Review: Sifu is a kung-fu game to die for

videogameschronicle.com:

When you beat a tough boss in a game, you expect a wave of elation. Your heart pounding, hand sweating, you might punch the air in celebration at a job well done. In Sifu, you’re more likely to feel disappointed.

Conquer the ultimate challenge at the end of a level, and rather than head into the next stage with renewed confidence and a head of steam, you may have to resign yourself to going back and doing it all over again. That’s because of Sifu’s aging protagonist who, thanks to a magic charm, doesn’t stay dead when smashed to a pulp by skilled martial artists.

Instead she (or he) springs back to her feet and dusts herself off – to the amazement of those who just killed her – at the cost of getting older. At first, defeat only adds on the odd year from your starting age of 20, but the more you die, the quicker the counter accelerates, and once you’re over 70, death really does become fatal.

And since, naturally, there’s no way of reversing the aging process, that means if you complete a level after a bruising battle, barely scraping through, you’ll be too old to survive long in the next. A couple of falls and it’s game over. The only recourse then is to restart the previous stage, do it more clinically, fail less, and then move on when you’re in decent shape.

In practice, then, you’ll need to repeat every stage a lot. The first time we finished the opening level, for instance, our character was 73. A second successful run saw us finish it at 37. A third, 25. Then the magical fourth triumph – no deaths at all – we remained a fresh-faced 20. Of course, in later levels, such feats become far more difficult, and it takes more attempts to keep the years from piling up.

If that sounds demoralising, well, it certainly can be. The