BRAWLER REVIVAL
Become a kung fu master in SIFU
Was Sifu’s final cutscene worth the frustration I endured to see it? Not really, but at risk of sounding like I’m quoting some misattributed kung fu aphorism, the experience of mastering Sifu’s combat is what mattered and I couldn’t get enough of it. That’s down to some of the most enjoyable melee combat ever – fluid, funny, improvisational – and a devilish structure that taunted me with its contemptible fairness.
Sifu is a singleplayer-only brawler with just five levels, each of which ends in a two-stage boss fight. Except for the final boss’ annoying immunity to certain attacks, there are no tricks. The bosses can all be defeated just like any other opponent, and the opening credits even show you how to fight them. When you make it to the second phase of a boss fight, Sifu even restores all your health. It’s so charitable that every time I died, I said a few short words of gratitude through my clenched teeth.
You aren’t even out of the fight when Sifu kills you. Thanks to a magic talisman, the protagonist can be resurrected on the spot, which causes them to age one or more years – the penalty increases each time the talisman is used. That gives you more than ten chances to kill all five bosses
while blowing through the hero’s 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
OLD BOY
At some point in their 70s, the protagonist will use up the talisman’s last charge, and another death will be game over. That’s not too big of a deal, because you don’t have to beat all five bosses in one run. Once you’ve reached a level, you can restart it as many times as you want, always beginning from the lowest age at which you finished the previous level. If you’re struggling to beat a boss – the bloodthirsty, demonic museum owner, for instance – one option is to give yourself more leeway by attempting to finish the previous level at a younger age. You might need to replay the level before that level, too, though, and at that point you may as well start from the beginning and grind out some permanent skill unlocks.
That’s the devilishness of Sifu: when the way forward is too difficult, you can always admit your deficiencies and go back in time to do better, drawing out what would otherwise be a brief experience. Even with unlockable shortcuts, most levels contain a few encounters before you reattempt the boss fight.
I don’t know if Sifu would be possible before SSD times, because even as it stands I think it takes too long to restart a level, never mind get back to the boss fight. It’s about repetition, which makes any and all forced lingering irritating. For instance, there are pointless moments where you’ve got to listen to an inane line of dialogue and respond before progressing – I do not need to ask what the goddamn three trials are the 30th time I am doing the three trials! – and there are beautiful but strangely long, unpopulated passageways everywhere you go.
It’s irritating how compelling Sifu is in spite of all that. I can’t say that I was exactly happy to beat up the same nightclub bouncer 50 or so times on my way into the second level, but I didn’t feel I could accept defeat, either. And at least when my cortisol levels are within a normal range, beating up bouncers in Sifu is exceptionally fun.
FLURRY OF FISTS
All of your time in Sifu is spent heading toward bosses or fighting them, but they aren’t its best fights. The boss battles are all one-on-one bouts, and although I should probably thank the videogame gods that we’ve been spared a boss who calls in waves of reinforcements, this is one game where that might’ve actually been good.
Beating solo enemies in Sifu largely involves the same pattern memorisation you can find back in the NES era of gaming, with some
Beating up bouncers in Sifu is exceptionally fun
variance to keep you on your toes. Inscribing attack patterns into your brain folds is a tried and true form of fun, and I did delight in finally snuffing out each boss, easily dodging combos that once tormented me – even the damned sweeping trip attacks. But Sifu shines where memorisation meets improvisation and playfulness, an experience mainly found in the goon-filled rooms on the way to the bosses.
You can produce wildly diverse combinations of kneeings, elbowings, kicks, punches, and throws from just two buttons and an analog stick. (There’s keyboard and mouse support, too, but it feels like playing Rocket League that way: doable, but weird.) It’s fun just to take part in such a stylish display of imagined (but mostly grounded) athleticism, but Sifu’s brilliance lies more in defence than offence.
You can slip and roll around and under haymakers, kicks, and grabs, which basic enemies telegraph clearly like the amateurs they are (thanks to Sifu being a singleplayer game, it can slow down time to make this easier). It’s possible to avoid most attacks that way, and it’s enormously satisfying to stand in place dodging every foot and fist and baseball bat that enters your airspace like a pro boxer who outclasses their opponent and definitely knows it.
When everything clicks, all your moves flow together in long brawls that look more like some amazing movie action scene than something you could possibly be controlling. There’s a big fight inside the nightclub level that can’t be avoided, and so I’ve done it dozens of times. It’s always a little different, but a snippet of it might go something like this: I run in and beat a guy to the floor with a baseball bat, bounce it off someone else’s forehead, dodge a punch from behind me and then throw a backhand into their temple without turning around (the charged backfist attack has become one of my favourite unlocks), trip another combatant with a kick and then dodge an incoming punch by kneeling down to hammer them with punches, stand the tripped guy back up and palm strike him over a staircase, sending him tumbling onto the dance floor, kick an ottoman at another dude to throw out his legs, too, and so on. There’s much more you can do in just those five levels.
INTO DREAMS
But the kung fu revenge tale meant to make sense of those levels comes across like someone’s poorly remembered dream. In its otherworldly China, nightclubs, corporations and medical centres are all run by elusive kung fu masters, a drug lab transforms into a bamboo grove, and a museum elevator leads to a moonlit night. Like so many dreams, the plot probably matters more to the dreamer than to anyone else, but Sifu’s logic can be enjoyably uncanny and its visual effects are fantastic. At one point, waves of golden energy rise from a deep-earth bell, seeming to liquify banded iron ore in the cave walls surrounding you. Rather than Sifu’s clumsy dialogue and character barks, I wanted that powerful foreshadowing to be paired with some of Max Payne’s noir monologuing, “My future was ringing in my ears…”
Remedy’s waking nightmares in Max Payne and Control do make for a decent point of comparison, but Quentin Tarantino films are really Sifu’s nearest comparison. The opening cutscene is reminiscent of O-Ren Ishii’s animated origin in Kill Bill, and like those movies it’s guided in large part by a fascination with cliché and archetype. Martial arts films are the major inspiration for both, and early in Sifu there’s a direct nod to the hallway fight in Oldboy. That first level doubles as an homage to The Raid, taking place in an apartment building strewn with junkies who the protagonist notes aren’t a threat, more or less informing us that they’re just props.
They’re slightly more than that by the end, as the expensive-looking healing centre at the conclusion provides some critical contrast. That connection may say more about the country I live in than China, though. Sifu’s point of view on the nation it’s set in is hazy. The Paris-based studio worked with Chinese consultants, and its creative director is associated with a French Pak Mei kung fu master, the chosen disciple of master Lao Wei San in Foshan. Reverence for that tradition and lineage is obvious in the school that acts as the protagonist’s home base between levels, but the other places come across like Control’s Oceanview Motel: not generic, exactly, but locationless. They could be part of the fictional world in Sloclap’s previous game, Absolver.
PRACTICE MAKE PERFECT
What is mainly gained from these kung fu enthusiasts is the mechanical videogame adaptation of a specific style of kung fu. I can’t say whether or not the character shows faithful form, but the cohesiveness of the moveset comes through brilliantly. And I did have the experience of ‘mastery through practice’ that was promised. In that way, Sifu’s focus on kung fu tradition is a success, even if the setting and story are mostly just mystifying spectacle.
I wish I had recorded my first blundering advance through the opening stage so that I could see just how far I’ve come. It’s hard to remember being a novice after you’ve trained so much that you can no longer say exactly how you do it: at this point, I just dodge when it’s time to dodge and attack when it’s time to attack. That’s a lot more complicated to do in the physical world, but 30 hours with Sifu’s videogame version can at least get you a heady whiff of kung fu mastery.
You can slip and roll around and under haymakers, kicks and grabs