Sifu: Success, In Fucking Up
Putting it Bluntly Game Reviews with Cory Showtime
Fight. Die. Learn. Repeat. That is the life cycle of this game. Its pretty simple. Its very straight-forward. And it, is, GLORIOUS! Sifu is a new beat-em-up action game from Sloclap Studios. In this game, you are the child of a Kung Fu master (or…wait for it…a Sifu) murdered by a disgraced former student and his gang. So, you grow up and go searching for revenge; seeking out and taking down each member of his gang one by one, a la Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill list. And as you fight thru waves and waves of henchmen, gang members and goons, you will die. A lot. And every time you die you’re reborn; a little bit older, a little bit wiser, but also a little bit weaker.
That is the way of Sifu: Success, In Fucking Up. You see, the brilliant mechanic that makes this game addictive is its death-progression system. Every time you die, you age one year. And every consecutive time you die, you age the number of years you’ve compiled. So if you’re, say, 25 and have compiled 5 consecutive deaths, you would be age 30 when you respawn. However, every time you die, you get to spend the XP you earned beating down waves of enemies on new moves, techniques, and takedowns.
Every time you age a decade, you lose the ability to do certain moves; just like in real life, and it shows on your character. When you’ve got gray hair and the Pei Mei mustache, your knees and back aren’t about that flip-kicking life anymore. Once you die in your 70’s, you die for good, and its game over and back to the menu.
That one mechanic, along with butter-smooth framerate, gorgeous semi-cell shaded graphics ($20 if you can say that 3x fast), and easy to learn yet difficult to master combat system are what make this game such a fantastic experience. Sifu keeps it simple, and what it keeps simple, it does RIGHT. Because honey chile, lemme tell you about the COMBAT!
Sifu is a game all about recreating the best Kung Fu movie you’ve ever experienced, from a third person perspective. When I think of influences for this game; The Raid: Redemption, Enter the Dragon, and Rumble in the Bronx come to mind. As you take control of your protagonist and start to learn the controls, you begin to feel like a bad ass. You feel like you can beat the shit out of an entire night club…which is convenient, because you’ll have to. You feel like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, or Neo in the Matrix…until you get your ass absolutely handed to you. And then it’ll happen again. And again. And then, 5–6 more times. As I mentioned before, you will die…a lot. This game does NOT hold your hand and help you figure it out.
The control scheme is simple, but effective. You’ll start out spamming the light and heavy attacks, then you’ll discover the differences between blocking, parrying, and dodging completely. Eventually, you’ll learn about spacing and timing; most likely after a few kicks, punches, and bottles to the dome. Now, as a comedian and a (very) amateur martial artist, I love the grind of this game. If you wanna be a fighter, you gotta train. Training, requires fighting. Fighting requires getting hit until you learn how not to. To master a martial art, you’re gonna get your ass kicked, a lot, consistently, for YEARS, until you’re the one kicking the asses. Same thing with comedy. You wanna be a great comedian? You gotta write. You gotta perform. You gotta bomb…for YEARS, until you’re the one blowing up the stage. Sifu understands this grind. You start off as a young, dumb, student and by the time you reach the end of the game you’re older, wiser, and more efficient.
THE VERDICT: Sifu gets a 98% Chronic on the Bammer Scale. This game is some bomb ass Girl Scout Cookies that will have you laughing and chilling on the couch for hours and hours to come. The thing that this game just gets absolutely right is the special gameplay loop that results in the gamer saying either to themselves or out loud, “Ok, I got it this time. Just one more game before bed…” And THAT, my friends is the testament of a great game: you just gotta play one more time and that one more time stretches into hours. 2 thumbs up. Fux with it!
