Sifu (now on Xbox Series S|X!)

[BadgerFarmer]

21 minutes ago, robdood said:

I don't mean to be too 'git gud' about this, but that difficult spike literally consists of being able to tell the difference between two attacks.  It's clearly hard for a lot of people, but I'm really not sure what exactly they could have done to make it more obvious. 

 

I would think it's the not very short shortcut that puts people off repeatedly trying. I was getting pretty sick of it at that point, even more after I'd beaten him but was too old to carry on to the next level. It's such a huge relief that later levels let you pretty much skip to the boss, otherwise I would've wanted to ditch it.

[robdood]

6 minutes ago, BadgerFarmer said:

I would think it's the not very short shortcut that puts people off repeatedly trying. I was getting pretty sick of it at that point, even more after I'd beaten him but was too old to carry on to the next level. It's such a huge relief that later levels let you pretty much skip to the boss, otherwise I would've wanted to ditch it.

The shortcut cuts out a massive chunk of the stage!  I'd say easily half. 

 

Taking the shortcut you have to fight:

- first room full of noobs and spinny kick lady

- then you can keycard straight into the room with people training, you don't have ot fight them

- first challenge (big room with many low level opponents)

- second challenge (woman with staff)

- third challenge (two disciples)

- boss

 

Its on par for the amount of battles you have to do taking shortcuts on stage 1 and 4, for sure.  3 is a weird one, I think they messed up letting you go straight to the boss.  5 has a short gauntlet that's arguably on par with stage 2 in difficulty, if not length.  

 

[Alan Stock]

21 minutes ago, robdood said:

I don't mean to be too 'git gud' about this, but that difficult spike literally consists of being able to tell the difference between two attacks.  It's clearly hard for a lot of people, but I'm really not sure what exactly they could have done to make it more obvious. 

 

(I'm going to make a guide for it this week though :D)

 

 

In Skill Up's review he also said he didn't think a lot of people would beat the 2nd level, but he said it wasn't just the boss difficulty but because its a lengthy and hard level with mini bosses on the leadup, all of which need to be redone from scratch when you die. So its probably the repetition that is putting people off. I know I lose interest in Souls games with bonfire runs and that's only 20 seconds or whatever!

 

This is a game I would like to play but I am awful at these kind of fighting games, and I have a low tolerance for rock hard boss fights if there is repetition involved in retrying. But depending on what they do with the difficulty options I might give this a shot as I love the stylings and I'm a big martial arts movie fan.

[robdood]

6 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

In Skill Up's review he also said he didn't think a lot of people would beat the 2nd level, but he said it wasn't just the boss difficulty but because its a lengthy and hard level with mini bosses on the leadup, all of which need to be redone from scratch when you die.

The mini bosses and the boss have the same '1...2... gap.. 3!' pattern though.  They're basically the same but with slightly different animations

 

[Thor]

24 minutes ago, robdood said:

The mini bosses and the boss have the same '1...2... gap.. 3!' pattern though.  They're basically the same but with slightly different animations

 

The pattern is irrelevant, the point still stands that they're all difficult encounters in a rather long level. In fact I pondered the question earlier in the thread.

 

On 08/02/2022 at 12:10, Thor said:

Yep, I actually believe the parry window is too narrow. This was a small dev team, right? Now, this is pure conjecture on my part, but I'm guessing their testers were so in tune with the game's systems that their perceived level of difficulty is wildly different to 90% of the gaming public (just like that bit in Driver all those years ago).

 

I wonder how many people buy this and never get further than the second level. 

[MikeF]

Managed to beat Sean at 61, so getting a little better, I have his patterns down now, just need to eliminate the stupid mistakes.

 

May try to run through the level again, to get to him at a lower age

[Floshenbarnical]

Woke up rather early by accident this morning so I started grinding more permanent unlocks. The snap kick thing really is helpful. I've only managed to try the directional throw one time outside of training - what do you find the easiest way to stun an enemy is? I'm too sluggish to time a parry correctly and it seems to be the only way to stun someone, unless I'm missing something.

 

Beat Boss 1 by age 30 again with no shortcuts - died stupidly a couple of times by forgetting how my hands work - but I now have 3800 XP to take over to the next level  where I will die of old age again, but not before permanently unlocking something else that will make my life easier.

 

Snap kick is so helpful for closing distance, give me all your wisdom rllmuk

[robdood]

7 minutes ago, Floshenbarnical said:

Woke up rather early by accident this morning so I started grinding more permanent unlocks. The snap kick thing really is helpful. I've only managed to try the directional throw one time outside of training - what do you find the easiest way to stun an enemy is? I'm too sluggish to time a parry correctly and it seems to be the only way to stun someone, unless I'm missing something.

A stun can be cause in lots of ways - a parry is one, but also a successful avoid (L1 + left stick) then a hit, or any time you hit them during an animation and it leaves them slightly dazed.  I think if someone wall splats you can jab then throw too. 

 

Throws are legit one of the most OP moves in the game, mainly because any enemy who is hit by a thrown enemy becomes throwable themselves, meaning you can create all sorts of mad results by just  throwing someone in a crowd then mashing X+A

 

[Robo_1]

Finally cracked stage 2 at the ripe old age of 67, so that bodes well for level 3. 

 

I can see myself getting better though. Went back through the first stage and got through it age 22, so I'm convinced I can get through that unscathed with a bit more practice. I was stunned to see that the number of "death jumps" carry over from the previous level though. That does feel excessively cruel and will necessitate a ridiculously good result in level 2 in order to have the faintest chance of completing the game.

 

Anybody struggling with Sean though, I can heartily recommend upgrading to the ground parry as I found the move more or less invaluable in defeating him and it's just an all round handy move for catching the trickier enemies off-guard.

[robdood]

2 minutes ago, Robo_1 said:

That does feel excessively cruel and will necessitate a ridiculously good result in level 2 in order to have the faintest chance of completing the game.

You can reset to 0 for 1k experience at the shrines... Though you can only do that twice for the whole game.. 

[Thor]

44 minutes ago, robdood said:

You can reset to 0 for 1k experience at the shrines... Though you can only do that twice for the whole game.. 

Wait, what? 

[Nate Dogg III]

No deaths, true ending, 22 mins. The Squats warehouse fight is at about 1m20 and is absolutely hilarous, definitely stealing that.

 

 

[Robo_1]

1 hour ago, robdood said:

You can reset to 0 for 1k experience at the shrines... Though you can only do that twice for the whole game.. 

 

Well okay then, that certainly helps ease the pain. Cheers.

 

29 minutes ago, Nate Dogg III said:

No deaths, true ending, 22 mins. The Squats warehouse fight is at about 1m20 and is absolutely hilarous, definitely stealing that.

 

 

 

This is going to be a legendary game for speed runners.

[robdood]

55 minutes ago, Nate Dogg III said:

No deaths, true ending, 22 mins. The Squats warehouse fight is at about 1m20 and is absolutely hilarous, definitely stealing that.

 

 

Beautiful!!  

[robdood]

I'm surprised that this speedrun didn't use a weird exploit I've seen on reddit where you can repeatedly use the down, up heavy sweep attack endlessly on downed opponents, even bosses! 

[Floshenbarnical]

11 minutes ago, robdood said:

I'm surprised that this speedrun didn't use a weird exploit I've seen on reddit where you can repeatedly use the down, up heavy sweep attack endlessly on downed opponents, even bosses! 

 

what did he use on the fat guy after throwing the stick at him? mf was down for the count

[Goemon]

I actually use that Squats technique in the club where you do the first trial.

 

There’s stairs to the upper floor in this area, so you can go up and just throw fools off. You can actually break the balcony so you don’t even need to be close to do the throw, you can just dodge, counter and push them off the ledge

[robdood]

27 minutes ago, Floshenbarnical said:

 

what did he use on the fat guy after throwing the stick at him? mf was down for the count

Haven't watched, but do you mean the fat guy in the last room of stage one, that fool just needs a run up and heavy attack every time, instant finisher, baby. 

 

Heavy attacking people before they enter fight pose gives an instant finisher a lot of the time. 

 

pimp!

 

[Floshenbarnical]

13 minutes ago, robdood said:

Haven't watched, but do you mean the fat guy in the last room of stage one, that fool just needs a run up and heavy attack every time, instant finisher, baby. 

 

Heavy attacking people before they enter fight pose gives an instant finisher a lot of the time. 

 

pimp!

 

so how do you not kill a boss?

 

well done

[misterSquare]

Phew, finally finished this last night. What a game, haven't had something take up this much headspace for a long time!

 

I also just found out that you can taunt (d-pad right) to increase your multiplier

 

My only complaint would be that it does feel a bit... front loaded - you spend so long on the first few levels that, by the time you get past stage 3, you're pretty much guaranteed to be quite competent at dealing with the standard enemy types, meaning that the last two stages (as fun as they are), go by in a bit of a blur. Stage 4 boss is pretty easy and while the last boss is a bastard, but there isn't really much reason to care about your age by the time you get to him (unless you're going for a trophy or whatever) so it feels a bit like a battle of attrition rather than needing much skill.

 

39 minutes ago, Floshenbarnical said:

so how do you not kill a boss?

 

well done

 

Death by parrying, essentially. Get them to their second phase, beat them up until you get the insta-kill command grab prompt, but don't activate it. They'll recover a bit of their structure bar and then you just need to deplete it again by parrying their attacks (don't hit them or you risk killing them), at which point you get the prompt to spare.

[MikeF]

Now at the museum at age 29, getting better.  Got to Sean at 23, should have reset my death counter in hindsight

[robdood]

57 minutes ago, Floshenbarnical said:

so how do you not kill a boss?

I'm not sure if you can do it before completing the game once, but you have to basically break their posture twice.  It's a lot easier than it sounds, once you're at the point where you've cleared the game. 

[MikeF]

You can, I have spared the first boss so far and am nowhere near close to completing the game

[Strafe]

Got to the final boss

 

Spoiler

No focus attacks! Motherfucker.

 

[robdood]

10 minutes ago, MikeF said:

You can, I have spared the first boss so far and am nowhere near close to completing the game

Nice! 

 

In case anyone would benefit, I've drafted a script for a new youtube guide for beating THOSE GUYS in the Club.  It is below in case anyone finds it useful.  Not edited it yet properly but hopefully it helps someone!  

 

Spoiler

 

Sifu - how to beat those guys

 

Right - these guys. These guys!! I bet you hate them. I hate them. Everybody hates them. Most people haven't managed to complete the second stage of this game,  but today - today! - I'm going to show you how to do it. 

 

I'm going to show you how to destroy these guys.  And not only them, you're going to learn how to destroy their dad.  And you're going to learn how to destroy everything else you encounter in this game because this is it. 

 

This is the trick. 

 

This is the one thing you need to learn to get through this game; how to defend and counterattack.

 

…

 

Now before we go any further, we gotta make sure we're all talking about the same things, so we're gonna clarify a few terms and what they mean and how you do them.

 

So first we’ve got blocking.  Blocking in Sifu is done by holding L1.  Just hold it, press nothing else and you’ll just stand still, arms raised. This is fine, and you can just defend most attacks.. I’d say about 90% of the attacks in this game you can block like this and you'll be safe. High or low, you’ll be fine.  You should always just block when you fight a new kind of opponent or when you’re surrounded. 

 

The thing you need to be careful of is when you block it fills up your structure gauge at the bottom of the screen. 

 

Most attacks will just put a tiny bit of structure damage on there, but the big attacks, the attacks where the enemy hands glow a different colour, they add a massive chunk. You can probably only block about one combo string that includes an orange attack. 

 

If you block 2 strings with an orange attack, it's going to break your guard, you’re gonna be stunned, you're going to take fat damage and you're probably going to die. 

 

So what do we need to do to avoid these? We need to use the other kinds of defensive options we have.  We need to either parry, or avoid. You can also dodge using the right trigger, and it's alright, but it doesn't really work like you might think it does - compared to other games - so I'd recommend you don't use it. 

 

Parry attacks by just tapping L1 at the time of impact of an attack. It's quite tricky, the timing is quite tight, but it works for both high and low attacks and increases the enemy’s structure damage.  Very cool, but hard to use when you’re a beginner.

 

You can avoid attacks by holding L1 and pressing any direction on the left stick. If you press up you will avoid low attacks like sweeps, if you press any other direction, like down or left or right, and this isn’t relative to which way your character isn’t facing, you will dodge all other moves, including throws.  Avoiding moves fills your focus bar. And.. avoiding certain moves - like the last move in a combo - makes the enemies freeze frame for a moment, and if you attack them during this stun they’ll be unable to block for a longer time, meaning you can usually finish combos and knock them down. Noice! 

 

Now there's still an element of timing to this, but it feels more lenient than the parries. So I'd recommend you use it as your go-to defence. 

 

So let’s go back to those big orange attacks. You need to start trying to avoid them. 

 

How do we practise this? Let's use these guys right from the beginning of the game. So if we just hold block, let’s just listen to the sound effects of us blocking the attacks. 

 

Now see, there's a definite rhythm there, right? Like you can hear it, it goes like 1..2..3! (or 1..2)

 

OK, so the next time he does this, what we're going to do is we're going to block the 1.. / 1..2.. And then we're going to avoid on the two / three,  so here we go..  1 2..  See how I left a ghostly afterimage?  That means we nailed it. 

 

That's our time to hit him.  Just use your heavy attack combo to begin, you should get an easy knock down. 

 

This is the most simple way I can explain this to you.  It’s how you should approach every enemy in the game.  Stand and block, get a feel for the timing of their combos and start inputting avoids for the last hits.  You're going to die while you're figuring this out and learning patterns,  but be patient.  

 

Before you know it you’ll instinctively be dodging everything!!  Or your money back. 

 

(Money back not guaranteed)

 

Right.  So back to THESE GUYS.  These guys are called ‘disciples’ by the way. 

 

So the reason these guys is tricky is threefold:

 

1. They can shrug off your attacks. You can hit them and it won't interrupt what they're doing like most other enemies.

 

2.  They’re the first enemies that mix up their high and low attacks frequently and that is going to catch you out, and that's because avoiding is attack height specific. So if you do a high avoid and they do a low attack, you'll get hurt. 

 

3. They've got a multitude of combos they can do, maybe four or five different attack strings, and they can seemingly switch the end attack up however they like.  Which makes them the first enemies you REALLY have to watch closely to overcome. 

 

The trick is that the rhythm is generally the same for every combo. They give you enough time on the last attack to read what they're doing, so they might do a 1-2—3 or 123—4. That last hit always has a nice big delay before it, and they'll either do a straight punch or they will do a spin around sweep thing. 

 

So what you wanna do is just block.  Listen to the timing again. 1… 2….   3.  Feel that delay? Listen again. 

 

That gap between two and three is big enough for you to watch what they do - if they start spinning around, you know you gotta avoid up.  If they don't spin around you gotta press down.   Then just smash that heavy attack combo again.  Easy!  With a bit of practice you can avoid all three attacks.  Or if you’re feeling really swish, parry the first two and avoid the last for maximum efficiency. 

 

So anyway - that’s fine for this first disciple, but what about when we fight two at once?  Yes.  This is a bit harder.  

 

It's hard cos your temptation is going to be if I successfully dodge then I'm going to hit them, but don't just do that without thinking! 

 

You've gotta make sure to watch both of them at once and make sure you're safe to attack.  Use your focus moves to temporarily put one out of action.  Keep away from the walls so the camera doesn’t screw you over.  Keep them both in view.

 

If you’re unlucky enough that they both attack at once, I would recommend you just hold block, and watch for the final moves of their string and avoid those. 

 

And with a bit of practice and patience that should be it!

 

Now the thing that's good about this strategy, as I said, is that it's going to carry you through the whole game. 

 

Let’s quickly look at Sean, who you’ll fight just after those two chumps from earlier. 

 

He has two combos, but the mixup is a bit different.  Both his combos are all high attacks.  But if you block and listen, he will either go 123, or he will go 1..2 delay 3.

 

So all you need to do is just watch the animations while safely blocking. If you see him start to spin his stick around, you know he's going to do the 123.  If he doesn't do that and he does a weird uppercut move, you know you need to put a tiny delay before you avoid.. That's it!!

 

So use this approach for every new enemy you meet.  Block their attacks, watch what they do. Learn the combos, it's all you have to do.  All enemies, even bosses, will only have a few combos at most.  Watch for the telltale animations. Remember what is coming and react appropriately.  You can do it guys!!

 

I hope this has been helpful. I'm planning on doing some videos, maybe we'll do some videos on how to beat the bosses. Would you like to see that? Give me a shout in the comments if you'd like to see that. 

 

Take it easy and good luck out there. Kick some arse!

 

 

 

[robdood]

53 minutes ago, Strafe said:

Got to the final boss

 

  Reveal hidden contents

No focus attacks! Motherfucker.

 

I love him so much.  He's pretty intimidating. 

[Strafe]

Masochist.

[robdood]

Do you want to know what happens if you spare all the other bosses and then fight him?

 

Spoiler

He has a final final form, where you've lost the amulet and if you die it's immediately game over  

 

[Strafe]

I do but but by doing it myself!

[Thor]

5 hours ago, robdood said:

You can reset to 0 for 1k experience at the shrines... Though you can only do that twice for the whole game.. 

I don't think this is true:

 

 

I'm pretty sure that's an infinity symbol...

 

I gave this game a rest on the weekend, didn't touch it. Put it on tonight and resumed a run I shouldn't have because I'd died once in the nightclub early on, but pressed on anyway. Beat Sean at the age of 26. That's a big improvement over 43. I learned to mostly block his first two attacks to avoid him knocking me down, then dodge the rest and hit back.