4/5 ★ – IAmAShelton's review of Sifu.

Overcoming challenges is incredibly satisfying, and where Sifu almost broke me, I persevered and overcame. My patience and resilience paid off, but Sifu's difficulty combined with its beautiful combat are the only reasons to play this beat ‘em-up. All the roguelite-ish elements, except the most interesting method of progression, were absolutely unnecessary. Sifu's main draw is the premise that every time you die, you get older. A pendant containing five medallions keeps you alive while you exact revenge on five kung-fu artists who murdered your father. Every ten years you get older, a medallion breaks. If all five medallions break, it's game over and you have to start the stage over. However, each time you age ten years, you hit harder, but your health decreases. It's such a fun mechanic to play around and creates a tug-of-war within you. Do you replay the level to try to limit your deaths for the next level, or do you continue on knowing that you're going to hit harder? And as you get better at attacking and defending against enemies, how you proceed changes as you become more confident or as you gather information laid out around each stage. All levels feature a faster path to the boss, which is really useful as you perform better and are confident in your ability to stay younger. It doesn’t make Sifu easier but it does take the monotony away from fighting the same enemies over and over, especially if you’re good at taking them down. You can earn upgrades to make runs a little easier. Jade statues allow you to increase one physical attribute, like hitting harder, or increasing your “structure,” which is your ability to block attacks before you're stunned. This is where one element of Sifu’s rougelite nature shows up and it's the most useful aspect, albeit not needed. These jade statue upgrades are very helpful in buffing whatever playstyle you're using but they aren't permanent. I mastered dodging enemy hits, so I found it beneficial to increase my structure and use another skill that reduced structure damage whenever I dodged an enemy attack. But maybe you like weapons and want to bash enemies for as long as possible before they break. There's an option for that playstyle. The problem with jade statue upgrades is that certain upgrades are useless against the final boss, while other upgrades have more use, which can put you at a much bigger disadvantage. The boss itself is a great fight - and very difficult - but it's not right that most of what's available through the jade statues is literally useless. Each time you die, you get to buff your kung-fu mastery by choosing from an extensive list of upgrades that teach you new moves to use while in combat. You can learn a sweeping kick, a snappy jab to the face, a punch to the crotch, or unblockable "focus" moves that allow you to get some good hits on tougher enemies. But I didn't use 90% of them. I didn't need them. You probably won't either. The most important thing in Sifu is learning to parry and dodge. If you can do that, you won't need anything else. That’s not a strategy tip. That’s how Sifu functions. Parrying, which is essentially blocking an attack at the right to momentarily stun an enemy, and “avoiding” - sidestepping enemy attacks - are combat necessities. You’re looking for openings to attack and so are your enemies. But enemies are so good at blocking that even if you perform the most beautiful combos, you're eventually going to get parried or whiff because the enemies are not pushovers. Even the weakest ones - while you'd probably knock them out before you're able to do anything fancy - if you string too many attacks, every enemy will counter in some way. It's a testament to the intelligent A.I., but it's a reason why mostly all the moves you could learn aren't needed. If you took all the upgrades out, including the jade statue ones, Sifu would be the same game, and hardly any tougher. What you don't need doesn't make Sifu worse, though. In fact, I appreciate the work Sloclap did to make kung-fu fighting genuine and true to the spirit of kung-fu. It's a patient martial arts style, and you'll need quite a bit of it. It's not a style that is meant to overwhelm groups with flashy offense. You’re supposed to take down multiple enemies one at a time, capitalize on enemies' mistakes, and be aware of all your surroundings. Sifu exemplifies these foundational traits perfectly and you feel invincible after taking down a group of five or more enemies without taking a single hit. And while the enemy attacks become familiar as you progress, the dynamics change as you fight different ones at the same time, especially since enemies don't wait for you to knock the daylights out of their buddies to attack. But you can get a little grimy too. One level is set in a club and there are plenty of bottles to throw. Go ahead and pick up that metal bat and perform a brutal execution when the prompt appears. Seriously, the executions are stunning. They never get old. And they're dynamic. Got an enemy near a wall? Watch as your character smacks the enemy all around and then slams their head into the wall. Maybe you're by a ledge with a weapon. Watch as you pummel the baddie and his wrist ends up on the ledge and you slam your weapon directly on it. After ten hours of playing, I still grimaced. Sifu, undoubtedly, requires a lot of patience. Part of that comes from the fact that it overloads you with a lot of moves that you don't need, but it's easy to assume you do because they exist. The only factors Sifu needed are the fundamental elements of combat and the levels you fight within. Everything else could have been tossed and Sifu would still be an excellent game.