Sifu is a game that teaches discipline. If you want to become a true kung fu master, treat your opponent with respect. Otherwise, you will be quickly taught by those attacking enemies from all sides, and when you regain consciousness, you will understand that you have grown old during this time. Plus a year, plus two more, plus a dozen, two dozen – before you have time to blink, you are already a seventy-year-old man and you understand that soon you will not get up.

The main thing is to understand in time that you can’t play Sifu “wrongly”, these are not Batman series games where you stand in the middle of the room and just press 2 buttons. In this game, you will need to learn combinations like in Mortal Kombat and use the environment whenever possible, this is far from the only lesson that needs to be learned, and you will definitely die … Or rather, you will not die but grow old.

What is Sifu?

Behind the style, the music, the action in Sifu is a story of revenge. This is climbing a mountain when you go higher and you are thrown down. Sifu is the story of a young student who sees their teacher and father killed by a gang of five intruders. After years of training, the apprentice embarks on a simple task: cross five names off the list and avenge his master. Each boss has its own level, themed and built around it, and filled with dozens of thugs to defeat.

As for the movements, everything is simple here – a normal strike, a strong strike, a block parry, a rebound – a set of movements. Everything is complicated by the fact that no indicators appear above the heads of the enemies, so you will know about their attack in a split second, and it all depends on your reaction. Over time, you will learn to react in time – this is the first step in preparing for really difficult trials since the soldiers from the first location are not like the enemies from the later stages.

However, even ordinary enemies can get on the nerves of an unprepared player. In addition to simple attacks that are successfully parried when pressed at the right time, there are also strong ones – usually, opponents finish the combo with them, and their limbs begin to glow for a second. The block at such moments works, only each attack you absorb “eats” part of your endurance.

The difficulty lies in how easily you can die. It’s so easy to get surrounded and endure the unstoppable onslaught of fists and legs until you die. Luckily, you have more than just martial arts on your side. Your family’s medallion allows you to recover and rise again at the cost of age.

I can only give one small piece of advice: there is only one mechanic in the game – dodge while blocking. In the tutorial, which takes only 1-2 minutes, so little time was devoted to it that most players forgot about it. But almost the entire combat system of the game is built on it, especially during fights with bosses.

Gameplay

But at first, each player will understand that he is useless as a kung fu master. He can’t even push stools. In order to level up, you need to earn points through levels, and their number depends on the combo you have scored. If you often dodge, defeat everyone in a row, and do not take damage, the counter grows much faster. Missed – the counter went down a bit, missed another one – the combo was completely reset. Upgrades purchased with points will only be available in this playthrough you are currently in, and to make it permanent, you need to invest the same number of points five more times.

It sounds like a grind, but there are not many valuable moves on the list. About half of them are too situational and will be useful only in a few cases, so they can be dispensed with. There is no feeling that buying them will simplify the passage – success depends only on the player.

I wish some elements of the game were a little clearer. Although some will say that “complexity hardens.” And yes, it will take time for you to get used to it. Sifu became a game that I hated at first, then realized, and a game that made me happy when I defeated this or that boss. Each new boss (and some mini-bosses) that increased my death counter and turned the hero into an old man seemed invincible or broken. One is very fast, the other throws knives, the third deals damage like a train, but this makes them memorable and interesting.

The game allows you to deal with most opponents very quickly, doing it in style, but for this you will have to work hard in training.