Sifu Review
Sifu, a 2022 action beat ’em up from Sloclap for PS4, PS5, and PC, is a challenging fast-paced Kung Fu work of art with beautiful, vibrant, and diverse visual styles, exceptional animations, and a punishing ebb-and-flow combat system with a unique catch: you return to life older than you died.
Starting Off
Within minutes of starting the game, I feel like I’m 10 Smiths deep in a crowd in The Matrix: Reloaded, fighting off numerous enemies at once, catching a glass bottle thrown at me, and crotch-punching my way to victory, eventually offing even a dojo master! What a breeze...
Ending the tutorial, I proceed to get my ass wrecked and face punched in at the same time. Combat in Sifu is challenging and fun; button mashers beware, though: enemies punish hard when you don’t block. Defeating enemies means balancing offense and defense. Everyone in the game inherently seems to know Kung Fu, too, including people who don’t even want to fight; it’s like a musical where everyone throws down martial arts instead of singing.
At one point, I fought my way through a museum and felt like I was trippin' by the second half. I’m not sure if it was hallucinogenic gas or a million-dollar electricity bill, but I was impressed by the creative artwork and lighting design. Not going to lie, the trippy lighting made the fights pretty damn difficult, though; each hit pulsed the room-filling lights, and those heels hit like a truck...
Gameplay
Exploration is not really a thing in Sifu; while the environments look brilliant, the gameplay is largely linear. Half of the doors seem to just be walls with a bit of paint splashed on to make them look like doors. There are a handful of optional rooms to check out which contain storytelling items, but that’s about it.
The difficulty gap between enemies is huge. Sometimes a room has a handful of enemies who seemingly never learned how to block while another enemy has a massive health bar and hits like a truck. Some enemies even enrage instead of being incapacitated the first time you try to ring their bell, which apparently means they get a huge health boost and shrug off attacks like a car windshield shrugs off mosquitos. One guy even disarmed me of my pipe mid-swing and beat me to death with it!
Speaking of death, you get older every time you die in Sifu; dying more frequently increases your age even more; yeah, that's a thing. I died of old age before making it halfway to the first boss the first time. To pour salt on the wound, enemies savagely insult you after getting back up... Eventually, I wisened up and stopped mashing buttons like a feral monkey piloting a plane.
Conclusion
Overall, Sifu is a unique and challenging game that I’m glad I spent my time playing! Its vibrant visual style, punishing combat, and unique aging-on-death mechanic make this a game worth checking out.
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