This Sifu review contains minor spoilers.
February 2022 is packed with big video game releases. A relatively small studio like Sloclap releasing a new IP alongside giants like Horizon Forbidden West, Dying Light 2 and Elden Ring was a risk. Thankfully, Sifu‘s promising kung fu beat ’em up premise generated considerable interest and propelled it to become something of a surprise hit. And deservedly so. Because Sifu delivers what matters most: satisfying and breathtakingly fluid combat. If you can master it, Sifu is every wannabe martial artist’s dream. However, its brutal difficulty can impact the fun factor and will likely force many to give up.
Sifu Review – Story
Sifu‘s story is typical of martial arts movies. In fact, it’s very similar to Kill Bill. In the prologue, you play as “The Leader” Yang. He and his gang attack a martial arts school where he confronts and kills the school’s sifu (master). Yang then orders Fajar “The Botanist” to kill the master’s child who is later revived thanks to a magical talisman. Eight years later, the child has become the Martial Artist and is hellbent on taking revenge on Yang and his crew. They serve as the game’s bosses.
The story is simple but effective. It’s elegantly told and I found myself craving vengeance as the Martial Artist.
Sifu Review – Gameplay
Kung Fu Fighting
Sifu‘s core gameplay loop is straightforward. Enter a new level and fight everyone on your way to a boss encounter using your uncompromising kung fu skills and various melee weapons. The hand-to-hand combat in Sifu is some of the best you’ll find in any game. Every animation is silky smooth, making combos a joy to execute. Each hit carries serious impact (something that is only enhanced by the PS5’s DualSense controller). The audio design makes attacks feel stiff and precise. All this comes together to create fight scenes that would rival any classic kung fu movie.
On PS5, you press square to execute a light attack and triangle to perform a heavy attack. As mentioned, these can be chained together into combos with devastating impact. The various combos and fighting mechanics take a while to get to grips with, but the game’s prologue section serves as a great introduction. Here, you have access to all the kung fu skills the game offers. After this intro section, you predictably start from scratch and have to unlock everything. But it gives you a flavour of what’s possible in Sifu.
The combat here is beautifully seamless. None of the unlockable skills break the rhythm of your standard attacks – they only enhance them. For example, as you progress, you can unlock “Focus Attacks”. These are short special moves which are executed by holding the L2 button and serve to stun your opponents. When you go to use them, time slows to a crawl so you can pick your moment with precision. Similarly, the Environment Mastery skill allows you to swiftly kick objects into opponents with R1, throwing them off balance or knocking them down. This creates a sense of oneness with the environment.
Aging
In Sifu, when you die, you age. You start the game at age 20 and each time you die your years advance by the corresponding number of deaths you’ve suffered. It can be a frustrating mechanic, losing over and over as you see your age ticking ever higher and your Martial Artist growing older. Every ten years, your damage increases and your health decreases. And counterbalancing the Martial Artist’s improved ability with their advanced age is clever. But once you hit 70+, it’s game over.
I found Sifu‘s skill system vexing. That’s because game over causes you to lose all your previously unlocked skills. This seems to contradict the idea of learned experience and is one of the most frustrating things about the game. Despite the fact you can start each level at the age you first unlocked it, you won’t have the skills you’d earned up to that point.
You can permanently unlock skills, but the huge cost makes it unlikely – especially on your first playthrough. In the end, you just end up playing most of the game without all of the skills you would like. This, unfortunately, reduces combat variety and makes it difficult to master everything. The only way round it is to restart from the beginning without dying. Or painstakingly rinse and repeat enough times to permanently unlock everything.
A Brutal Challenge
As mentioned, the ageing process and the game’s skill system are sources of considerable exasperation. The skill system in particular makes things unnecessarily challenging. Key to overcoming that challenge, however, is your successful execution of dodging, blocking and parrying. Although, I often found myself irritated with the precision required to perform them effectively. Having said that, getting it right is highly satisfying. And perfectly dodging a flurry of attacks makes you feel like a kung fu master.
For most of the game, you’re fighting grunts. They’re standard enemies that are easy to defeat alone but are deadly in numbers. Luckily, the game’s excellent combat makes dispatching them a real treat. And when you do so without taking damage, it’s undoubtedly awesome.
Some standard enemies can power up after blocking your finisher and make for a real threat. When you defeat them, your age counter goes down by one. In the same vein, there are mini-bosses which are a bit tougher but can be beaten with patience and determination.
Lastly, there are the level bosses who are part of the Martial Artist’s hit list. They are incredibly difficult and will be points of failure for many players. Repeated death is almost certain and needs to be embraced in order to learn each boss’s attack patterns. To make things extra tough, they also have two different phases and they’ll switch up their attacks. All in all, they’re a great way to realise and demonstrate your acquired kung fu mastery, but will prove too difficult for many players.
Sifu Review – Verdict
Sifu features gorgeous art style, and is complemented by immersive music, clever level design, and challenging yet rewarding combat. It performs beautifully on PlayStation 5 running at a constant 60fps (from what I could tell) which only enhances the exquisite combat animations. Similarly, the DualSense controller adds to the immersion and you’ll feel the weight and impact of each punch. As a result, Sifu‘s violent world is a delight to experience .
If you’re willing to scratch and claw your way through every fight to achieve true kung fu mastery, you’ll love Sifu. The lack of difficulty options, while certainly intentional and uncompromising, is a shame (although, apparently, they are coming). But, as it is, Sifu is punishingly hard and will certainly see off a lot of players before they reach its conclusion. Disappointingly, difficulty often gets in the way of enjoying what’s best about Sifu: being a badass kung fu master. The lesson here really is to “git gud.”
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
Reviewed on: PS5
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