Sifu Mastery Guide: Tips and Tricks for Advanced Players

So closer to launch, we had a beginner guide for Sifu, Sloclap’s culturally dubious but otherwise dope Kung Fu game. Despite my issues with it I’ve kept coming back, and now I’m chasing the platinum trophy. So as I’ve spent more time with Sifu since then, it feels like a good time to get a little more into the metagame.

As I’ve played through each level over and over, I’ve found myself relying on certain patterns that serve me the most. I’ve also found some interesting tactics browsing fan discussions, including some pretty wild cheese if you aren’t above that. Sometimes it takes whatever it takes, you know.

Sifu Advanced Player Guide

Plan Your One True Build

This one is related to one of Sifu’s biggest problems, the roguelike-ish stuff clashing with the more lenient parts. As we know, when you beat one of the levels, you can replay it from the youngest age you’ve beaten it with. This part is great, as it makes chasing trophies or achievements much easier. However, what the game doesn’t communicate well is Sifu also locks in whatever upgrades you had during that run. Where this can get problematic is if you, say, beat the first level at age 20, and start The Club with what later feels like a suboptimal build. 

Related: Sifu Review: Who the hell interrupted my Kung Fu?

Since you can’t get younger, that build is now locked in if you start The Club by itself. So that means if you want to try something different you’ll have to make it through both levels in order to keep your Shrine upgrades. If you need to stop playing or have a bad run, you’ll have to go back to The Squats because starting at The Club forces you into the earlier build. So if you want to lock in something like the “perfect” Squats run with two levels of Parry Impact, you kinda have to know to do that before that first no death run.

Don’t Fight Whenever Possible

It’s easy, especially early on, to just rush into scraps the second you see enemies. But there are several points at which, if you take a sec, a fight won’t break out unless you start it. The training room in The Club with the annoying boxer guy? Just get your Shrine point and walk through. The lobby in The Tower? You don’t have to throw hands until you’re in the elevator. Some are more obvious than others, but are easy ways to avoid some risk if you don’t need the points.

Dodge Canceling 

High level Sifu strats, y’all. So, in Sifu you can cancel any move with a defensive action. Whether it’s blocking, avoiding or dodging. But you can use this offensively as well, because it totally resets your “state,” if you will. If you get the timing down you can use dodge canceling to pull off huge combos you couldn’t do without the cancel. For a more detailed look at what you can and can’t get away with, check this out.

Save Scumming

Yeah, we’re going there. Some folks go far enough as to suggest backing your save up and using it to go back from deaths. But that’s pretty lame, if you ask me. However, using in-game means to avoid resetting entire runs is totally allowed. Sifu autosaves when you enter or clear a room, buy an upgrade or get killed. So if you’re just trying to get a big combo in a level for Parry Impact and losing your mind, pausing and going to the main menu will let you start fresh in whatever room is troubling you. If you die that’s a wrap though, so it’s more of a “yikes” move instead of an undo.

Save Your Multiplier With Taunts

Pressing right on the dpad will do a simple taunt, just a corny “come at me” hand motion. I didn’t ever mess with this until I needed points, and realized doing a taunt bumps the multiplier up. So if you get bopped in a way that could mess up your plan, just back away and talk some shit for a minute. You can dodge cancel out of the taunt too, so it’s pretty safe.

Parry Impact

You may have noticed all the times I’ve used Parry Impact examples, and that’s because you need that upgrade to maximize your Kung Fu. There’s a reason the score requirement gets so high. But that’s where The Squats comes in. If you maintain your multiplier, you can reach 4,000 points after beating the twin mini boss room. That’s also where the second Shrine is, so you can cash in right away. And since score isn’t spent, you can use the third Shrine before the boss for an easy rank. Focus is literally useless against the final boss, so while those moves are great against everything else, you want to have anything structure-related beefed up too. Frankly, going further than Eye Strike and one Focus bar isn’t really optimal. 

Cheesein’ 

Sometimes you just want to save some time and sweat for the stuff that matters. So to close this thing out, I have a list of various goofy “cheese” tactics I’ve encountered myself and around the internet.

• Throwing items at downed enemies keeps them down
• You can stun lock Kuroki by spamming crotch punch with a knife
• You can infinitely sweep most downed regular enemies using dodge cancel
• Pushing enemies down stairs, off ledges, etc does tons of damage

Got more tips, weird cheese or anything else you want to share? Hit us up.