Sifu - Zero Punctuation - The Escapist
This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee Croshaw reviews Sifu, the brutally difficult action brawler from Sloclap now available physically.
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SIFU: A New Style of 3D Brawler.
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I lost track if Yahtzee was playing on the new Easy mode during this stream. I know he said he played on Easy mode but I didn't catch if that mean he just tried it out or was staying with it.Sifu - Zero Punctuation - The Escapist
This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee Croshaw reviews Sifu, the brutally difficult action brawler from Sloclap now available physically.
Has anyone here played in both regular and Easy? If so, how much Easy is Easy?
I tried Sifu before Easy and quit on the second boss. I just could not get through that timing and I hit my typical reason I quit rogue-like/lites: the overwhelming sadness that even if i conquer a boss fight, I'll have to still do it over and over again.
But I love almost everything else about Sifu and I'd love to play through it on Easy (and I actually do like a challenge, this one was just a bit too much).
I switched platforms so I'd have to buy it again, that's why I'm asking and it's not a simple matter of "just try it."
I haven't tried it myself yet, but on easy mode, death tokens do not stack and you only lose one life each time you die from, what I heard. Also, you get more health, more stamina, and enemies deal less damage.
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Ok so I'm playing it again, staying on normal mode for now, I want to git gud.
My last run through the Squats ended at age 23, and I have two skils permanently unlocked.
So at this point I'm not sure if it's better to stay in the Squats and try to leave at age 20 or dedicate the next 1000 attempts at the Club now.
My biggest struggle in the game is I don't really know how to consistently deal with the flurry of attacks. Hold L1, sure. Do you mostly block and risk getting your structure broken, or tapping down/left or whatever and dodging everything (I can't do this consistently)? Are you parrying like everything (also I can't do this consistently).
I think I'm instinctively trying to play it like Sekiro where I try to parry as much as possible while looking for enemy tells. Problem is the enemies are much faster and unlike Sekiro, I don't know if they're gonna swing high or low, like the 1st area boss.
My last run through the Squats ended at age 23, and I have two skils permanently unlocked.
So at this point I'm not sure if it's better to stay in the Squats and try to leave at age 20 or dedicate the next 1000 attempts at the Club now.
My biggest struggle in the game is I don't really know how to consistently deal with the flurry of attacks. Hold L1, sure. Do you mostly block and risk getting your structure broken, or tapping down/left or whatever and dodging everything (I can't do this consistently)? Are you parrying like everything (also I can't do this consistently).
I think I'm instinctively trying to play it like Sekiro where I try to parry as much as possible while looking for enemy tells. Problem is the enemies are much faster and unlike Sekiro, I don't know if they're gonna swing high or low, like the 1st area boss.
I finally figured out how to beat Sean and have explored the much belove Museum level. I can see why everyone loves it, it is indeed incredibly stylish and cool.
However, despite "progress," I just don't feel like I'm getting better at the game. I find myself not being able to reproduce the same kind of back-and-forth success from a good run to the next.
It's hard to explain- I feel like there's jank in the mechanics. In a game that is all about precision response, combos and timing, there has to be absolutely no jank. And maybe it's all in my head and I'm blaming my shitty skills on the game, but it's just incredibly frustrating when I know an enemy's rhythm by heart and hold L1 down and it's like 50% chance I'll dodge or something.
Yeah... I've had enough. I just get made when I play now. I'm not even trying Easy mode- my frustration is with the fundamental core mechanics of this game not just the nature of progression.
I so wish the basic gameplay and controls of this game were in another better game.
However, despite "progress," I just don't feel like I'm getting better at the game. I find myself not being able to reproduce the same kind of back-and-forth success from a good run to the next.
It's hard to explain- I feel like there's jank in the mechanics. In a game that is all about precision response, combos and timing, there has to be absolutely no jank. And maybe it's all in my head and I'm blaming my shitty skills on the game, but it's just incredibly frustrating when I know an enemy's rhythm by heart and hold L1 down and it's like 50% chance I'll dodge or something.
Yeah... I've had enough. I just get made when I play now. I'm not even trying Easy mode- my frustration is with the fundamental core mechanics of this game not just the nature of progression.
I so wish the basic gameplay and controls of this game were in another better game.
So I finally got around to playing this game. Very fun. I plan on doing an age 20 run, at first I wasn't sure if it was doable but it definitely was. The difficulty is all over the place though, first two levels feel like a tutorial of sorts and then the third one starts going hard. The boss fight is so different from the rest due to it having absurd amounts of super armor on the first form, the second form feels more threatening but once you realize you just gotta sit still and dodge everything to build your super meter and do one long combo and then dodge again, rinse and repeat, it goes way smoother but the first phase is very tricky to dodge cause the attacks are very slow and samey-looking. Been playing the game for 2 days and still unable to get through phase one without any deaths. Then on the next stage the boss is very easy but the enemies up to it are much harder. I find a common theme in this game is that enemies with super armor fuck with me and I guess I just need to learn which of them it is. But yeah overall going into this game with fighting game fundamentals helps a lot I feel.
Ok so a couple of tips. You get way more exp in later stages so it's way better to keep going, you can always go back.
You wanna focus on the bottom skills first cause those have an age limit and if you age too much you can't learn em in that run any more.
The focus skills are very, very OP so when you go to those statues you wanna unlock 2 levels of focus meter and that middle red skill that increases your focus gain rate. Those are so much more useful than the other stuff because once you play properly the game is balanced so that you are never touched, because even blocking 1 thing can snowball and be ugly.
In this game parrying is better than Sekiro cause you can cancel into it mid attack, like you know that skill that's like heavy attack-pause-heavy attack that does 5 hits with the second input? Well you can cancel those at any point into a parry or dodge, so you can attack and block at the same time basically. Thing is some moves are just unparryable or have a very strict window and those you have to dodge. Like the Museum boss I was talking about, for her you can't parry cause she does chip damage so any failed parry costs you dearly, but if you dodge her full combo you get a good punish in return and also a ton of focus meter.
Also make sure to unlock the solar plexus focus move because it stuns bosses and lets you do a full combo into knockdown even on them.
Ok so a couple of tips. You get way more exp in later stages so it's way better to keep going, you can always go back.
You wanna focus on the bottom skills first cause those have an age limit and if you age too much you can't learn em in that run any more.
The focus skills are very, very OP so when you go to those statues you wanna unlock 2 levels of focus meter and that middle red skill that increases your focus gain rate. Those are so much more useful than the other stuff because once you play properly the game is balanced so that you are never touched, because even blocking 1 thing can snowball and be ugly.
In this game parrying is better than Sekiro cause you can cancel into it mid attack, like you know that skill that's like heavy attack-pause-heavy attack that does 5 hits with the second input? Well you can cancel those at any point into a parry or dodge, so you can attack and block at the same time basically. Thing is some moves are just unparryable or have a very strict window and those you have to dodge. Like the Museum boss I was talking about, for her you can't parry cause she does chip damage so any failed parry costs you dearly, but if you dodge her full combo you get a good punish in return and also a ton of focus meter.
Also make sure to unlock the solar plexus focus move because it stuns bosses and lets you do a full combo into knockdown even on them.
I just cannot dodge that museum boss. Up, down, up, down.... or up up up, i just have a really hard time understanding what's going on. This is pretty consistent throughout that game, just with her it is at max.
No thanks, I'm done, it's just too hard for me, and I'm ok with that.
No thanks, I'm done, it's just too hard for me, and I'm ok with that.
So I beat the game, man the final boss throws a curveball alright. Made me not rely on my usual boss strategy. Though I discovered hook foot works on him which saved me. I did need like a good hour or so of attempts to beat him, and I got to his stage at age 44 so you can imagine all the deaths that he causes XD.
Now onto the age 20 run!
Now onto the age 20 run!
Yeah she's definitely hard, she goes either Down up down up, or up up up up (the one where she swings super fast you gotta just mash up basically, it feels unintuitive at first but the game basically has no delay between dodges and you can dodge repeatedly as fast as possible as long as your previous dodge was accurate), or up down up down. You gotta grind her for a couple hours to figure out what pattern is what. Just take the elevator shortcut and fight her without worrying about levelups or moves at all until you get a feel for the fight.
Yeah, I started doing that, realizing this was the next step to progression. And it's why I quit- just didn't have the patience.
Difficult games have the moment where the player has to make that decision on whether to sacrifice peace of mind, time, and other entertainment to hunker down, grind and repeat, and push through. The ol' Sen's Fortress, if you will. And I just wasn't willing to do that. I got the elevator key, I made a bunch of runs to the boss and... blech.
Lol I wouldn't exactly say peace of mind, but yeah grind is definitely a part of it, but if the grind is not fun and if you don't get something out of it then there's no point. I just get very stubborn with things like this and I see em more like a combat puzzle to solve and especially in this game where you don't even have all your moves available I figured there may be an answer I'm just not trying yet, and it actually was true too. Both times I got stuck for hours were surpassed by me just trying a different tool. I did get better at the basic mechanics myself too though so it shows you that there's a lot of potential for growth.
Also I am reminded this is not even hard mode I'm playing, I will start that once I manage an age 20 run on the normal mode.
So I put in a good nine hours or so and managed to do the age 20 run. Turns out you don't even get a trophy for it either, there was one for age 25 but not for 20. The zen of the grind was very enjoyable indeed.
edit: So apparently you can get a different ending, well, I know what I'll be going for with my hard mode playthrough.
Also I find it hilarious that only 6% of the playerbase has gotten that age 25 trophy. I guess people are struggling in this one more than I thought.
edit: So apparently you can get a different ending, well, I know what I'll be going for with my hard mode playthrough.
Also I find it hilarious that only 6% of the playerbase has gotten that age 25 trophy. I guess people are struggling in this one more than I thought.
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