Sifu, available now on Playstation 5, Playstation 4, and PC, is a very challenging game. Death is not something treated lightly in your playtime, as every death you occur changes the age of your character. A successful run can help you stay young, but the wrong move can make you feel the strain of father time.
Following this guide, we’ll walk you through how the aging system works in Sifu, and what you can do to try to help yourself stay young.
Wax on, Wax off
When you begin your journey through Sifu, you start at age 20. You’re feeling pretty good, as the first few enemies that you fight don’t take much to bring them down. However, you come across a long hallway, filled to the brim with enemies. You start strong, but then get ganged up on and experience your first death of the game. You see a counter raise by one, and you come back at age 21. You die again, and your counter goes to 2, and you rise at age 23. This cycle continues until you find yourself at age 70, with no lives to spare.
Sifu is not a forgiving game, it requires patience and strategy, otherwise, you’ll find yourself completing a level much older than you started, and with a death counter that follows you to the next stage. The way that the Death Counter works is this; every time you are defeated in combat, your death counter rises. It adds 1 death for every time you lose, and it will continue to grow. Instead of adding just one year to your age, it will add however many deaths you have accrued up to that point. If you have 8 deaths on your death counter, your age will rise by 8. This can get you towards the end of your life very quickly if you are not taking the time to learn combos, how to duck, how to disarm an enemy, etc.
However, aging does have its strengths and weaknesses. When you start the game at age 20, you are the weakest version of yourself, but you are very resilient. You have the max amount of health that your character can have but start with the weakest attack strength, as well. When you reach age 30, you become stronger, but your health bar drops. This continues up through the ages, with the max-age you can reach as a cut-off is 70, where you are incredibly strong, but cannot take much damage before you succumb to death.
Also, you do look pretty cool when you’re kicking butt as a 70 year old man or woman, to be completely honest.
If you have mastered dodges, this may come as a great benefit to your play style. Getting to an older age where you are stronger could be a very valuable thing, whereas if you are comfortable with your striking abilities, but take more damage, trying to stay young is going to be your best option. There are many different ways to play Sifu, and finding your inner chi will help you become the greatest master in all of the land.
For more tips and tricks to help you master Sifu, follow our Sifu page here.
