Sifu

Sifu is a revenge story split across five long levels and a single life that shortens with every defeat. A young fighter loses his father in an attack by five assassins and sets out to find them one by one; he has, however, a magic talisman that puts him back on his feet after death — at the cost of years. Every revival adds age, and with it the strength of your blows grows while your health pool shrinks, and once you cross the age of seventy, everything ends. The game thus turns the death counter into both a narrative and a mechanical engine.

The combat system draws on the Pak Mei style of kung fu and is unusually deep. The key is the balance meter: an opponent's attacks can be blocked, but blocking fills up the structure meter, so it's necessary to deflect blows with precise parries, dodge with a crouch or sidestep, and interrupt strings with your own combos. The environment plays a role, since you can slam an enemy against a wall or railing, and objects like poles and bricks serve as temporary weapons. Unlocking abilities is permanent only if you buy the same skill several times, which pushes players to replay already-mastered levels aiming to clear them younger and with fewer mistakes. On PlayStation 5 the game runs very smoothly, which is essential for combat timed this precisely.

Visually it's a stylized tribute to Hong Kong action films — long takes, a passage through a neon-lit club, a painterly scene in a museum. The music mixes electronics with drums and underscores the rhythm of the fights. Reception was very positive, and the game earned a reputation as a demanding but fair title; later updates added optional difficulty settings, modifiers, and an arena mode, opening it up to less patient players as well. Today Sifu is one of the few games that genuinely teaches a martial art instead of just button-mashing. A skilled player can clear the five levels in a single afternoon, but this is a game where the first playthrough is only the beginning — the real goal is to go back and clear it clean, young, and without losses.