#SIFU SHOW UPGRADE#
#SIFU SHOW PC#

However, the talisman’s catch comes into play: The age of the character increases the more times you die. The player’s job is to keep this vengeful martial artist alive while dealing out damage to their enemies. Naturally, the martial artist is determined to hunt down each of the fighters responsible for the attack, culminating in a showdown with Yang that will reveal the ringleader’s hidden motivation for murdering his former master. Most of Sifu’s action takes place eight years after these events when the child has grown into an accomplished, 20-year-old martial artist.

Living beats dying any day, but the talisman comes with a catch: Every time it’s used to resurrect someone, the survivor will experience accelerated aging. When his former mentor refuses to comply, Yang orders one of his accomplices to kill the sifu’s child (à la Sub-Zero and Scorpion), but the child is revived with the aid of a magical talisman. The lead attacker, Yang, is a former student of the school, and he demands information from its sifu (“master” or “teacher” in Cantonese). Sifu is set in an unspecified Chinese city, where a group of five assassins assault a martial arts school and slaughter its students.

Steeped in the tough love that fight master Pai Mei showed while training the Bride, it’s a relentless but rewarding game that for me, at least, transcends two sources of frustration and finds the sweet spot between quitting and catharsis. Sifu strips away Absolver’s Dark Souls–esque approach to building a versatile martial arts adventure character and replaces it with an unusual, not-really- roguelike structure.

#SIFU SHOW UPGRADE#

Sloclap’s sophomore outing is an upgrade in quality and mainstream appeal compared to the studio’s first title, the 2017 open-world online action RPG Absolver (which I also adored). But the visceral satisfaction of not just a victory, but a victory earned, is what will likely make Sifu one of my most memorable gaming experiences of the year.

There were times when it brought on a level of vexation that made me worry about my blood pressure.

#SIFU SHOW PC#

There were plenty of times when I wanted to quit playing Sifu, the action beat-’em-up game by developer Sloclap that came out for PC and PlayStation platforms earlier this month. Proof of improvement can be proof of success. For me, discipline and dedication can sometimes come after knowing how good I felt after finally completing something for the first time.

Sifu show