As a fighting game dilettante, competitive smash enjoyer, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice superfan, I came into Sifu with a lot of preconceptions about what kind of game I wanted it to be. I was left disappointed with what I found.
First of all, Sifu is a genuinely beautiful love letter to Chinese martial arts cinema. The smart application of film grain and some excellent choices in each level’s color/visual design really help make up for the threadbare story.
My biggest issue is with the combat. There are several core mechanical decisions that I just don’t agree with: parrying strong attacks, regardless of your timing, will always do damage to your posture bar. Strong attacks must be dodged, but dodges don’t inherently lead to an opening, a successful dodge instead recovers posture and builds “focus”, a resource which serves as a super meter. This is a fine, albeit complex, foundation to build a game with (sekiro, for instance, only asked the player to attack, parry, and on some heavily telegraphed attacks, counter or jump), but the game further adds directional dodges and a high/low/mid/overhead system that is VERY under-explained. You can always dash back or to the side to disengage from a strong attack, but doing so usually forfeits your chance to punish with a meaningful combo. It’s almost tragic, this is an absolutely fatal flaw — this game is entirely a long corridor of combat encounters interspersed with boss fights. A solution to all this combat complexity could be to simply get good, and the game provides a fairly competent training mode your house/hub level, but since the whole game is only five levels long and most heavy attacks (these are the glowing strikes that force you to engage with the directional dodge system or dash back defensively) are fast enough to feel practically unreactable, I satisfied myself with just learning the combo counterplay I had to for boss fights, and just eating the overheads dished out by regular goons.
I genuinely really enjoyed all the boss fights (except for the museum boss’s first phase, which heavily incentivized non-interaction), so I’m sure I would have had more fun if I was playing the game correctly!!!
So Sifu didn’t meet my expectations, but I can’t shake the feeling that that’s on me — rather than the game not fulfilling its own vision. But even with my personal biases aside, I, heartbreakingly, can’t recommend this kung fu fantasy.
First of all, Sifu is a genuinely beautiful love letter to Chinese martial arts cinema. The smart application of film grain and some excellent choices in each level’s color/visual design really help make up for the threadbare story.
My biggest issue is with the combat. There are several core mechanical decisions that I just don’t agree with: parrying strong attacks, regardless of your timing, will always do damage to your posture bar. Strong attacks must be dodged, but dodges don’t inherently lead to an opening, a successful dodge instead recovers posture and builds “focus”, a resource which serves as a super meter. This is a fine, albeit complex, foundation to build a game with (sekiro, for instance, only asked the player to attack, parry, and on some heavily telegraphed attacks, counter or jump), but the game further adds directional dodges and a high/low/mid/overhead system that is VERY under-explained. You can always dash back or to the side to disengage from a strong attack, but doing so usually forfeits your chance to punish with a meaningful combo. It’s almost tragic, this is an absolutely fatal flaw — this game is entirely a long corridor of combat encounters interspersed with boss fights. A solution to all this combat complexity could be to simply get good, and the game provides a fairly competent training mode your house/hub level, but since the whole game is only five levels long and most heavy attacks (these are the glowing strikes that force you to engage with the directional dodge system or dash back defensively) are fast enough to feel practically unreactable, I satisfied myself with just learning the combo counterplay I had to for boss fights, and just eating the overheads dished out by regular goons.
I genuinely really enjoyed all the boss fights (except for the museum boss’s first phase, which heavily incentivized non-interaction), so I’m sure I would have had more fun if I was playing the game correctly!!!
So Sifu didn’t meet my expectations, but I can’t shake the feeling that that’s on me — rather than the game not fulfilling its own vision. But even with my personal biases aside, I, heartbreakingly, can’t recommend this kung fu fantasy.