as well. Because of this, Sifu’s ageing system isn’t all that different from the standard continue system in older games. Fortunately, clearing an area reduces your age by a single level, making you appear younger.
Fighting experience can be used to gain health, stamina, and other advantages, as well as learn new moves. A game over in Sifu does not just force you to restart the level; you also lose any experience and skills that you have accrued, which is rather unfortunate. Except for the age-related abilities you gain from statues, quitting the mission or seeing the game over screen resets nearly everything you’ve unlocked so far (regaining health via take downs, for example). To avoid this penalty, you must spend five times as much XP as normal to keep your abilities for good. For one or two long-term purchases, you will need to effectively complete an entire mission. Because you won’t lose your Sifu skills very often if you’re particularly good at it, “renting” abilities won’t be a problem for you. This system is brutally unforgiving and excruciatingly tedious if you are having difficulty. It would have been better if the permanent-purchase costs of the skills were doubled and you could only buy them once.
Mechanically sound, Sifu delivers the kind of action we haven’t seen since God Hand debuted nearly two decades ago. Sifu An uncommon combination of classic arcade action and brutal challenge is provided by the game’s brutal difficulty, satisfying defensive options, and seamless environmental integration. However, some players may become frustrated with the game’s ability-purchasing system due to the game’s high level of mastery and tough as nails retry system, which also encourages replaying the game. Consider Sifu a must-have if you’re a fan of deep, fast-paced combat.
