Sifu happens to be the first ever game I’ve taken the risk of pre-ordering for, so needless to say, I’m glad that I have been getting a lot from the experience!
There are parts of the game I want to discuss in a (potentially) upcoming video essay, so consider this an introductory companion-piece. Part review, part shoving politics into my champagne!
Synopsis: Sifu is a Martial-Arts game on PlayStation 4, 5 and PC, developed by Sloclap. The story draws on old-school Kung-Fu and revenge action cinema like Kill Bill and Bruce Lee films. Your character’s sensei is slaughtered by 5 former students for unknown reasons. You’re also killed, but not before grasping a mystical medallion that brings you back to life! The rest of the game sees you uncovering the mystery of why your master was killed while also hunting the 5 ex students for some of that sweet sweet revengeance!
Gameplay Review: As is also the case with penises, rock candy, Dark Souls and supersized McDonalds meals in Illinois, it may be hard to get through, but feels amazing the more you take in! Based on Absolver‘s combat system, your character starts off with a fistful of combos, dodging techniques and counter-attacks. You also have a sweeping kick for channeling your inner John Kreese, plus a pushing punch which opens enemies up to dash-attacks or getting slammed into walls for damage.
The game has a good mixture of simple weaker enemies and stronger more defensive types. Most of the time, you can tell how quickly an enemy will go down based on their health and posture bar size, but spend too much time mashing at one grunt and you’ll get clocked by another enemy punch unless you dodge or counter in time. In addition, using the same couple of combos or ‘cheesing’ is a quick path to a game over screen, encouraging you to be mindful and really make you feel like you’ve earned your black belt status.
The death system is also well-implemented: Due to a permadeath mechanic, you can’t permanently unlock certain skills unless you purchase them multiple times with experience points from your past fights. I recommend specking into weapon durability and focus regains from dodging. The more you fill your focus bar, you can perform powerful strikes that are essential for damaging and stunning bosses.
Cool story bro, what about Sifu’s feminism? I’ll save the more specific parts on feminism in Sifu for the video (finished the first script draft last night), but until then, I will share a handful of takeaways, be it for good-faith readers or the “SJW’s want to ruin video games” crowd that will most definitely dub me ‘Manita Sarkeesian’ if this piece blows up on 4Chan or the like.
The Feminist Takeaway: Don’t talk about feminism, talk about feminisms! Sure, you’ve got your ‘men are trash’, ‘white woman’s instagram‘ and sex-negative schools of feminism, but on the other side of the coin, you have sex-positive, anti-racist and pro-LGBT+ forms of feminism.
But is Sifu Feminist? In my opinion, yes, but in a way that brings up a little ludonarrative dissonance (aka, when something in gameplay causes a disconnect between that and an in-game story), but also in a way that makes that dissonance thematically rich to the story in a different way! I’ll save specifics on that for my video!
For jokes, I could say “you can play as a guy or a girl, plus you can beat up strong lady enemies among dudes too, so equal rights, equal fights, no?”… Regardless of my thoughts alone, engaging with and discussing media through a lens of feminist theory can help reveal more about the art we enjoy and the world we live in that gave it to us.
For more interesting watches on ludonarrative and feminist critique of action films, have a butcher’s at these videos by Hbomberguy and Innuendo Studios respectively.
Product Poems:
Bioshock? Collection. Chemstunned? Erection!
“Annie, get your gun, gal“! Her mech appeared. “Shooty bang-bang, y’all”!
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