It was a Sifu kind of weekend
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The physical copy of Sifu is now available and those in Southeast Asia can pick up a Sifu towel from these official retailers. Sifu and the Sifu-branded towels were provided by Excelgames Interactive, the official distributor for Sifu in Southeast Asia.
Last weekend was all abou Sifu, developer Sloclap’s action Kung fu game that was released back in February 2022. A game that revolves around revenge and that your death isn’t the end as you revive older but hopefully wiser. It’s a game that is better than I expected and is currently up there as one of the best games to come out in 2022.
There’s a lot going for Sifu as the combat reminds me of the Batman Arkham series due to its simple but also complex combat system. When I'm feeling it, I feel like Neo from The Matrix. I’m a one-man army capable of taking out multiple thugs all at once with ease, but a few mistakes can result in multiple deaths. It’s not overly difficult. It has the right amount of trial and error that multiple runs naturally get you closer to mastering the moves at your disposal.
When you die, you get older by a year. Die again, you get older by two years, so on and so forth. Beating difficult enemies will lower the death counter, but essentially, multiple deaths will result in you getting older too fast. The upside to this system is the older you are the harder you hit, but at the cost of your overall health being reduced, so there’s a tradeoff where you are more effective offensively but have less room for error the older you get.
It’s a unique system that I loved playing the five stages found in Sifu multiple times, slowly perfecting my understanding of the combat system to complete the game with ease. The progress is satisfying as in the first five hours of the game I was reaching age 50 at the start of the third stage, not a good spot to be. Five hours later, after countless runs, I can now reach the fourth level and still be in my late 20s.
There’s progress, I'm getting better. I’m looking cooler.
Sifu also looks and sounds great. Each of the five levels in Sifu has its own personality with a supernatural element injected in it. Visual designs and audio queues that go hand in hand with each combat encounter feeling slightly different in look and feel. It then, on occasion, has these thrilling action shots with memorable moments that feels like they are designed to make the player feel and look cool. One section that stood out was the corridor fight in the first stage, which felt like a nod to the one-shot corridor fight sequence found in the first episode of Netflix’s Daredevil series.
Then, you have the head honcho with a distinct fighting style that challenges your understanding of the game. A process of trial and error to have enough muscle memory against the boss’s move set that you come out with a reasonable amount of deaths.
Before the weekend ended, I was able to get what is considered the “true ending”, which had an extra layer of challenge to an already punishing game. I’m done but I want more. I hope we get more. This is likely going to be a 100% completion for me as there’s enough mystery here that I want to get a better understanding about this world Sloclap has created. Sifu is such a gem. This isn’t something you should skip, especially if you’re someone who appreciates classic Kung fu movies or a well-made martial arts action flick as I enjoyed every minute of this game. I’ll have my full review of Sifu out soon, but with the tone of this piece, you have an idea where I stand with this one.
