History VideoGame / Sifu

** If you know there's a BossInMookClothing in a crowd of enemies, and don't feel like contending with them, you can still beat your enemies up without performing the finishers - you will get the same rewards as though you triggered the transformation.

* AnAesop:
** [[spoiler:Nothing good ever comes out of revenge. Learn to forgive, move on, and be the better person, or you will destroy yourself and countless others along the way, to an ultimate goal that may just leave you feeling worse and emptier than ever before.]]
** [[spoiler:Dedicating yourself to something has to be done for constructive purposes, or your good intentions will be corrupted. The Student becomes a martial artist to get revenge, but ends up feeling betrayed when VengeanceFeelsEmpty. On the flipside, once NewGamePlus starts and they dedicate themself to honoring their father's memory through ToBeAMaster, they ends their journey at peace. Each member of the Dawn Group becomes arrogant in the years following the death of Sifu, ultimately leaving it up to the protagonist to humble their IDidWhatIHadTo motivations and force them to confront their guilt. Some of the bosses argue that the artifacts should be used to help people. How much they actually did use the artifacts for this end varies. Upon realizing that they have been spared, each Dawn Group shows regret for their actions and donates their artifacts back to the Student's dojo.]]

The central mechanic of the game is resurrection related to the aforementioned talisman. If the student dies on his or her quest, they dynamically age by a certain number of years. Each time they die, their Death Counter goes up by 1, which causes them to age that many years- for instance, going from 20 to 21, to 23, to 26 and so on. Successfully beating strong opponents lowers the Death Counter, and age is carried over between levels. The game ends if you die after hitting 70 years of age, and the student's stats slowly change as they get older. Once you die, you can put experience points into unlocking a skill either temporarily or permanently for future runs, making gameplay akin to a roguelike.

You play as the child of a Kung Fu master whose school was massacred one night by a group of martial artists with their father killed by Yang, their leader and [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil his former pupil turned to evil]]. They are then killed by one of his compatriots, [[WildMan Fajar]], before being resurrected by a magical talisman. They proceed to train for several years for the day they will take revenge on Yang and his team.

* NintendoHard: The game is not very long, as it is composed of 5 short levels that get even shorter with the unlockable shortcuts. However, actually ''getting there'' is going to be what the bulk of your playtime will be. With how the game's ResurrectiveImmortality works, you might finish a level scraping by at old age, then go back and try to do it all over again, but better, so you'll have more leeway to try and finish the next one.

* ArrogantKungFuGuy: First is [[TheBrute Sean]], who's based an entire dojo around this archetype. Kuroki shows some implications of this from time to time during the fight by giving taunts, and lastly [[BigBad Yang]], who, like Kuroki, is a lot more downplayed, but still shows his arrogance from time to time.

* TouchOfDeath: Yang uses a dim mak like punch to kill the Sifu. The Student can be seen practicing it when he returns to the hubb after a level. [[spoiler:[[HoistByHisOwnPetard It comes back to bite him in the ass in the bad ending.]] In the good ending, Yang does land the same punch on The Student, who proceeds to shrug it off. It turns out that [[YouAreAlreadyDead with the full power of Wude, the death is delayed.]]]]

* DeathIsCheap: Zigzagged. On the one hand, dying doesn't automatically give you a game-over and you can in fact unlock new skills and abilities this way. On the other hand, dying too frequently will rapidly age the protagonist and reduce their health pool. Hitting age 70 or the death counter reaching 10 means your next death will be your final one.

* BadassNormal: Compared to the other four bosses, Yang doesn't wield any sort of special weapons or transformative powers. He simply fights using [[MirrorBoss the same fighting style as the protagonist, though more advanced.]]

''Sifu'' is a BeatEmUp game created and published by Sloclap, the studio behind {{VideoGame/Absolver}}. It was released for UsefulNotes/Playstation5, UsefulNotes/Playstation4 and PC on the UsefulNotes/EpicGamesStore on February 8, 2022 and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch on November 8, 2022.

* BossInMooksClothing: Sprinkled throughout the levels are seemingly normal mooks that, after you try to use your finisher move on them, will not only resist it but regain their full health ''and'' experience a dramatic power-up with new moves to make your life hell. The developers wanted it so like in real life, you never tell how experienced a martial artist any given person is [[MuggingTheMonster until you fuck around and find out the hard way]].

* TheBrute: It's an even split between Fajar, The Botanist, and Sean, the Fighter. For starters, Fajar is the only boss who doesn't speak, and seems to be the most savage and brutal. Sean is the biggest of the group, and even runs a [[BloodKnight dojo with the emphasis on PAIN]], though he shows signs of better intelligence than Fajar.

* PeekABangs: Kuroki sported these in the prologue. She now has a middle part with a bun.

* ArrogantKungFuGuy: First is [[TheBrute Sean]], who's based an entire dojo around this archetype. [[DarkChick Kuroki]] shows some implications of this from time to time during the fight by giving taunts, and lastly [[BigBad Yang]], who, like Kuroki, is a lot more downplayed, but still shows his arrogance from time to time.

** There's also [[DarkChick Kuroki]] and several of the [[KickChick Flash]][[EliteMook kicks]] that pretend to be Kuroki in some of the Museum's foggy exhibits.

* FinalDeath: How you reach the game over screen if you don't revive yourself after death. If your death counter is at 10 or you're at age 70, you will not be able to revive the next time you die.

** If you know there's a BossInMookClothing in a crowd of enemies, and don't feel like conteding with them, you can still beat your enemies up without performing the finishers - you will get the same rewards as though you triggered the transformation.

* BreakMeter: Both the protagonist and enemies have a "Structure Bar" that fills as they take hits. When it fills for an enemy they are opened up for a finisher. When it fills for the player their guard is broken and they're left vulnerable.

* DeathAsGameMechanic: When you die, your magic talisman will revive you at the cost of [[CastFromLifespan aging you]]. As you get older, your gain slightly increased damage, but lower health. Also, you can only upgrade your skills after dying. Dying too frequently increases the rate at you age, and at Age 70+, you become too old to revive, leading to a FinalDeath.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The Student's RoaringRampageOfRevenge takes place over the course of a single day, by necessity so the targets don't retaliate together against them once they know the Student is coming for them. The reason the Student ages is because the talisman's ResurrectiveImmortality is CastFromLifespan.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: [[spoiler:The Student gains the option to spare the bosses in the second playthrough as an indication of their knowledge that VengeanceFeelsEmpty.]] However, this mindset doesn't carry over to the mooks, who you'll still likely deal lethal blows to depending on the circumstances and what weapon you're using at the time.

* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: Inverted in The Tower that Jinfeng resides in. You climb the tower... by riding the elevator up. Only when Jinfeng rings her bell and mysteriously disappears that you'll have to be going downwards instead of up.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: The Dawn Group have power of their own and if they see the protagonist get back from the death they will simply be mildly impressed. Their goons though have not received the message and are scared after seeing you come back from a lethal beating and suddenly aged.

* TimeyWimeyBall: There is an element of this to the gameplay and story. Despite the story seeming to proceed in a chronological order over the course of a single day, as the student advances through the stages, they can find keys and clues that help unlock doors and shortcuts in prior stages that were barred to them the first time around, such as being able to gain a key that unlocks a shortcut in the club level from one of Sean's students encountered in the Museum level, or gaining the key from the Skull brothers near the end of the Squats that unlocks the barred doors near the beginning. Replaying these levels once the items are found allows the student to proceed through these shortcuts, despite the fact that chronologically, they shouldn't have access to them yet. Story-wise, [[spoiler:the Student only gains the option to spare the targets and unlock the true ending after killing Yang and realizing that VengeanceFeelsEmpty, implying that the talisman allowed them to somehow loop back to the beginning of the day and with whatever years they lost resorted to re-do the stages and make the 'correct' choice this time around]].

*** You'll never be met with a kick in the face for kneeling down to pound on a tripped enemy, or knocked out of a superpowered Focus attack once you've managed to start it

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: [[spoiler:Sparing bosses]] on a Wude run can be this if you're accustomed to hitting the takedown button(s) as soon as the prompt appears. Likely an intentional move on the developers' part, as it demands the player to pull off the act with calm and clarity rather than just relying on raw muscle memory like they might have spent their first run doing.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: [[spoiler:Sparing bosses]] on a Wude run can be this if you're accustomed to hitting the takedown button(s) as soon as the prompt appears.