With the recent and incredible achievement of one million Sifu copies sold (per Sifu. This love-letter to the kung-fu classics offers more than a few challenging fights, with unique kung-fu conflicts that both make and break players trying to complete the five varied levels of the story.
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From boss battles to specific encounters that love to shave a few years off of a character’s lifespan (and a perfect run), Sifu knows how to create a truly difficult fight, and gamers will need to practice in order to efficiently move past them.
Fajar The Botanist
Sifu is one of the more anticipated indie games releasing this year, and with the first boss that players encounter in the game, Fajar The Botanist offers a shift in difficulty. As a mute who slit the main character’s throat in the prologue of the game, Fajar will have likely ended most first or second runs through The Squats.
After fighting a variety of henchmen and learning the ropes of the combat system, Fajar changes the game with wide-reaching attacks and swift combos that get more complex as the fight wears on. His second stage comes with more risk, but more rewards as he wields a knife but also gives players access to bamboo bats lying on the ground.
Sean’s Disciples In The Club
For many fans who dove right into Sifu, the Club is where children become adults and where the wheat is separated from the chaff. After learning the tactics of combat and beating the first boss, players will probably start to gain some confidence, but the Club and Sean’s disciples will swiftly beat it out of them.
There are a variety of paths to take in order to reach Sean, and regardless of which one the player chooses, they will run into a combination of Sean’s disciples, all of whom have a varied fighting style, and all of whom are deadly. Players will need to hone their fighting skills in order to minimize their lost lives before reaching Sean.
Sean The Fighter
The second boss in Sifu, Sean The Fighter certainly offers a unique fighting challenge that has no doubt has ended many a promising run. Without understanding his attack patterns and the proper moves needed to dodge them, his flurry of staff attacks will obliterate the youth of the main character and make their death counter skyrocket.
This is where the learning curve of Sifu comes into play, as players will soon find out that spamming the high and low dodge to avoid Sean’s staff sweeps and/or utilizing the staves that hang on the wall can make this boss battle a much more manageable affair.
Circle of Rain In The Museum
As one of the more visually stunning indie games released this year, Sifu and its art style establishes a strong atmospheric beauty that is hard not to appreciate, even when players are getting a consistent beatdown within it. The circular art exhibit in The Museum is one of the better examples of this, offering a brightly lit circle in a sea of darkness as rain falls and reflects off the central glow.
However, the waves of enemies, both large and small, armed and unarmed, might be a little more than distracting, and after dispatching enough, the large brute and the two elite fighters at his side that come out at the end will certainly give unfocused players a run for their money.
Museum Exhibit Twins With Bladed Heels
The Museum level is chock full of difficult fights and waves of enemies, but one of the hardest battles is one that can come right before the boss fight, depending on which path the player chose. As the main character enters through a glowing pathway into a foggy and red-lit exhibit floor, two identical fighters will jump out at them.
Their acrobatic flips and kicks are made doubly dangerous due to the curved blades on their high-heels and dispatching both takes continual focus and an understanding of their attack patterns, made extra difficult due to the glowing fog that covers the room.
Jinfeng The CEO
The main character of Sifu is highly skilled whether players chose the male or female protagonist, and as with all of the bosses in Sifu, Jinfeng The CEO offers a unique combination of strengths and weaknesses that will challenge them. Players will have to learn in order to effectively take her down. As an older woman, her health is much lower than other bosses, and strikes on her will show it.
Nevertheless, the bell on a chain that she uses as her weapon is capable of roping players in and dealing a flurry of devastating strikes. The distance the bell creates will certainly frustrate players fighting her for the first time, but closing the distance and staying in close proximity to her will yield more opportunities to strike and defeat her in rapid form.
Café and Kitchen in The Sanctuary
The Sanctuary is the final level of Sifu, and requires a mastery of all skills in order to perfect a run through it. The final boss is the hardest in the game, but the small skirmishes that players can take part in beforehand are also quite challenging, maybe none more so than the kitchen and café near the level entrance.
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The diversity of opponents and the small space makes this fight a true battle for even experienced players, combing brutes and larger elite fighters with small and quick specialists. Players will need to utilize the bottles on the counters and the knives in the kitchen in order to quickly defeat this horde of enemies.
Kuroki The Artist
Even though she is the third level boss, Kuroki The Artist offers one of the harder boss fights in the whole game. The difference between her first and second stage offers a striking shift, both visually and difficulty-wise. Her second stage can be hard to acclimate to, but learning her attack patterns and sending back the kunai she lets fly will soon make it a breeze.
Her first stage however, requires a lot more patience and perseverance. The swinging blade combos she performs make it difficult to get in close without taking irreparable damage, and as her health declines, the speed and aggressiveness of her attacks only increases, making this fight a truly difficult one to master.
Duo Before The Club Boss Fight
As mentioned before, The Club is where the difficulty of Sifu is made quite clear to the inexperienced, and this is most evident in the elite duo that players must face right before they enter the dojo to fight the boss, Sean. Neither are armed, and yet the combination of their attacks and their timing makes this fight quite infuriating, especially when players are trying to desperately conserve lives before the second boss battle.
Dispatching the female elite with the staff from the previous area and spamming the charged backfist against the male elite might give players the leg up they need to defeat this intimidating duo.
Yang The Leader
In an incredible parallel to the story and the journey that players undergo in Sifu, all of the training and fighting they do will culminate in the final battle with the final boss, Yang The Leader. He is fast, he hits incredibly hard, and defeating him will take all the skills and abilities that players have learned and used up to this point.
He is already the hardest fight in the game, but in a nearly mean-spirited move, players will be unable to use their Focus attacks on him. So no slowing down time to deliver a big blow, and players who emphasized building their Focus meter and skills through their run will have to find a different way to defeat him.
