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The original was posted on /r/epicgamespc by /u/BackgroundStomach916 on 2025-01-06 18:50:03+00:00.
Review: Sifu – 7/10 (good)
Sifu is a kung fu beat ‘em up game with five excellent levels. That’s a good thing, because I had to replay them a lot.
The main gimmick of Sifu is aging. Every time the player dies, they are resurrected at the cost of being a few years older. Resurrection is no longer possible after turning 70.
Age also carries through between levels. So it’s easy to get past Sifu’s first boss by just tanking hits and dying over and over again, but this will leave players unprepared for the rest of the game. It’s a cool mechanic that incentivizes beating levels repeatedly to get a good age before moving on.
All of this builds up to a climactic boss fight at the end of Sifu’s fifth level. However, the credits don’t actually roll after defeating him. To get the real ending, it's required to go through the entire game a second time, with the only difference being slightly harder bosses. This path also feels much more confusing narratively.
The second path combined with Sifu’s aging system meant I replayed each level quite a few times. This wasn’t too frustrating, as they’re all beautiful, and the superb combat takes a while to master. But Sifu really does stretch five hours of content into 15.
Want a better idea of my taste in games? Check out my Backloggd.
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Journal Entry:
For those who missed the last post, my New Year’s resolution was to beat all of Epic’s weekly, free games and document it on Reddit until May. I could choose any game from the holiday giveaway to start. I decided to go with Sifu, as it seemed to have the most hype.
I didn’t have any knowledge about the game going in, but Sifu was a blast to play through. Each level has a gorgeous art direction, and the combat system is very similar to Sekiro — one of my favorites. That’s probably why I didn’t find Sifu to be that difficult. I beat every boss in three tries or less on the standard difficulty. It all just felt very familiar in a good way.
Getting Sifu’s true ending took me two days. I had the feeling afterward that it was possibly one of the best games I had played in a year. However, that initial hype has died down. Sifu has a lot of issues, including the overemphasis on replayability that I mentioned in the review portion. It’s a very fun and stylish game, but the thinning of content over a 15-hour runtime has prevented Sifu from leaving the long-term impact I expected.
I’m still very glad that I played it. I never would have if not for this challenge. Sifu was also just a good first game to play, considering it’s both fun and relatively short. There won’t be the luxury to choose one of multiple games going forward, so I’d better prepare for some interesting stuff.
On that note, next week’s game is Turmoil. I know nothing besides that it looks like a building simulator. See you all then!