Sifu Review

I never played Sloclap’s previous title, Absolver, but ever since the first teaser for Sifu, I’ve been eager to get my hands on the controller and try it for myself. I had no idea just how addicted I would become. Simply stated, this game is incredible.

Sifu is a fairly straightforward revenge story. You play the child of a kung fu master, and you witness five other warriors massacre your estate, kill your father, and then kill you. But with the help of a magical talisman, you come back to life. You then spend the next eight years training, dedicated to taking revenge against those five warriors.

A central mechanic to the game is that of resurrection. When you die in battle (and you will die quite a bit) you are brought back to life by your magical talisman–but with every death, you age. The end goal of the game is to fight through all five levels, defeat all five bosses, before you grow too old to continue your quest.

Throughout the game, while storming the bases of each of the five warriors, you slowly piece together the story that ties everyone together, and understand more and more the narrative at play behind the scenes. The game does not explain everything, and many times you’re meant to fill in the gaps to understand the layered motivations between the different characters.

But, while I did find the narrative compelling, the combat was the main feature that kept drawing me back into another run, to try to beat another level at a younger age.

In a lot of ways, Sifu ticks many of the same boxes as a Fromsoft game. I would struggle through a level, slowly learning the layout and gaining the muscle memory needed to move onto the next location. But, when I inevitably returned to that earlier level that gave me so much trouble the first time around, I’d find each battle a little bit easier. The enemies were no different than the previous attempt, but my understanding of the mechanics had deepened to the point where I could trivialize once brutal challenges. And don’t get me wrong—it is still extremely easy to make one wrong move and get my teeth pushed in by a team of club-going martial artists. But, eventually, I could easily clear a level which at one point I couldn’t even complete. That is immensely satisfying.

I regularly found myself stealing extra moments to play. Sneaking in another session before bed, waking up early to play a little before work. Generally, I do pretty well at rationing my game time, keeping to an easy schedule and balancing my other interests. But sometimes a game comes along that takes over my life—it becomes the thing I want to do most in any given moment. Sifu became this obsession for me.

I like to think of this game as a fusion of Hotline Miami and Sekiro. You get the frenetic, blood pumping combat from Hotline Miami, moving from room to room, memorizing a layout and creating a ‘perfect’ route with each successive attempt. The moment-to-moment combat itself reminds me so much of the rhythm elements of Sekiro, which I absolutely adored. I never really clicked with the parrying mechanics in Dark Souls, but I fell in love with how Sekiro combined the block/parry into its own sort of rhythm game. Sifu uses a very similar system, with an added 'avoid' mechanic where you stand in place but sway around your enemy’s attacks. If you misread the attack, you'll duck right into a kick that sends you sprawling, but with practice, you can sway around every blow coming your way.

At this point, I’ve put about 35 hours into a game that can be beaten in 10. The satisfying combat keeps pulling me back in. After I first beat the game, I knew I needed to Platinum it (earn all of the PlayStation trophies). After I Platinumed it, I still wasn’t ready to put it down, so I decided to beat the game again while remaining at the starting age of 20. Now, I can spend a leisurely hour and a half to beat all the levels just for fun. Each successive run is like a victory lap, a celebration reinforcing that I mastered something that initially felt insurmountable. Which isn’t to say it’s become a cakewalk. There are still pockets of enemies who on any given run can swiftly and suddenly put me down. But the game does an excellent job of pacing out the battles, offering up a dozen cannon fodder enemies to tear through before facing off against a miniboss duo that can still kick my ass if I’m not sharp.

Sifu isn’t without its faults, though. As a punishing brawler, it doesn’t do a great job onboarding players to all of the nuanced systems at play. I was still gaining new understanding of the game's mechanics while I was fighting through the final level. I didn’t really mind this, since I got better and better at the fundamentals of combat while learning about those intricate subsystems, but that process could definitely have been smoothed out for cleaner onboarding. Also, if you don't enjoy the challenge of dying over and over while you slowly master a fight or level—if that sounds more frustrating than fun—this game might not be for you. The developer has stated that they are working on an easier mode down the line, however, so definitely keep that in mind should you crave some martial arts action but are concerned about the learning curve.

I honestly just hope the developer gets enough love that they consider adding DLC. I think some kind of wave-based fighting mode, or some roguelike twist of randomizing the enemies in the levels could go a long way toward keeping the game feeling fresh well after completion. Heck, they could add in an endless hallway fight, and I would be thrilled. Any opportunity to use the combat systems in new and exciting ways would be fantastic.

The developer has made something truly special here. In a year packed with some hype releases (I’m staring down the barrel of Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring as I type this), Sifu has managed to stand out and easily earn a spot in my top 10 favorite games of 2022.