Sifu started with the wrong punch.

I decided to begin the game on the hardest difficulty since it’s what I usually do unless the game recommends not to do so; I do that since that’s usually the difficulty that can pose a challenge and make games fun to me personally.

I got to the first boss and I couldn’t understand what the game wanted from me, and this is the first big problem. There’s a lot to the gameplay, for example there’s 4 ways to be defensive (5 if you consider the dodge to reposition) and the game does a poor job at making sure that the player understands when and why to use each one of the tools. The second problem, that’s strictly related to the master difficulty, is that bosses don’t have patterns anymore but they can change their combos, making the gameplay incredibly difficult to enjoy since the clear intent of the game is to learn your enemies inside and out and this completely breaks that game design idea. I decided to switch to the “intended” difficulty from that point on.

Even in the intended difficulty the game still has some problems such as attacks sometimes not being reactable, so much so that you end up relying only on the first hit of the combo to know how to react to the rest of the string because of how badly telegraphed some attacks are, especially the low sweeps which are almost always unreactable, you can think of them as the non blockable attacks in Sekiro, now picture those attacks without the sound and the kanji which tells the player to act accordingly, that is Sifu.

I also personally dislike how even if you perfect parry your posture bar still goes up, add that to the fact that the parry window is much smaller than sekiro’ and also the previously mentioned problem of some attacks being too fast and badly telegraphed and you have a recipe for disaster, making fighting the bosses unfun until you’ve basically mastered them.

There’s also some minor issues with the camera and also the soundtrack being incredibly forgettable.

Getting that out of the way I can actually start praising the rest of the game because there is a lot of beauty and passion put into this project, and thats also why I’m being very harsh on it, the step the developers have made from Absolver is incredible and I’d like the next game to be even better.

The game exhibits a remarkable sense of style, showcasing artistic brilliance that rivals some of the most visually stunning games ever created. Every single place is crafted with care and not only in terms of visuals but also gameplay wise, the fights are placed in a specific order which creates a really good level of balance while also changing up the gimmicks with the place very rapidly (close to a ledge, a place full of weapons, etc…) making the fights always feel fresh.

What’s even more incredible is that the game achieves this level of style while also having an incredibly strong signature, you can tell someone is playing Sifu no matter what is represented on the screen.

The main mechanic of the game, the aging, is also genius, slowly changing up the gameplay making you become a glass cannon more and more with each death, it creates a unique and fun challenge that combined with the shortcuts that you unlock close to the boss in every level, makes you want to replay it right away engaging with every mechanic and also increasing the playtime in a very smart way.

When the gameplay works is so incredibly satisfying, in terms of game feel and reward, while also having top tier animations, sound design and flow. Also bonus for the creativity being displayed making every level feel very unique. The bosses are for the most part really good, some of them (2nd and 4th) don’t have enough moves making the fight very quick and unsatisfying especially compared to the other ones in the game.

The game has problems especially in terms of gameplay but there’s also so much care at the same time that ultimately I really enjoyed my playtime and I hope the developers improve from this, while maintaining the level of artistic touch and uniqueness to it.

The game is very mediocre in many aspects while also trying too hard (and failing) to replicate what uncharted does best.

Stealth sections feel forced, the shooting is clunky, puzzles are often too simple, and animations feel snappy instead of fluid; the game's story is decent but nothing exciting.

I'm honestly struggling to find good things about it, the game looks pretty sometimes...

Played from – to: (2023-10-03 – 2023-10-10) – PC keyboard.
‣ 6/10 – Alan did not wake up.
‣ Thoughts: This must be one of the goofiest games I have played in recent memory. I did this only to have enough context so that I could enjoy Alan Wake 2 since that felt right up my ally. However, I constantly found myself pushing through the chapters just to finish the game rather than enjoying the overall experience. I feel like Alan Wake suffers from huge pacing issues and was frankly way too long. I respect the effort the developers took to craft each section of the game but by the end I was just tired. Most combat encounters were repetitive and happened too often. Secondly the combat itself was quite clunky and slow. Alan constantly wobbles his frail body making some dodges impossible and the constant slow downs indicating where the enemy is are sometimes so unnecessary you just take unavoidable damage. Then there’s the awkward movement and physics. This must be the first game where I had to fight barrels, boxes, and fucking bulldozers. At first it seemed like a fun idea, but by the end I got sick of getting my ass whopped by flying debris that I can’t destroy in time and properly dodge due to the awkward movement system. All in all, I found Alan Wake a tedious and very flawed game that had a lot of cool ideas but executed most of them poorly. The voice acting was at times embarrassing and the story kept being held back by bland and repetitive combat encounters. And yet, I felt compelled to finish this mess.