Written by Taoan, 2021 Cohort
I want to let you in on a secret – an amazing Chinese Kungfu-style third-person action beat ’em up game developed by a French studio called Sloclap that was released on February 8th, 2022. The game is called Sifu, which means master.
If you watched the movie Kill Bill, then you will know that Sifu has the same theme – revenge. But I am not going to talk about the story, just focus on the gameplay, as usual.
This game is definitely a hard-core one, featuring “intense hand-to-hand combat”. The combat system is welly polished, there is a lot of moves or combos like pushbacks, knockdowns or stuns that need complex player input like fighting games. I heard that they have over 160 moves for the main character, which is a huge amount for an indie game. besides, you can use the environment to hit your enemy, such as kick the furniture to break their balances, or throw them off the floor, or use the weapons in the scene. Not only the attack but also the defence options have different ways. You can block, dodge and deflect. I want to explain the deflect action a bit more. It allows you to lean or duck the high or low hits without changing the position, which gives you more opportunity to face your enemy as well as recover your structure bar quickly. By the way, if there are other enemies close to you, the attack from the enemy will hit other enemies if you are deflecting. The structure bar is basically the same as posture in Sekiro, the attacks and parries (blocks in right timing) will increase the structure bar, when the structure bar is full, you can execute your enemies.
The aging system is another core mechanic of the game. As I mentioned it is a hard-core game, any mistakes can be deadly, because the designer wants players to experience training and self-improvement. When the player dies, they have the chance to unlock new skills with their experience points then rise through death, but they will age. In other words, you can learn from the mistakes and try again. However, the more you die, the faster you will age. The life is limited and it won’t go back unless you replay the level. When you pass a certain age, the character won’t rise anymore. I think this design is smart. It allows players to try and keep the difficulty at the same time.
This French studio is amazing that you can see how they respect the Pak Mei Kung fu, allow players to make their own Pak Mei choreography with press different bottoms, as well as the Chinese culture, which you can see from some of the scene styles (like lion dance head) also background music and learn “Wude”, which means learning the martial arts are from the story. As a Chinese who was born and raised in a Cantonese-speaking area, the Kung fu movie from Hong Kong accompanied me through my childhood. I was so surprised that it gave me the feeling that I was watching old movies with Jackie Chen, like fighting with multiple people, kicking props for enemies etc. I can feel their enthusiasm for an exotic culture from the game. I also want to say something at the end of the writing. I not only learned something from their game or animation design but I also acknowledged that anybody can create amazing works about exotic cultures if they have enough enthusiasm and passion.