Sifu

[Riff Machine 2,105]

I'm going to start this one like so..

 

This game is friggin hard!

 

Seriously, do not be fooled by the first stage.  Yes, it's difficult, but the jump in difficulty between this and stage 2 (The Club) slides up to insane levels.

 

Sifu is an action/rougelite/super hard game by sloclap in which you play as a young lad out to avenge his Fathers death at the hand of a group led by... The Leader.  You'll fight, a lot, through various stages and the key to success is literally perfect timing with dodge/parry and the avoid system.  Avoid is used by holding the L1/Lb and flicking the RS just before an enemy makes contact.  Sounds easy but the window for this and parrying is really small and you will be hit..  and die... a lot.  I've heard som copare the combat to the Arkham series and I will tell you now, that is a HARD NO.  This feels nothing like the arkham games.  I feel it has more in line with sloclaps previous game absolver then anything.

 

Death is handled in that when you start the game, your age is 20.  Whenever you die, a death counter appears and your age increases by how large the death counter is.  after your first death, you'll age to 21, and so on.  You can reset your counter by beating special enemies in a level as well as bosses.  An interesting system that's limited by how you unlock skills.  You can use XP earned to gain skill in a run.  But, in order to unlock it permanently, you have to keep spending XP, a lot of XP, to get the permanent unlock.  For example, a skill costs 500 XP to gain.  Once bought, you them have to spend another 2500 XP on that same skill to unlock it.  IMO, this sucks.

 

I've been playing this since launch and when everything clicks and you get into a combat flow, it's great.  The graphics have an old water color look to them that i don't really find that impressive but considering the story being told, it fits.  Audio is ok i suppose.  You'll get a lot of ambient sounds coming through the dual sense controller, like flies buzzing around a pile of garbage or walking over broken glass, and the dialogue is ok too.

 

I don't know what it is with Sony and some of their exclusives lately being so difficult.  Demons Souls, Returnal and now Sifu.  If I'm trying to entice gamers to my platform with a nice, new game, I'd at least put in a difficulty option to make this more accessible to everyone and not limit it to a small select group of gamers. 

 

Basically, if you're a fan of souls games, rouge, rougelites, or just brutal, unforgivingly difficult games, then this is for you.  I'd recommend to anyone else interested to wait until sloclap implement a difficulty option before giving it a go.

[GazzaGarratt 11,049]

On 2/12/2022 at 3:15 PM, Riff Machine said:

I don't know what it is with Sony and some of their exclusives lately being so difficult.  Demons Souls, Returnal and now Sifu.  If I'm trying to entice gamers to my platform with a nice, new game, I'd at least put in a difficulty option to make this more accessible to everyone and not limit it to a small select group of gamers.

 

Not sure what you think but part of my theory in their strategy maybe is that with Single Player games they're creating, I feel like the difficulty levels are there to just extend the life of the game. So many people gorge games these days, therefore the harder the game is the longer the game stays out there. Just a random thought I had.

 

I'm not sure its in my ability or skill level this type of game but I do want to see more of it. If you grab a decent part of game action @Riff Machine , see if you can upload it or maybe let us know who has a decent gameplay reel worth watching.

[Jason 1,245]

It is hard as fuck. 😂 

 

From a souls veteran even. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,034]

Looks an interesting game and something original but I'm kinda worried that it'll get old fast and be rather repetitive. 

[Riff Machine 2,105]

On 2/14/2022 at 7:19 AM, GazzaGarratt said:

 

Not sure what you think but part of my theory in their strategy maybe is that with Single Player games they're creating, I feel like the difficulty levels are there to just extend the life of the game. So many people gorge games these days, therefore the harder the game is the longer the game stays out there. Just a random thought I had.

 

I'm not sure its in my ability or skill level this type of game but I do want to see more of it. If you grab a decent part of game action @Riff Machine , see if you can upload it or maybe let us know who has a decent gameplay reel worth watching.

There was people running through the entire game in less then an hour without taking a hit a day after it launched.  Hell, probably same day.  It was crazy.  
 

This game is all about learning the move patterns of each enemy and how to time your dodge/party effectively.  I’ve been rocking this a lot and I’ve got it down to being at the youngest age on the 4th stage. 

[Riff Machine 2,105]

I finally finished this game last night, and got the "good" ending.  It really takes a lot of pattern recognition for the bosses to make them beatable.  Knowing when to time your dodge or parry is the ultimate key to success at this one.  The last boss can be a bit of a bitch.  I found i was just spamming the block button to great success for the first part of the fight, but relying more on avoiding in the second part.  

 

Frustrations aside, It was still a decent game.  Not for everyone for sure, but as i said before, once you're in that combat flow...  It's so gratifying.

[GazzaGarratt 11,049]

@Stretch616  needs to get this game based on your thoughts @Riff Machine . Maybe @LordBaguette  too considering you seem to get on well with the harder settings on games.

[Riff Machine 2,105]

I think it's a bit tougher then a souls like at first.  It's all about learning patterns and timing.

[phil bottle 9,758]

There's a rumour it's coming free to PS plus in March

[Stretch616 697]

Not looked at this one but sounds right up my street. The Rouguelike genre has really floated my boat recently. Plus I like having games that aren't easy, makes it have a bit more that old school "one more try" sequence.

 

Defo will hit this one up

[Riff Machine 2,105]

Definitely worth a look @Stretch616

[J4MES OX4D 10,034]

I'm tempted to grab this game as some of the reviews have been very good. It's not a bad price either. I'm kinda looking for something new and refreshing and this may be it. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,034]

Physical edition comes out this month so I may grab that.