Video Game / Sifu

Is one life enough to know Kung Fu?

Sifu is a Beat 'em Up game created and published by Sloclap, the studio behind Absolver. It was released for Playstation 5, Playstation 4 and PC on the Epic Games Store on February 8, 2022 and Nintendo Switch on November 8, 2022.

You play as the child of a Pak Mei master whose school was massacred one night by a group of martial artists with their father killed by Yang, their leader and his former pupil turned to evil. They are then killed by one of his compatriots, Fajar, before being resurrected by a magical talisman. They proceed to train for several years for the day they will take revenge on Yang and his team.

The central mechanic of the game is resurrection related to the aforementioned talisman. If the student dies on his or her quest, they dynamically age by a certain number of years. Each time they die, their Death Counter goes up by 1, which causes them to age that many years— for instance, going from 20 to 21, to 23, to 26 and so on. Successfully beating strong opponents lowers the Death Counter, and age is carried over between levels. The game ends if you die after hitting 70 years of age, and the student's stats slowly change as they get older. Once you die, you can put experience points into unlocking a skill either temporarily or permanently for future runs, making gameplay akin to a roguelike.

---

The game consist examples of:

• The Ace: Yang, as implied by Sean. Not that he's wrong, though, as Yang is seen utterly decimating the groups of students at the Sifu's Dojo, and is way, WAY better than the Student.
• Acrofatic: Some of the largest, most bulky, and muscular of the enemies (known as Juggernauts in the End Credits) are just as fast and deadly as the rest, with the added danger of being able to grab you and powerbomb you much more easily and with devastating force.
• Action Girl: The female protagonist, as well as many of the enemies.
• Affably Evil: With the exception of Fajar and Sean, one being a drug lord and the other in charge of a dojo that places an emphasis on pain, the other antagonists are otherwise respectful, with Kuroki even telling the protagonist to walk away and abandon their pursuit of vengeance. This also applies to the mooks under their employ as well.
• Ambiguous Ending: Who is the Sifu in the post credits scene after the good ending? Is it the Student, revived one last time? Or is it Yang, committed to being a better person?
  • Modding the game reveals that it was the Student all along, as the epilogue uses the player model to depict the new Sifu.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Beating the game by killing Yang unlocks the Vengeance outfit, while beating the game by sparing Yang unlocks the Wude outfit.
  • Owning the Deluxe Edition entitles you to the "Young Man" outfit which is a sly Shout-Out to Oldboy.
  • The "Stunt Double" costume, unlocked from having the Deluxe edition and completing the "Hot on Sean's tracks" goal, gives the Student a jacket identical to the Driver from Drive (2011).
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If you know there's a Boss in Mook Clothing in a crowd of enemies, and don't feel like contending with them, you can just safely knock them out with standard attacks without having to perform finishers on them — you will get the same rewards as though you triggered the transformation.
  • The enemies you beat on, say, Disciple difficulty - mooks and bosses alike - will be available in training mode if you create a new save on Master; meaning you can practice dealing with tougher opponents without going through the hassle of unlocking them again.
• Arc Words:
  • Sifu, referring to the one in the prologue, as well as the various other "teachers" found in the game.
  • Wude, the philosophical tenets of Chinese martial arts, begin coming into focus as the Student begins sparing the bosses.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: First is Sean, who's based an entire dojo around this archetype. Kuroki shows some implications of this from time to time during the fight by giving taunts, and lastly Yang, who, like Kuroki, is a lot more downplayed, but still shows his arrogance from time to time.
• Artifact of Power: Each of the five bosses wield an artifact that gifts them incredible magical powers. Fajar has the sand that gives him a Green Thumb, while Sean has his pole which gives him increased durability and control over flame at the cost of burning his flesh. Once the bosses are beaten down once, they seem to pull the Student into a Mental World of sorts where their powers are greatly amplified.
• Badass Normal: Compared to the other four bosses, Yang doesn't wield any sort of special weapons or transformative powers. He simply fights using the same, if not more advanced fighting style as the protagonist.
• Battle in the Rain: There are three fights that occur in rainfall throughout the game:
  • The first is the very first boss fight against the Sifu, just outside of his dojo as Yang raids the place in the middle of a dark and rainy night.
  • The second is in phase two of Kuroki's boss fight, where she transports you both into an aquatic arena covered by a storm.
  • The final one is a Call-Back to the Sifu battle, as Yang will knock you outside and battle you in the same place, drizzle and all.
• Book Ends: In the prologue, a young, vengeful martial artist (Yang) demolishes a dojo and kills an older master (the Sifu) in a fight so one-sided Yang doesn't even have a health bar, before killing the Sifu. Eight years later, the tables are turned as a young, vengeful martial artist (the Student) demolishes Yang's dojo and comes for his head. In the first ending, the cycle is completed as the Student kills Yang. In the True Ending, Yang kills the Student again, but then finds himself in a fight so one-sided the Student doesn't even have a health bar.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: Sprinkled throughout the levels are seemingly normal mooks that, after you try to use your finisher move on them, will not only resist it but regain their full health and experience a dramatic power-up with new moves to make your life hell (however, this can be averted if you don't use a finisher on them). The developers wanted it so like in real life, you never tell how experienced a martial artist any given person is until you fuck around and find out the hard way.
• Boss-Only Level: The final level, the Sanctuary, comes close to this: there are only three mandatory combat encounters (two of them against individual minibosses), and most people you'll meet on your way to the boss are non-hostile unless you attack them or venture into restricted side areas.
• Break Meter: Both the protagonist and enemies have a "Structure Bar" that fills as they take hits. When it fills for an enemy they are opened up for a finisher. When it fills for the player, their guard is broken and they're left vulnerable.
• Breakable Weapons: All weapons eventually and visibly wear down from extended use, until all that's left is a broken stub that can be used as a throwing weapon. Staff weapons have an interesting wrinkle in that they break twice, as the Student continues using their broken halves as a club-type weapon afterwards.
• Broomstick Quarterstaff: Mops and brooms can be picked up for use as weapons, and they're just as effective as proper staves.
• The Brute: Sean's the second of the 5 you meet and is the biggest out of them all (perhaps just as tall if not taller as the Bodyguards or Juggernauts), and he runs a dojo with the emphasis on PAIN.
• Cast from Lifespan: Every time you revive it takes off several years from your life and forcibly ages you by an increasing amount of years.
• Catch and Return: The player can learn a skill that allows them to catch bottles thrown at them and throw them right back.
• The City Narrows: The Squats, the first destination on your revenge tour, are a run-down former industrial zone that fell under gang control when the factory at its epicenter shut down and the surrounding buildings were abandoned. Now the dilapidated slum is home only to junkies and Fajar's drug cartel.
• City with No Name: We learn little about the city the game takes place in, other than that it's somewhere in China. The interface uses Cantonese for martial arts terms (including its title), evoking the legacy of Hong Kong martial arts media. But no spoken Cantonese is actually heard in the game, and the Mandarin dub is filled with conspicuously northern Chinese accents.
• Collection Sidequest: The protagonist has the choice to investigate the death of their parent and their perpetrators' exact connection to the crime, by collecting pieces of physical evidence or speaking with NPCs to try and interrogate them for information. It takes the form of a detective board with photos, scraps, and notes all clustered around each person-of-interest.
• Combat Pragmatist: There is no honor in a street fight and this game makes sure you know it. Everyone, protagonist and enemies included, will use every single advantage they have, from using weapons against unarmed opponents, overpowering with numbers, going for the eyes, the crotch, and the face, and so on. This isn't a martial arts tournament with a referee, everyone wants everyone down and out with the least amount of damage and effort to them and they don't particularly care how it happens. This is however, Subverted with the Final Boss fight against Yang. Unlike any of the other targets, he doesn't use any Elemental abilities or weapons to face you- he just faces you with a greater mastery of the same Kung-Fu abilities you've been honing through your fights and with the Talisman's aid, and demonstrates how much better he is with them.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Subverted, and hard. Any time you're facing a large number of foes at once, they will overwhelmingly hold the advantage against you if you're not playing smart. So help you if one of them has a particularly larger share of ninjutsu than their counterparts as you'll never know until you try to finish them off expecting a health boost and instead have a refreshed, much more powerful, and angry new foe to contend with.
• Continuing is Painful:
  • If you finish a level before the final boss at age 60-70, you'll only have one more death and greatly reduced health to handle the next and you'll have a limited pool of move upgrades, too. Most players are encouraged to abandon that kind of run and repeat the level they just beat or the one before it but better, as the game always records and starts you off at your youngest age for each level.
  • This also applies during a level. Certainly, you could revive and try to turn around a losing fight... but now you'll have less health as your character's increasingly fragile body can no longer take it and the damage boost may not mean as much if you were already clearly struggling defensively.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Averted for the first four bosses and your Focus attacks, making it a viable strategy to mostly concentrate on bobbing and weaving through their combos to build your meter for a sweep or eye poke that will open them up for a free combo or two. Yang, however, plays it completely straight: you open the selector wheel to use Focus on him and are simply met with a message saying "You can't Focus him", and then he taunts you for even thinking about it.
• Covered in Gunge: It's possible to coat enemies with paint by chucking certain objects at them in the Museum, particularly in the room filled with painted lightbulbs.
• Creator Cameo: Electronic musician Howie Lee, who composed the game's soundtrack, appears as a DJ with Disciple moveset in an optional side room in the Club.
• Cutting the Knot: Most levels have alternate passageways that take you past groups of enemies that could give you a hard time, but unlocking them requires collecting certain items from the stages, which typically involves going through those same groups of enemies.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Sparing bosses on a Wude run can be this if you're accustomed to hitting the takedown button(s) as soon as the prompt appears. Likely an intentional move on the developers' part, as it demands the player to pull off the act with calm and clarity rather than just relying on raw muscle memory like they might have spent their first run doing.
• Dangerous Backswing: One consolation of the game's unrelenting, brutal difficulty is that weapon attacks don't discriminate. If another enemy is in range of one who's taking a swing at you, they're just as likely to go flying.
• Death as Game Mechanic: When you die, your magic talisman will revive you at the cost of aging you. As you get older, your gain slightly increased damage, but lower health. Also, you can only upgrade your skills after dying. Dying too frequently increases the rate that you age, and at Age 70+, you become too old to revive, leading to the player being Out of Continues.
• Deadly Dodging: Enemy attacks can hit each other if you dodge at the right moment. This is especially common for enemies making wide swings with their weapons.
• Death Is Cheap: Zigzagged. On the one hand, dying doesn't automatically give you a game-over and you can in fact unlock new skills and abilities this way. On the other hand, dying too frequently will rapidly age the protagonist and reduce their health pool. Hitting age 70 means your next death will be your final one.
  • This is made even less punishing in the Easy difficulty which was added in the Spring Content Update. There is no death counter, and the age does not multiply depending on how many times you die either.
• Determinator: The Student is so focused on taking their revenge, nothing dissuades them: from the small armies of Mooks they have to fight through, to the target's own formidable skills, to the targets manifesting elemental abilities out of nowhere to gain a combat advantage over them. Their determination is so strong, it basically turns the third and final stage of Yang's boss fight into a Hopeless Boss Fight against the Student. After taking the same lethal blow to the heart that Yang used to kill their Sifu in the past, the Student rises to their feet again and proceeds to fight Yang to a standstill, their health bar gone entirely, until they successfully break Yang's structure and almost hit him with the same attack, staying their hand at the last second as a lesson to Yang of the true meaning of Wude before collapsing dead from his prior blow, having fought and defeated Yang despite technically being dead already.
• Developer's Foresight: Attacks have a left and right-side animation, depending on the Student's stance. It's a nice visual touch.
• Drugs Are Bad: Fajar "The Botanist" is one of the antagonists, an accomplice to a murder, and the kingpin or the production head of a plant-based illegal drug that he uses his supernatural Green Thumb to grow. Most of the enemies in this level are, appropriately enough, his thugs, factory workers, or junkies roped into the violence.
• Easter Egg: In the Museum stage, one pathway will take players past an exhibit called "Vestige of a Lost World", which happens to be the masks and art of Absolver, Sloclap's last game. Possibly a case of Canon Welding.
• Element No. 5: In line with the many elements of Eastern martial arts, philosophies, and supernatural elements in the game, the five bosses each correspond to an element and a unique Talisman collectible:
  • Fajar, with his Green Thumb, his weapon being the most suited for cutting through plants, and being involved in the drug trade with a plant-based illegal substance, is Wood.
  • Sean, with his Pyrokinesis, the constant smoking, his hot-headed nature, and the "trials by fire" you need to go through to face him, is Fire.
  • Kuroki, with her fluid, graceful, feminine movements, as well as the sadness and grief of being an Angsty Surviving Twin, is Water.
  • Jinfeng, with her being so obviously wealthy, having a job strongly associated with money and physical possessions, and being astoundingly sturdy and capable despite her old age, is Metal.
  • Yang, with his position as the leader of the five and the "rock" on which the group stands, and being the only one that doesn't use any fancy tricks, just a solid understanding of martial arts, is Earth.
• Elite Mooks: Sean's "Disciples" who aside from having taller, more athletic builds don't appear that different than the average mook. They're actually highly technical fighters with strong defenses and quick, powerful attacks that can bypass your own defensive techniques if you're not careful.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The reason Yang betrayed his master in the first place. He lost his family, and the Sifu kicked him out when he tried to steal the pendant so he could revive them.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In the prologue, almost everyone but Yang seem to try and avoid looking at Fajar's execution of the child Protagonist. Jinfeng, Sean, and Kuroki look away, while Fajar closes his eyes.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: All the common enemies in the game are capable of executing expert kung fu, even the junkies in the squat.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Where Jinfeng resides. At first glance, it seems pretty normal, but once you actually get to the action (and when Jinfeng begins to send the Tower crumbling), it looks really scary.
• Excuse Plot: You and your father are murdered, your magical talisman revives you, go exact your vengeance on the perpetrators. While there is some background lore, they're not essential to the plot and can easily be ignored.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The Student's Roaring Rampage of Revenge takes place over the course of a single day, by necessity so the targets don't retaliate together against them once they know the Student is coming for them. The reason the Student ages is because the talisman's Resurrective Immortality is Cast from Lifespan, but it also does it very quickly; the enemies have just enough time to pick themselves up and catch their breath before the Student is back from the grave.
• Fake Special Attack: The Calbot focus move, named after a Joke Character deck in Absolver, is simply a humorous Dope Slap that does nothing (unless you use it to taunt your opponents). Its description even just says Calbot, and combined with its unconventional name compared to the more practical titles of the other focus moves alludes to its joke status.
• Fantasy Gun Control: There are no guns anywhere in the game, despite the modern setting and locational appropriateness, nor is the absence of guns addressed in-universe.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: When fighting each of the targets, they're initially fought in surroundings atypical to the locations you face them in, but upon breaking down their first health bar and reaching their second stage, they suddenly display mystical abilities, warping the surroundings into an Acid-Trip Dimension based around their element, giving them an increased combat advantage in Fajar's case. With their deaths, the surroundings revert back to normal, at least in the case of Kuroki, who is the only one killed in a way that doesn't Smash to Black. The only exception to this is, ironically, Yang who instead hits the protagonist and somehow forces them back into the courtyard on that rainy day they killed their Sifu, creating a Bookends situation against the Student's journey. It's unclear in that case if it's actually happening, or if the situation is reminding the Student of their trauma so much that they're mentally re-creating the night it happened.
• Final Boss Preview: Two, actually: You get A Taste of Power as you control Yang at the very beginning of the game, and the other one is a Shout-Out to Snake in the Eagle's Shadow as you fight all 5 of the Bosses in one epic intro sequence.
• Final-Exam Boss: Yang. Justified, he went to the same dojo and was taught by the same Sifu as you were. Well, 8 years ago, but he knows everything you weren't taught.
• Fisher King: As you get closer to each target, the environment starts to change to reflect the personality or powers of them. For example, the Squats start out as a dreary slum full of decrepit apartments and abandoned buildings until you reach the factory where plants and bamboo start to appear out of everywhere. Likewise, the Club starts as a normal nightclub with an underground fighting ring in the back, before slowly changing into a mix of a martial arts temple and an old Chinese city burning to the ground. The second half of each boss fight also causes them to change the area into an arena of their element.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The Student gains the option to spare the bosses in the second playthrough as an indication of their knowledge that Vengeance Feels Empty. However, this mindset doesn't carry over to the mooks, who you'll still likely deal lethal blows to depending on the circumstances and what weapon you're using at the time.
  • You play as Yang during the prologue and have access to what would be the Student's full moveset. However, during Yang's boss fight, he uses an attack that he boasts about the Sifu never having had the chance to teach the Student. There is no way to use this attack while playing as Yang.
• Giant Mook:
  • One type of mook you'll run into are Juggernauts, the big bulky guys who pack a lot of HP, deal tons of damage, and have a unique Grapple Move where they rush you down and slam you into the ground.
  • There's also the very tall, buff "Bodyguards" with hard-hitting strikes, quicker than the Juggernauts as well as swift grabs that can bring your health down at a brisk pace. Overlaps with Elite Mooks since The Student themself considers them some of the strongest foes they've faced yet on the detective board at their home.
• Good Is Not Soft: While the protagonist's enemies are monsters in their own right, and were complicit in the death of the protagonist's master and parent, some have turned away from a life of crime and have taken up modest professions or have started their own dojos. Additionally, the thugs and mooks you face vary from boss to boss (Fajar's are by far the most unrepentant of the bunch), but they're only guilty of working for the target of the protagonist's revenge. This means absolutely nothing to the Student, as they can go out of their way to take them down with potential lethal force.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Though there are weapons, they are at best temporary power-ups as they will eventually shatter and break on you or are useful only to throw before getting in and beating the living daylights out of someone using your bare hands and legs.
• Gotta Kill 'Em All: The goal is to kill the five people responsible for the murder of the protagonist's parent. Resisting the urge and being the better, more morally upright person by forgiving them is key to unlocking the good ending.
• The Grappler: The calling card of the bulky enemies is a running grab where they pick you up and powerbomb you into the dirt.
  • To a lesser extent, also the Bodyguards, who, instead of slamming you into the ground, tackle you down for an MMA Style Ground and Pound.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Beer bottles can be used against enemies, setting them up for a one hit kill against the weakest or a combo against the strongest. Of course, they can do the same to you as well.
• Heroic Build: Though far from being heroic, Sean and his disciples. They're tall and muscular, fitting for a hero (even though they clearly aren't).
• Hopeless Boss Fight:
  • In the prologue section, Yang, controlled by the player, is one of these, lacking any health bar and having access to the fully-unlocked skill tree, meaning that even the most inexperienced player will blast through their foes and successfully defeat the Sifu in combat, as Yang simply can't be beaten.
  • During the True Ending, The Student becomes one through sheer determination, taking a lethal blow to the heart from Yang and continuing to fight him anyway in order to teach him a final lesson, lacking a health bar at that point and getting up from every one of Yang's blows because they've already perished. Making the parallels more obvious, the last section of their fight takes place in the same courtyard when Yang killed the Sifu.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The Spring Content Update adds the following difficulty levels due to popular demand:
  • Student - Easy
  • Disciple - Default/Hard
  • Master - Harder Than Hard
• Interface Spoiler: The unlockable outfits wardrobe, introduced in the Summer 2022 update, is accessible from the start of the game and tells you outright that there are two endings: kill Yang (which unlocks the Vengeance outfit) and spare Yang (which unlocks the Wude outfit). What it doesn't tell you, of course, is how you get from the first one to the second.
• It's All Upstairs From Here:
  • Inverted in The Tower that Jinfeng resides in. You climb the tower... by riding the elevator up. Only when Jinfeng rings her bell and mysteriously disappears that you'll have to be going downwards instead of up.
  • Played straight with Yang's sanctuary, but even though the journey to the Sanctuary isn't shown, you do have to move further and further up before you face Yang in his office.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Halfway throughout the game, some enemies start wielding Japanese-style tanto (not that factory-made examples are hard to find in modern China).
• Kick Chick: A recurring fighting style used by the flashkicks is one focused heavily on swift, hard-hitting kicks, with their most notable move being a devastating axe-kick that deals a colossal amount of damage.
• Killed Off for Real: How you reach the game over screen if you don't revive yourself after death. If your death counter is at 10 or you're at age 70, you will not be able to revive the next time you die.
• Locked Out of the Loop: The Dawn Group have magical power of their own and if they see the protagonist get back from the death they will simply be mildly impressed. Their goons though have not received the message and are scared after seeing you come back from a lethal beating and suddenly aged.
• Magical Realism: Sifu is about a young martial artist beating down everyone on their Roaring Rampageof Revenge. They just happen to be backed up by a magic talisman that revives them from death, while the targets inexplicably possess magic powers that shape the environment in ways that are more symbolic than anything, and are mostly treated as an afterthought with absolutely no one actually commenting on it.
• Manly Facial Hair: The male protagonist at 20 years of age starts off with some Perma-Stubble that gradually grows into a rather impressive well-maintained beard as he ages with every death. This is in contrast to Fajar who's grown a wild, unkempt beard since he had killed the protagonist.
• Mook Chivalry: Averted with a vengeance. If you don't stay vigilant and make good use of leg sweeps, shoves and vaults over terrain to give yourself some breathing room, you can look forward to:
  • Getting smacked in the back of the head while you're busy up front trying to dodge axe kicks to the face
  • Bringing your fists to a knife fight
  • Ending up hopelessly outnumbered and pinned against a wall, trying uselessly to parry five near-simultaneous punches. Getting mobbed does have its silver lining, though, because weapon users have a decent chance of hitting their allies in the chaos.
  • Getting smoked with a beer bottle flung from off-screen
  • Mooks lying in wait around blind corners or behind cover, at one point with an obvious Giant Mook standing out in the open to distract you from his two friends about to come in from the sides.
  • All that said, there are moments here and there where the game plays it straight to fit in with the conventions of the kung-fu movies it's so heavily influenced by or to save your controller:
    • Despite their willingness to often unfairly use deadly weapons against you, you'll never have to deal with an opponent who just steps back, draws a gun and blows you away, even though some of them are professional bodyguards and/or criminals that know you're coming.
    • You'll never be met with a kick in the face for kneeling down to pound on a tripped enemy, or knocked out of a superpowered Focus attack once you've managed to start it; do note, however, that in the former case things like low sweeping attacks and grabs will still connect even as the kneeling animation plays out.
    • Each of the major Elite Mook subtypes are introduced alone before you're required to handle them in pair or with flunkies, even though realistically any of them could have yelled for reinforcements. The trope is most obviously played straight on the dance floor in The Club: you incapacitate perhaps a dozen standard enemies before a cutscene triggers and the local flashkick who's been lounging around watching you fight finally decides she needs to deal with you personally.
• Multiple Endings: Two.
  • The first, unlocked by default, is Revenge, where the protagonist realizes after killing all five of the perpetrators that they do not feel any more satisfied or at peace with their parent's death, only even worse than before.
  • The second, unlocked by playing the game on New Game Plus and sparing the bosses by breaking their Structure twice, is Enlightenment, where the protagonist dies from their injuries in the fight against the final boss, but through following the spirit of their martial arts and its philosophy finally finds peace after death. The last scene leaves it ambiguous about whether they were revived once again, or perhaps their mercy has inspired their former killers to live better lives and revive the dojo, as a young student eagerly calls their new sifu to class.
• Motifs: Each of the five main bosses has an elemental motif that inspires and drives their levels.
  • Fajar has plants and greenery. His level takes place in an Abandoned Area filled with vegetation that only gets more intense as the Student makes their way to his stronghold. His role in the group is as the supplier of a powerful drug grown from a particular purple plant, which gives his level a unique green and purple contrast. Fajar is fought in the room where the plants are grown, and his second phase transitions into a battle in the middle of an Asian jungle.
  • Sean has fire and wood. The floors and walls of his dance club are lit up with bright neon lights, which contrast heavily with the ancient-China inspired wooden architecture. As the Student goes deeper into the level, the club switches into a burning village filled with arenas to duke it out with his disciples. During the finale, the Student fights Sean in the heart of his wooden stronghold, which begins burning down in the second phase.
  • Kuroki has water and ice. The main hall of the museum has a massive fountain, many of the exhibits incorporate water in some way, and the Student slowly but surely flows their way up the flight of stairs to Kuroki's office. As the Student proceeds further, they encounter unique areas with enemies that are "frozen" and then come to life. In the fight against Kuroki, she first begins the battle in a snow-covered field, before transitioning to a ocean in the middle of a raging storm.
  • Jinfeng has dirt and metal. The Tower is a massive concrete building filled with all kinds of metallic and concrete structures. The rigidity of the place also calls to mind the strength and immovability of rock. As the Student proceeds up the skyscraper, the building slowly becomes akin to a deep cavern in the earth. Jinfeng's arena is covered in dirt, and the second phase sees the arena drop and become surrounded with flowing sand.
  • Lastly, Yang has rocks and tranquility, while also combining the themes from all the previous bosses. The clinic he resides is in filled with large, open hallways and incredibly vast rooms. The level is remarkably still, even more so than Jinfeng's, and has elements of greenery, wood, flowing water, and metal throughout the sanctuary. Yang is notably fought within the confines of his personal dojo, before the fight moves into a recreation of the spot where the Student's father was killed.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After the first of the three trials at the Club you get an option of telling the female Disciple overseeing it that Sean is a madman who will drag his followers with him when he eventually goes down. The Disciple retorts that, given the carnage she's just witnessed from them, the Student doesn't really seem all that different before adding a nice Leaning on the Fourth Wall Armor-Piercing Question:
  If you didn't want to fight why did you come this far?
• Old Master: After enough revivals your character will become an aging fighter in their 60s-70s who has less health but deals more damage.
  • There's also the Sifu, the first boss you fight against (though through the eyes of Yang).
• One-Hit Kill: Using Charged Backfist with a knife in hand have the Student deliver a fatal stab that will instantly kill any enemy at the cost of breaking the weapon. This can potentially kill the biggest threat in the room quickly.
• One-Man Army: Played well, the protagonist will relentlessly beat into submission or outright murder countless nameless mooks, all of whom could kill him easily in a few hits and a handful of whom are bosses in their own right, then proceed to fight a master martial artist with supernatural powers at their beck and call and win.
• Personality Powers: The personalities of the bosses oftentimes reflects in their associated element and fighting style. Sean, for example, is associated with Fire and has a brutal, highly offensive-focused, wide-reaching style like a raging wildfire, out of control and eager to consume everything within reach.
• Pipe Pain: One of the weapons that's used against both the enemies and the player is metal pipes.
• Post-Final Boss: On the true ending path, after the first two grueling phases, final boss Yang gets one last phase where he tries to finish off the dying Student. While Yang is significantly more aggressive in this phase, the Student no longer even has a health bar and it's impossible to die, demonstrating mastery of wude.
• Psychological Horror: The final exhibit at The Museum delves into this with the way The Student is suddenly thrust into a bizarre set of bright technicolor rooms where the music becomes rather muted and everyone is reduced to vague shadows as we get more insight into Kuroki's troubled psyche and the trauma she's endured in the past. Not to mention the many geisha statues in these odd rooms, of which a number are actually real women dressed as geisha pretending to be said statues to get the jump on The Student.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Yang was once a student of the protagonist's sifu and father. He also stormed the sifu's dojo, massacred all the students, and slew his former master as he wanted the old man's pendant, which was capable of granting Resurrective Immortality.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The protagonist can be either a man or a woman but otherwise doesn't really change anything.
  • The same could be said for just about every generic enemy type having male and female members with the exceptions of the heavyset Juggernauts being male-only and the aptly-named Flashkicks being female-only.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Used a lot of the times, most commonly by The Student. Justified, as those with "Hands that go out like lightning" causes the enemy to not want to fight anymore, as well as the martial arts being practiced by the Student uses a lot of rapid punches.
  • The only other practitioner of this is Yang, noticeably at the end of the game where he delivers a chain punch combo ending with a reach to your talisman, though whether or not the Student halts the grab is up to the player.
• Resurrective Immortality: But it isn't free nor unlimited. Your protagonist's family talisman has the mysterious ability to raise them back from the dead, at the cost of a year or several years off their life. In-game, the more deaths you have in a row, the faster your character ages, until the talisman's magic completely runs out at your 70's or if you choose to give up early.
• Revenge: The protagonist's motivation for hunting down the antagonists responsible for murdering their sifu. They spent eight years honing their martial arts before going about their plan. Attaining enlightenment and leaving their vengeance behind is the path to getting the good ending.
• Riddle for the Ages: It's left very unclear how exactly the Student gained the talisman in the first place. Yang assaults the Sifu's dojo with the clear intent of claiming it, and is seen opening the box where it's stored, with the talisman's tell-tale glow lighting up his face before he notices the Student's presence and Fajar slices their throat. Upon awakening, the talisman is now clutched in the Student's hand and they're left alone in the broken dojo, having somehow been revived with its powers despite not holding the talisman at the time. It's left unclear if one of the five, repentant over the death of a child, passed the talisman onto their body when they left, or if the talisman somehow 'chose' the Student over Yang and the rest.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The entire point of the game is take vengeance for your murdered parent, by going after the five perpetrators and killing each one of them in turn. After your 1st mandatory playthrough, you now have the option of sparing them at the end of each fight, for the sake of the True Ending.
• Sequence Break: The second half of the Tower features several fatal drops that you can walk off to skip parts of the level, at the cost of raising your death counter each time. There's even one that leads to the boss, though taking it forgoes an upgrade shrine.
• Silent Antagonist: Fajar, who is incapable of proper speech, and instead grunts and growls, and on some occasions, motions and beckons.
• A Sinister Clue: Crosses in with Dangerous Forbidden Technique; The heart punch that kills the Sifu, Yang, or the Student, is explicitly done with the left hand.
• Sinister Silhouettes: In the prologue where the Student trains rigorously for their single day Roaring Rampage of Revenge, they fight all 5 of the Dawn Group, overlapping with Final Boss Preview as everyone but Fajar (who's seen using the standard Mook moveset instead of his kick based style) uses their own fighting style. Justified as to why they're seen as shadows; the Student only remembers them in their black clothes when they raided the Dojo. Also happens several times for each boss.
  • Sean is the most prominent example of this, often appearing before the Student and teasing them by promptly leaving before the big fight. Several of his silhouettes are prominent throughout the club, and one of them is a Bait-and-Switch Silhouette where you fight one of Sean's disciples armed with a staff instead.
  • There's also Kuroki and several of the Flashkicks that pretend to be Kuroki in some of the Museum's foggy exhibits.
• Slashed Throat: In the prologue, the player has their throat cut by Fajar on Yang's orders.
• Slouch of Villainy: The first Juggernaut does this in the Squats. Sean is also seen doing this as his student performs the last of the entrance ritual.
• Shout-Out:
  • The hallway fight in the Squats is framed like the one from Oldboy (2003).
  • One to Sloclap's other games Absolver. Kuroki's museum owns some of the masks found in the game (the writing on the wall states that there are 82 Adalian masks, and a set of Oratian Staffs in some buried ship). Could possibly be a case of Canon Welding.
  • Kuroki's boss battle starts in a snow-covered area, similar to O-Ren Ishii's fight in Kill Bill.
  • The "Stunt Double" costume, unlocked from having the Deluxe edition and completing the "Hot on Sean's tracks" goal, gives the Student a jacket identical to the Driver from Drive (2011).
• Smoking Is Cool: Sean is seen smoking before his fight, and combined with his Slouch of Villainy, one could tell that this guy's an out and out prick.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Given a nod in that every master after the last has time to prepare their disciples and anticipate the Student's attack. A hidden collectible shows that the first Boss Fajar has an illness so his lower difficulty next to his peers is understandable.
• String Theory: The Student has a little board full of collectibles that relate to their targets:
  • Purple Mist from the Squats
  • A news clipping of the Club
  • Pages of advertisements for the Museum
  • A magazine about the Tower
  • A page for the Sanctuary
• Strong and Skilled: The Student is capable of throwing around the Giant Mooks, and the Giant Mooks themselves show a great deal of knowledge of martial arts.
• Stronger with Age: Played With. The Student's advancing age with every death allows them to unlock greater mastery of Kung-Fu and skills as they get older, allowing them to hit harder and do more damage, but as their bodies are becoming increasingly frail, their health bar gets smaller and they take more damage from hits in exchange.
• Taste of Power: You play as Yang in the prologue. He has no health bar, and every skill you'll have to earn later on. His power is justified, as he's a former student of the Sifu.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: There is an element of this to the gameplay and story. Despite the story seeming to proceed in a chronological order over the course of a single day, as the student advances through the stages, they can find keys and clues that help unlock doors and shortcuts in prior stages that were barred to them the first time around, such as being able to gain a key that unlocks a shortcut in the club level from one of Sean's students encountered in the Museum level, or gaining the key from the Skull brothers near the end of the Squats that unlocks the barred doors near the beginning. Replaying these levels once the items are found allows the student to proceed through these shortcuts, despite the fact that chronologically, they shouldn't have access to them yet. Story-wise, the Student only gains the option to spare the targets and unlock the true ending after killing Yang and realizing that Vengeance Feels Empty, implying that the talisman allowed them to somehow loop back to the beginning of the day and with whatever years they lost restored to re-do the stages and make the 'correct' choice this time around.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Gaining the true ending requires you to spare the bosses after break their stance, allowing the student to put them in the same positions they normally use as a Finishing Move, only to divert the lethal attack at the last second, demonstrating both their superior martial arts skills against them and their mercy. Ironically, you can only gain this option after you kill the bosses in an initial play through and realize at the end that Vengeance Feels Empty. This doesn't hold true for several of the Mooks the student fights through to reach the bosses, as even on runs where you've unlocked the shortcuts to them, there will still be unavoidable combat sections where the student beats their way through multiple foes, with potentially lethal consequences depending on the circumstances and weapons used.
• Thug Dojo: The entirety of Sean's dojo, which takes its base of operations inside a nightclub (and it also features its own Fight Club).
• Touch of Death: Yang uses a dim mak like punch to kill the Sifu. The Student can be seen practicing it when he returns to the hub after a level. It comes back to bite him in the ass in the bad ending. In the good ending, Yang does land the same punch on The Student, who proceeds to shrug it off. It turns out that with the full power of Wude, the death is delayed.
• Urban Fantasy: Downplayed; the only supernatural elements come in the form of the protagonist's talisman, the bosses' supernatural abilities, and the ways their arenas and levels can warp due to their influence. Otherwise, the setting is a modern, vaguely Chinese city where most opponents are regular civilians or gangsters.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: When the protagonist executes the bosses to avenge their parent, they always make sure to do so using their own weapon.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: After your first mandatory playthrough, after managing to kill all five of the perpetrators and countless mooks along the way, the Student realizes that spilling blood for blood using the same martial arts techniques and philosophies their parent had taught them is far from fulfilling or satisfying.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The Student can antagonize ordinary bystanders and passive guards who are ordered to just let them through certain areas for the sake of extra experience points or if the player just feels like they haven't beaten down enough of them already.
• Villain Shoes: The prologue puts you in control of Yang as he and his gang attack your father's dojo. As Yang is already an expert of the same style of Kung Fu as you, it also gives you A Taste of Power as you mercilessly beat down on the hapless pupils blocking in your path.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Unlike Fajar and Sean, the last three antagonists all have a good reputation among the general populace within the city. Kuroki gave up her former lifestyle and became a renowned artist owning her own gallery, Jinfeng is the CEO of a powerful corporation, and Yang has become the sifu of his own dojo known for performing miracles.
• Visual Pun: The skill tree is a literal tree growing in the hub area.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: The mercy option on future playthroughs only applies to bosses. Enemy grunts are still likely to face lethal injuries depending on the circumstances and what weapon you're using at the time.
• What the Hell Are You?: Characters do react realistically to the person they just killed mysteriously getting back up — The first few times, they'll just (rightfully) assume the Student is The Determinator and belt out appropriate taunts, but as they keep getting back up and visibly aging, the tone of observers changes to confusion and horror.
• Would Hurt a Child: Fajar has no qualms murdering a young child who was witness to a murder, and Yang has no qualms ordering it, either. Meanwhile the other three bosses actually look away right before it happens, implying that they're not all too fond of actually doing it.
• World of Badass: There is hardly a helpless civilian or hapless street thug in this game. Any, and we mean any, enemy is able to end you in a handful of hits, either because they managed to surround you and beat you to death through sheer force of numbers or being far more powerful than you could have thought they were.
• You Are Already Dead: In the Good Ending Fight against Yang, he uses the same punch used to kill Sifu on the Student. They shrug it off, as their acceptance of mortality and mastery of Wude has allowed them to temporarily delay their own death. Only once they stay their hand after having nearly used the punch on him do they finally die.

---