YMMV / Sifu

• Awesome Music: Beijing composer Howie Lee blends traditional Chinese instruments with contemporary electronic music for a very unique and authentic soundtrack perfect for the often tense and action-packed scenes of the game.
  • The music for The Club in particular is suitably high energy for the fights in the neon light-filled night club, kicking if off with the pulse pounding electronic "Crash the Dance Floor". It then slows down, becoming more tense with "Clash In the Pit" while incorporating more traditional instruments as The Student discovers the underground fight club within. As they delve into the deepest recesses of The Club, it's become almost entirely traditional instruments with "Blood Is On Fire", matching The Club having somehow transformed into a traditional Chinese village in perpetual flames. The song is especially dramatic and atmospheric for the fierce battles with Sean's personal "Disciples".
  • ''Martial Mastery'' playing in the opening is a stirring, energetic piece with ominous undertones in the background, perfectly setting the tone for an epic revenge story with a Vengeance Feels Empty moral at the end.
  • If there is one word to describe ''The Wuquan'' it would be "haunting;" the music starts serenly, very evoking the homely feel of the place, but gradually dissonant notes are building up as if to indicate something darker lurking udnerneath, until the whole theme just abruptly ends much like Yang's assault abruptly ended the sifu's life and the student's happy childhood.
• Breather Boss: Sean; could even be considered an Anti-Climax Boss considering the gauntlet you had to run through to get to him. His staff gives him good range but that's about it, as his damage isn't great and his moves are fairly predictable - and most of them hit high, so they can be dodged with relative impunity. He does get one sweep in phase 2 but if you're good at dodging his other attacks you can afford to block it, and even if you're swept it's not that big of a deal. And God help the poor bastard if you're actually good at parrying.
• Breather Level: In sharp contrast to That One Level below, The Museum can be handled practically in one's sleep. The enemy groupings are very generous and easy, with few examples of the player being forced to fight multiple difficult foes back-to-back. While it does have some difficult miniboss encounters, judicious use of Focus Moves can take them out before they become a problem. It also has the most extreme shortcut of the game, allowing players to jump straight to the boss after the first two enemies.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Disciples, first introduced in the second level, are a huge step up from basic opponents. They are fast, resilient, and hit very hard. They also have a tricky moveset, with several moves that demand attention like a fast chest punch that can't be blocked and an incredibly fast sweep. Disciples demand mastery to fight properly. It's not uncommon to lose more lives to the pair of Disciples, one of which is a souped up mini-boss variant, fought at the end of the Club than Sean himself.
  • Bodyguards are a step up from Disciples, and are arguably the toughest basic opponent to deal with. Their main moveset is fast, they hit very hard, and they also have the Juggernaut's charging grabs that pin you to the floor and open you up for massive damage. If you're not careful, their excellent damage potential and fast grabs can shred your health in seconds.
• Fan Nickname: Fans have referred to the unnamed player character as "Sifu Guy" or the more gender-neutral "Student". Occasionally, since the main antagonist is named Yang and wears white, the black-garbed protagonist is called "Yin" as well.
  • "Femc", short for "Female Sifu", has also gained some popularity as a nickname for the female player character.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The Yakuza fandom gets along pretty well with the players of Sifu or are even a part of its own player base/fandom, thanks to being a fellow Beat 'em Up that shares a lot in common^* (taking place in a modern and urban Asian setting with a protagonist that is well-versed in martial arts and fights through large swathes of mooks alongside a few allies). Although if that wasn't enough, there are a few mods that even adds characters from Yakuza or soundtracks to the game.
  • It also slowly developed one with God Hand fanbase, thanks to its high-octane, fast paced, dodge-centric, and absolutely punishing gameplay, with God Hand players citing that Sifu can be considered a Spiritual Successor of God Hand in many ways. This is even more pronounced after the most recent update which allows the player to assign different attacks to various command inputs, allowing for a customizable moveset very much like God Hand.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The game has 5 short levels with unlockable shortcuts, but the brutal difficulty combined with Trial-and-Error Gameplay can turn off some players. Since you can die in only a few hits and subsequently have less health when you age past a certain point, it's not uncommon to finish a level by the skin of your teeth, only to restart it because you got too old. The Spring Content update alleviates some of this with the Student difficulty mode where the Student ages much more slowly and the death counter is disabled.
• Nintendo Hard: The game is not very long, as it is composed of 5 short levels that get even shorter with the unlockable shortcuts. However, actually getting there is going to be what the bulk of your playtime will be. With how the game's Resurrective Immortality works, you might finish a level scraping by at old age, then go back and try to do it all over again, but better, so you'll have more leeway to try and finish the next one.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: There isn't really much of a story and it essentially amounts to "the student's father gets murdered and they go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge." Many reviewers and players note that the actual game is where most of the focus went towards, with numerous combos for your fists and weapons, the death system, and the skill tree.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: As with many other games that emphasize pin-point precise gameplay, mastery through repetition, and absolutely brutal gameplay, it's inevitable that several players who've already mastered the game take it upon themselves to add unnecessary challenges to make it more interesting. To list some examples:
  • No Death Runs. As the name says, you can take damage but cannot die, and if you do, you cannot revive and have to restart the run. This can overlap with the 20-Years-Old Run but not always.
  • No Hit Runs. Take absolutely no damage to your health whatsoever, every enemy hit must have been blocked, parried, or dodged.
  • 20-Year-Old/70-Year-Old Runs. Play the game at a specific age with all the limitations it has, such as the 20-Year-Old Student having no access to many of the more powerful skills and the 70-Year-Old being incredibly fragile in exchange for their power and repertoire of skills.
  • No Shortcut Runs. Shortcuts can cut massive amounts out of each level, so a popular challenge run for a second playthrough is beating the game without them. This notably has a benefit in that many shortcuts skip Dragon Statues, which offer useful upgrades. Players who commit to this run will end their run of the game much stronger than someone who uses shortcuts, but risk losing far more lives.
  • Parry Only Runs. Since the Structure Bar exists, and parrying is a way to build up that meter, people have flocked to doing this sort of thing, but since the Conservation of Ninjutsu is averted and Mook Chivalry is practically nonexistent, doing this against Bosses are more common than actually going through a level parrying people.
• Special Effect Failure: While most of the game is very fluidly animated and well modeled, there is an extremely noticeable clipping issue with Sean's necklace. It's not unheard of for loose jewelry in games to have odd relationships with the physics engine, but Sean's dog tags are constantly clipping into his clothing even during his pre-fight cutscene to the point it becomes hard to ignore.
• That One Boss: Kuroki can be this. Her first phase is a slow-paced fight where Kuroki attacks you with a sanjiegun customized with blades at the ends. Despite the seemingly sluggish movements she performs in this phase, the wide sweeps and hard-to-follow attacks of her staff can make for an effective Confusion Fu fighting style. Plus, players cannot simply mash the parry button and hope for the best, as the bladed sections on the end of her weapon will deal Scratch Damage that builds up fast. Kuroki is also good at keeping the player at distance to prevent them from closing in, while also not being afraid of pulling close and suffocating them in damaging staff swipes. Her second phase is easier due to being far more telegraphed, but it can still put the hurt on if you fail to block any of her kunai strikes.
  • The Master difficulty turned Fajar into one, as he's way more aggressive and mixes a sweep attack far more liberally into his combos. If you don't bring your A-game into the fight you're in for a beating.
• That One Level: The Club does a spectacular job implementing Sean's Blood Knight personality and his philosophy of "Weeding out the Weak" into a brutal gauntlet. Of the five levels it is easily the toughest due to a number of factors; first, the level is long. It is by far the longest in the game, easily taking 30 minutes of runtime when most take upwards of twenty. It is packed to the gills with tough encounters, swarming you with tough enemies and dangerous minibosses. The shortcut barely skips any of the level, and at the end of it all sits Sean, who is far from a pushover. This is likely the first level the player will hit a roadblock on due to the sheer Difficulty Spike between the previous level, The Squats, and this.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The intro sequence, which is a sendup to Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, is absolutely striking. The combination of fluid animations, beautiful cinematography, and impactful minimalism make for a sequence that instantly sucks people in. Take a look.

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