Sifu 2022 PLAYED: 2022-02-10 ━ 2022-02-11 : PC - Controller
Everybody was Kung-Fu fighting!
Thoughts: Before I started this game, I had no expectations. All I knew is that when you die, you age and resurrect to keep fighting. My biggest surprise was how good the animations in Sifu are. Everything just flows naturally and feels organic. The combat is rather difficult and might require a few failed runs to really get used to. I was honestly stunned how big the learning curve is, however, once you get used to each enemy and boss you will get to the last area at age 30 or so, unless you are a badass and clear out everything without dying. Everything about Sifu has been already said and done. Yes, it is a hard game, but beating it was my personal goal that I made myself achieve no matter how many times I’d fail. Sifu asks the player for perfection and naturally you strive for that, because getting to later areas while being old makes the game harder to beat. As I mentioned before the animations are brilliant and I think fighting in this game is as close to movie fighting as we will get in today’s world of gaming. Overall, Sifu is a very challenging game with very interesting gameplay mechanics and loops that force the player to achieve near perfection and forcefully become better at the game. There are plenty of great references to martial arts fighting movies and just being in them felt like playing a movie. The 5 areas are all unique and always mix up enemies to keep you focused and ready. One sidenote: I was genuinely amazed how much care went into making the npcs you fight feel real. They respond to your moves and can literally hit their teammates if you dodge successfully. In any case my only complaints are the camera angles. They can destroy your vision and make tight corners even more tight. Secondly, the combat is near perfect, but sometimes felt unresponsive, unless I really suck at parrying and the timing is near nanoseconds in between actual hits. And lastly, the story is very barebones, and I felt no attachment to any of the characters or had motivation to pursue them, but that is not what this game is all about, it’s the juicy combat. So far… this is the best 2022 has to offer.