I have been itching to play Sifu ever since I was forced to watch a PlayStation State of Play that featured it, mildly jealous that it wasn’t to appear on the Xbox. Luckily, the timed exclusivity period has now ended, and Sifu has arrived on the big black box sat under my TV.
It’s all thanks to the developers Sloclap and their publishing friends at Kepler Interactive, as it hits Xbox with a new mode too, the Arenas expansion. Let’s have a look at how the transition has gone, shall we?
Story is the first place we can start this review, and it is straight out of a 1970’s martial arts movie, so I was immediately onboard. We start as a small child, eight-years of age, and then one day, we see our father killed by a group of baddies, led by Yang, an ex-pupil of our fathers. Sadly, we are then killed as well! However, as this is a video game we don’t stay dead, and that is all thanks to a relic that lets us come back to life. You will come to bless this little relic as the game goes on, believe me. So, after we have trained and grown up a little, we do what any dutiful child would do and set out on a path of revenge to take care of the people who killed dear old dad. The scene is set for some kung fu ass whuppery, and we’re all invited.
Presentation of Sifu is very good indeed, with an interesting look to the graphics. The character that we play as, as well as the enemies, all have a very distinctive look that really works well. The animation of every character is absolutely top notch too, with smooth, flowing combat and absolutely brilliant looking fights taking place. The story itself is split into various different levels, each with a unique look, ranging from a nightclub to a museum, and the worlds are very well realised.
From there, the audio is also top notch, with proper crunching kung fu impacts that are required for these games. It’s helped that the voice acting is on par. In fact, overseeing the presentation and Sifu is top notch all round, and I have precisely zero complaints.
The story is nailed on, the presentation is very good, so it’s about time to take a look at the actual gameplay.
The combat is the star here. You have the usual heavy and light attacks, and the way that these are mixed is what leads to the flow of the combat. There is a parry move, and timing of this is the most critical thing that you can learn. Parrying, and then countering is the only way that you will be able to survive in Sifu, and some enemies will also only take damage when they are countered, so practising this first is my top tip. Another tip is to learn the systems and the way the combat works before heading into the Arenas section, as this is very difficult indeed.
In fact, the combat is very difficult all the way through, mostly as it works like you would expect it to work in real life – enemies don’t queue up, waiting for their turn to attack you in an orderly fashion. Oh no – they all pile on and try to hit you at the same time, so you will need to develop eyes in the back of your head to keep them at bay. Luckily the camera is well up to the job, and as you keep practising, the combat will start to click and feel better, whilst the systems begin to make sense as you go about stringing together combos, kicking ass and taking names like Bruce Lee himself.
I cannot stress enough how good the kung fu action in Sifu is, with absolutely brutal finishing moves to unleash. It is great to see that some of them are recognisable from the movie scene, like the centre line strikes of Wing Chun from the Ip Man films. It is firmly rooted in real world fighting, and getting your hands on a weapon is just an excuse to unleash a whole new world of pain on the enemies.
The really cool mechanic in Sifu comes into play when you are defeated, believe it or not. You see, the relic that prevents us from dying does have a side effect – as we die and come back, we age a certain number of years. As we age, we become more powerful, doing extra damage to the enemies, but we also get weaker in the sense that we don’t have as much health to burn; it is very much a case of swings and roundabouts. Eventually, as you age, the relic will begin to break down, and once it has completely broken, we can no longer be revived, left to start the section we died in again.
The relic has another function, and this is to allow us to learn new moves by spending the EXP that we gain by defeating the enemies we meet. There are a variety of moves to unlock, and if you put extra EXP into a skill that you already have unlocked, you can make it permanently unlocked for each subsequent level. For things like “Regain health on a finishing move” this is absolutely vital to do. There are also new combat moves to learn, and this is one of the issues I have found, sadly. You see, the special moves are a lot like those in any fighting game, with a command to input to pull them off. In the middle of combat, these can be hard to pull off. For instance, a sweep move is down, up, Y in sequence, but when we are in the middle of ten enemies all trying to kick our head in, we normally end up moving into range of an attack as we attempt to pull it off. This is a niggle, nothing more, but it does make the moves almost useless in my experience. Maybe someone with younger thumbs would find it easier?
The new Arenas update in Sifu is a lot of fun to try as well, with a series of scenarios presented, completely unrelated to the main story or the bosses there (Whoever came up with the woman with the golden chain is off my Christmas card list for ever). But the combat found here is just as fast and brutal as the rest of the game. Each scenario that you have to complete has a different scoring scheme, scored out of three stars, with obviously the higher scores being harder. As an example, one of the scenarios tasks us with taking out seven marked foes, and this is against the clock; I missed the three star time by 11 seconds on my first try.
I can safely say that Sifu on Xbox has been well worth the wait. The martial arts action is absolutely great, with some seriously brutal action to enjoy. The combat is hard, extremely so, and the bosses are on a whole new level, but the feeling you get when you master the fighting is nothing short of amazing. Parrying and countering, taking in the finishing moves and involving yourself in some flowing combat sees Sifu excel.
If you have any interest in kung fu fighting, then you owe it to yourself to play Sifu.
