Return of the Shaolin
Developer Sloclap blessed us with the fighting game Sifu in 2022. At that time it was only released on the PS5/PC but now the kung fu Gods have seen fit to bless us on Xbox with this title. While I was anxious to dig back in, having not really messed with the game barring a few sessions of replaying the phenomenal museum boss fight. I remembered the blistering difficulty (at least for me) but I was met with a welcome sight upon booting up the latest version on the Xbox that sight – a difficulty meter.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99
Sifu is a fighting game but it’s all full of freaking roguelike elements (I wish this buzz word would just die). That means that players will die, repeatedly in their quest to avenge their slain father. My original review on the PS5 goes into more detail about the overall gameplay which remains unchanged here. But being able to play this game on an easier difficulty allowed me to get through the story mode A LOT quicker than my original time with Sifu. However, the drawback here is I found that a lot of the skills that I had unlocked when I played a year ago on the (at the time) base difficulty I was unable to unlock here on easy. In Sifu players can pay acquired XP to learn new moves, but if they pay that sum multiple times it will unlock that move permanently. But since I never actually aged 75, which would have spelled ‘Game Over’ I never got enough XP in order to permanently unlock any more than like 3 moves.
This may not sound like a bad thing, but with the inclusion of the new Arena mode that follows the single player Sifu unlocks all the moves for players while in this mode. The issue is if players don’t see or use those moves in single player then chances are they aren’t going to have any clue it even exists to use in Arena. To be fair the game does warn players that finishing the campaign mode is recommended but not required. The Arena game mode includes nine original levels that are based on campaign stages. In this mode players will be presented with challenges to complete, some of these will be based on performance, while others may have characters targeting specific enemies’ players will also find challenges based on the characters age by completion and more.
The Arena mode helps with the overall replay value of Sifu and that is a very good thing as the story mode doesn’t provide much outside of bettering times and scores. The Arena mode isn’t infinite, there is a long list of challenges for players to unlock and it’s capped off with question marks; a not too subtle nod that the developers will probably be working on more. One of the other awesome additions with Arena mode is the ability to make clips of your fights with the in-game editor. It’s possible to add slow down effects among other things to make your best Neo vs Smith boss fight.
Sifu remains a difficult game taken at its standard difficulties but with the addition of an easy mode it is vastly more approachable than it was at launch. I loved this game at launch in 2022 and the fact that it’s more accessible now in 2023 just makes me love it even more. If you were on the fence before due to the difficulty, I would encourage you to give it a try especially for those of us waiting on the Xbox release; if you are a fan of things like the Matrix or Kung Fu movies in general then don’t sleep on Sifu.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
