I have spent many years trying to find an Ip Man simulator. I don't want a game where you go on the offensive. I want the game where trouble comes to me. I am going to sit there, one hundred dudes will do their best to punch me, they will fail, and I will make them all look silly in the process. I don't want some two-button auto-fighting combat system, I want to feel like I'm doing something.
Sifu mostly delivers! I played Absolver, I played the Arkham games, I played Sleeping Dogs, I played Overgrowth, I played Yakuza. Sifu's probably the closest it comes to being Donnie Yen. So it probably makes sense that at any point during Sifu, I probably would tell you that I'm having a fucking blast in that moment. But! I want a little more. I want more game, of course, but what I really mean is that I feel like a lot of Sifu is either undercooked or underutilized.
There are some cool scenes! If you've heard anything about the game, you've heard about the Oldboy hallway. The museum is probably my favorite area in the game between the big ink pendulum thing and the way it plays with your vision on the way to the boss. But the environment mostly feels like it's there because they need something that doesn't look like you're running through a level blockout. When they want you to play with the environments it's some of the most fun you'll have with the game - the museum exhibits, all the clutter in the high-rise level, the parts of the nightclub where you're allowed to interact with objects. The game really wants you to only use weapons when they deem fit though, judging by the barren combat corridors that exist all throughout the game. Some of these encounters would be a little more interesting if I could be more inventive with how I use my environment outside of a couple rooms.
Weapons are a little weird and I wish they found a better balance with them? They can be fun when the enemies pose a threat and you're actually forced to use them wisely, but I only really feel like these are used to full effect against bosses - catching kunai that a boss is throwing at you and airmailing it back to its original sender is as satisfying as an entire fight all on its own, but more often you are either given one or zero weapons when fighting a boss. Sure, that's fine, design decision, that's cool. But it's weird that it comes immediately after a level where I had a bat in my hand the entire time because almost every enemy in the level had a bat or knife, and I could replace my weapon 4 times over before the first one would've broken.
I also feel like the upgrades are missing something. I probably only used 30% of the upgrades in the game intentionally, and that includes both the statue upgrades and the skill... totem pole? It feels like the developers want to extend a hand to you and offer you the chance to make incremental, permanent progress, but these upgrades feel mostly meaningless. There are a couple moves/combos you can use to cheese your way through a boss but there's no real reason to do so if you want Sifu's combat to retain its charm.
Bosses are Sifu's biggest strength. They feel like this is what the game was meant to be about, which is why it's so weird that there's only five of them. The lead-up to each boss plays with the environment, and four of the five encounters are actual, real skill checks. Each of them will slap the soul out of you if you don't understand the skill they're testing. It's effective teaching, and each boss makes you better at the game overall when you need to go back to previous levels and beat them at a younger age. I do think the game would benefit from having more difficulty options, because the bosses seem to assume that you've played the way I did and only do the bare minimum until the game tests you on a skill - button mashing until the game demands you actually defend, blocking until the game insists that you learn how to dodge, etc. People who mastered these early (or learn quickly) are going to cruise through the game much faster. It really leaves me wishing that there were more bosses that tested you on multiple things at once, or forced you to adapt a bit more. No boss tests your positioning against multiple enemies, none have any real mixups. If any Sifu DLC ever gets released, I hope that it includes some endgame bosses that really, truly test the player who's able to make it to the end.
Lastly, I don't want to undersell the fights against standard, non-boss enemies. The fights against crowds are mostly a joke to begin with - it's what allows that Oldboy reference to actually resemble the movie - but they become a genuine thrill as special enemies are mixed in. Unlike the Arkham games, where special enemies are more of a nuisance than anything ("spam dodge until you get a chance to press The One Button That Kills This Kind of Guy"), special enemies in Sifu feel like a welcome challenge. They apply additional - but not overwhelming - pressure to the player, forcing you to change the way you defend to create new opportunities to attack while still keeping up with the rest of the mob. I enjoy doing the entire museum level all over again (despite having the shortcut) just so I can do the last chunk before the boss where they confine you to a small area while mixing in a bunch of dancers and grapplers.
There's a lot to like here, but I wish the environments and enemies were more alive OR more varied. Its gameplay scratches an itch for me that Absolver never did, being a little bit faster with a lower skill floor (while still making progress towards the skill ceiling feel meaningful and exciting). I really hope Sloclap decides to do more with this system, no matter what form it takes.
Sifu mostly delivers! I played Absolver, I played the Arkham games, I played Sleeping Dogs, I played Overgrowth, I played Yakuza. Sifu's probably the closest it comes to being Donnie Yen. So it probably makes sense that at any point during Sifu, I probably would tell you that I'm having a fucking blast in that moment. But! I want a little more. I want more game, of course, but what I really mean is that I feel like a lot of Sifu is either undercooked or underutilized.
There are some cool scenes! If you've heard anything about the game, you've heard about the Oldboy hallway. The museum is probably my favorite area in the game between the big ink pendulum thing and the way it plays with your vision on the way to the boss. But the environment mostly feels like it's there because they need something that doesn't look like you're running through a level blockout. When they want you to play with the environments it's some of the most fun you'll have with the game - the museum exhibits, all the clutter in the high-rise level, the parts of the nightclub where you're allowed to interact with objects. The game really wants you to only use weapons when they deem fit though, judging by the barren combat corridors that exist all throughout the game. Some of these encounters would be a little more interesting if I could be more inventive with how I use my environment outside of a couple rooms.
Weapons are a little weird and I wish they found a better balance with them? They can be fun when the enemies pose a threat and you're actually forced to use them wisely, but I only really feel like these are used to full effect against bosses - catching kunai that a boss is throwing at you and airmailing it back to its original sender is as satisfying as an entire fight all on its own, but more often you are either given one or zero weapons when fighting a boss. Sure, that's fine, design decision, that's cool. But it's weird that it comes immediately after a level where I had a bat in my hand the entire time because almost every enemy in the level had a bat or knife, and I could replace my weapon 4 times over before the first one would've broken.
I also feel like the upgrades are missing something. I probably only used 30% of the upgrades in the game intentionally, and that includes both the statue upgrades and the skill... totem pole? It feels like the developers want to extend a hand to you and offer you the chance to make incremental, permanent progress, but these upgrades feel mostly meaningless. There are a couple moves/combos you can use to cheese your way through a boss but there's no real reason to do so if you want Sifu's combat to retain its charm.
Bosses are Sifu's biggest strength. They feel like this is what the game was meant to be about, which is why it's so weird that there's only five of them. The lead-up to each boss plays with the environment, and four of the five encounters are actual, real skill checks. Each of them will slap the soul out of you if you don't understand the skill they're testing. It's effective teaching, and each boss makes you better at the game overall when you need to go back to previous levels and beat them at a younger age. I do think the game would benefit from having more difficulty options, because the bosses seem to assume that you've played the way I did and only do the bare minimum until the game tests you on a skill - button mashing until the game demands you actually defend, blocking until the game insists that you learn how to dodge, etc. People who mastered these early (or learn quickly) are going to cruise through the game much faster. It really leaves me wishing that there were more bosses that tested you on multiple things at once, or forced you to adapt a bit more. No boss tests your positioning against multiple enemies, none have any real mixups. If any Sifu DLC ever gets released, I hope that it includes some endgame bosses that really, truly test the player who's able to make it to the end.
Lastly, I don't want to undersell the fights against standard, non-boss enemies. The fights against crowds are mostly a joke to begin with - it's what allows that Oldboy reference to actually resemble the movie - but they become a genuine thrill as special enemies are mixed in. Unlike the Arkham games, where special enemies are more of a nuisance than anything ("spam dodge until you get a chance to press The One Button That Kills This Kind of Guy"), special enemies in Sifu feel like a welcome challenge. They apply additional - but not overwhelming - pressure to the player, forcing you to change the way you defend to create new opportunities to attack while still keeping up with the rest of the mob. I enjoy doing the entire museum level all over again (despite having the shortcut) just so I can do the last chunk before the boss where they confine you to a small area while mixing in a bunch of dancers and grapplers.
There's a lot to like here, but I wish the environments and enemies were more alive OR more varied. Its gameplay scratches an itch for me that Absolver never did, being a little bit faster with a lower skill floor (while still making progress towards the skill ceiling feel meaningful and exciting). I really hope Sloclap decides to do more with this system, no matter what form it takes.