Sifu starts you off with a basic block and parry. The games then balance your defense around these various attacks, giving you several abilities to evade or counter incoming blows. Attacks in both games are classified by their damage and effects (like dazing, staggering, or knockdown), as well as their height (high or low strikes). In particular, Sifu draws from God Hand’s high/low strike mechanics and its beefy defensive options. Sifu takes much inspiration from Capcom’s God Hand, a highly underrated PS2 action game about a clownish hero who beats down demon thugs with his divine fists. Sifu is designed from the ground up to include various defensive techniques, and it punishes its players harshly for underutilizing them. These are flourishes with bonus perks for higher-level players to utilize, but they are never required as a core mechanic in the game.Ĭompare that to a game like Sifu, and there is a gulf of difference in how defense works and how the combat feels as a result. You never need to parry in Bayonetta or Royal Guard in Devil May Cry. Games that focus on spectacle and creative combos are deliberately designed around limited defensive options. Granted, this depends greatly on the goal of the game in question. New options breathe new life into the fight, and Street Fighter V was a better game for it afterward. SFV was a very offense-focused, unga-bunga sort of fighter as a result, and this remained the case until the introduction of V-Shift in 2021, which gave characters a parry/counter function that flipped the offense-focused paradigm on its head. Besides the game’s other launch day troubles, one of its biggest criticisms during its infancy was a lack of defensive tools. Think back to Street Fighter V at launch. But this also has the adverse effect of over-simplifying the gameplay in some respects: You don’t really need to change tactics or roll with punches, since all you ever need to do when you’re in danger is nail the dodge button.Ī variety of defensive abilities widens the scope of the action to accommodate more dynamic combat situations. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this, since you can focus your energy on the outrageous combo potential in these games instead and whip out the old reliable evasive maneuver whenever an enemy winds up for a swing. But the game’s challenge is balanced around one critical defensive ability: dodging. Yes, these games also give you alternative options to avoid taking damage, like parrying and jumping. Some games get by with a single defensive ability: you can get through the entirety of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry by simply dodging. Defense Is Often Oversimplifiedĭefense is pretty universal in the action game genre. Sifu makes defense integral to its combat, highlighting the value of having a robust arsenal of defensive tools, particularly since this PC game is so brutally unforgiving. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.As a result, this list has been updated to include more titles that will appeal to martial arts fans. However, the fundamentals of taking down waves of bad guys and feeling like the hero in a martial arts movie epic make Sifu so good. The roguelike element adds a morish yet challenging means to gaining new skills and abilities. Featuring a challenging new arena mode that lets fans test their skills against waves of enemies, there's good reason for Sifu veterans to return to the game. Updated April 12, 2023, by Michael Llewellyn: With Sifu available on more platforms, players on Steam and the Xbox can experience one of the most authentic martial arts games in a long time. If you enjoy Sifu and are looking for a similar game to play, or if you'd rather play something else instead of Sifu due to the previously mentioned various factors, there are plenty of other games to try from a variety of genres that all have some similarities to Sloclap's martial arts action title. Sifu is a martial arts action game many fans had highly anticipated since it was first revealed and became an often discussed game before its release and after, whether it be for its satisfying gameplay loop, unique aging mechanics, intense difficulty, movie references, or problematic elements.
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