Sifu

Sifu (occasionally rendered as SIFU) is an action Beat'Em Up video game developed and published by indie developer Sloclap in 2022 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and the Xbox Series consoles.

The game puts players in the shoes of an unnamed child of a kung fu master somewhere in China whose school was massacred by a group of rogue martial artists led by a former student named Yang. One of his accomplices leaves the child for dead, only for the latter to be resurrected by a magical talisman. The child later grew up to train themself for a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against those who wronged them and their father.

A central mechanic of the game is its resurrection feature, whereby the player can come back to life on the spot, albeit at the cost of accelerated ageing: as the player character gets older, their strikes will be more powerful, but they have less health. Dying too many times will lead to a Game Over. This, along with skill-related elements, made the game akin to a Roguelike.

Tropes used in Sifu include:

Acrofatic: Juggernaut enemies are just as fast and deadly as regular mooks.
Affably Evil: Apart from Fajar and Sean, who run a drug cartel and a dojo with an emphasis on pain, respectively, most of the bosses are otherwise respectful, with Kuroki even telling the player to give up their quest for revenge.
An Aesop: Revenge gets you nowhere, as even if you have vanquished those who wronged you, there is no satisfaction for doing so. The player character took up martial arts to get revenge, only for this to be all for nothing. The New Game+ mode however allows you to show mercy to the five bosses, and it pays as some like Fajar do express guilt in what they did previously.
And Your Reward Is Clothes: Beating the game by killing Yang unlocks the Vengeance outfit, while beating the game by sparing Yang unlocks the Wude outfit. Later updates to the game added outfits based on the iconic yellow-and-black tracksuit worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death, the outfit worn by Tony Leung in The Grandmaster (though it does bear a resemblance to the one Keanu Reeves wore in The Matrix) as well as the police gear from The Raid. The Bruce Lee costume was previously incorporated into Sifu as a fan-made mod.
- Owning the Deluxe Edition entitles you to the "Young Man" outfit which is a sly reference to Oldboy.
Anti-Frustration Features: Due to the game's third-person perspective, the camera may occasionally bump into scenery such as pillars. To compensate for this, the game fades them out of view. In addition, characters occluded by the environment or scenery are outlined in red for players to spot them more easily.
The Atoner: Especially with Yang in the true ending where he spares the player from death.
Book Ends: The game's prologue puts you in the shoes of the antagonist Yang as they raid their former school, killing his former master in the process. The final battle also takes place in the very same school, but this time, the player character gets to take their revenge; in the true ending, the player succumbs to their injuries but ascends to enlightenment. The end credits screen later implies that Yang survived, presumably due to Yang who revived him as thanks for sparing him and to atone for his sins.
Drugs Are Bad: Fajar, aka "The Botanist", runs a drug cartel in a rundown part of the city.
Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Pretty much everyone you encounter would dish out some martial arts moves back at you, even the drug junkies and receptionists.
Excuse Plot: You're the child of a slain kung fu master out for those who wronged you and your late father. Though while the main plot is paper-thin and made purposely ambiguous the lore is still worth reading about.
Game Mod: Plenty of them showed up shortly after its release, thanks to its use of an off-the-shelf version of Unreal Engine 4. Standouts include John Wick and Shaggy Rogers, though there's also the far sillier ones like CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Queen Elsa from Frozen and even Snow White of all people.
Homage: One scene in the Squats takes up a fixed side-on perspective akin to the famous Oldboy corridor scene.
Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The Spring Content Update adds the following difficulty levels due to popular demand:
- Student - Easy
- Disciple - Default/Hard
- Master - Harder Than Hard
Nintendo Hard: Both fans and reviewers alike have likened Sifu to either Dark Souls or most especially Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice due to its immense difficulty and use of the posture mechanic, termed in-game as "structure".
One-Man Army: Difficulty notwithstanding, the player character will have defeated dozens of mooks on the way to Yang.
Purely Aesthetic Gender: The choice of male or female for the player character doesn't affect move availability, stats or anything gameplay-related.
Rapid Aging: Getting yourself killed allows you to be resurrected on the spot, but at the cost of adding years to your age and decreasing your maximum health. You're able to strike harder, however.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The player character is driven by vengeance following the murder of his/her father in the hands of Yang and his posse, who would later go on to form their own criminal enterprises.
What Measure Is a Mook?: Getting the true ending only requires you to spare the bosses. You can toss mooks off high places, poke them with sharp objects, and generally do all kinds of should-be-lethal injury without suffering any penalty.