Sifu took the roguelike and action genres by storm early this year and for obvious reasons. Sloclap has managed to put together a piece of work that exceeds expectations as a roguelike and as a combat-based action game. For that reason, Sifu became an indie darling right off the bat and I haven't even mentioned the stunning visuals. 

Naturally, when it came time to port the incredible experience to the Nintendo Switch console, many fans had their doubts regarding the retainment of quality. While expectations were relatively low, this port of the original release is expected to uphold the fast and intense gameplay experienced in the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox versions.

Story

While minimal, the story here is great and offers a sense of purpose to the journey our main character will be going on. After the death of their Sifu, the main character, either a boy or girl spending on what you choose, sets out on a path of revenge. Taking out each of the members involved in the murder is a satisfying task and often leaves the player craving another fight as each major fight is interestingly designed. Reminiscent of old school Kung-Fu movie plots, we get very little story dialogue dumping and a lot of action and movements that explain the details. More is shown than said and it plays to Sifu’s strength here.

The story is completely unaffected here on the Nintendo Switch version. We get the same level of style and finesse that the story originally intended for and has no bearing on the final outcome. That being said I did encounter frame drops during some fast camera work during cutscene moments but it did very little to take away from the experience.

Gameplay

The gameplay on display here is addictive and engaging. Layer a complex fighting system with a skill tree centered around player agency and level design that both drives the player forward and encourages exploration, and you get one of the most in-depth roguelikes that pretend to be an action game. Sifu comes out the gate strong with its gameplay and forces you to follow its rules, not the other way around. These systems are built from the ground up to facilitate a particular level of gameplay that industry-standard combat mechanics just can't achieve. Because of this, the player is forced to learn and master these systems in order to be at any level of competence while facing up against increasingly difficult enemies. This initially frustrated me, but later allowed me to appreciate the system once I had started to crack its code. 

The main gimmick here is the ability to come back from death. In doing so, your character ages depending on how many deaths you have stacked up with an age limit upwards of 70. This carries over into future levels and can only be fully reset by replaying older levels, aiming for a better outcome, but deleting your progress past that level up until that point. It’s a high-risk, high-reward system that allows for some wriggle room to scope out the level and learn the enemies' move sets. I often found myself retrying levels over and over again just to get a perfect score and enter the next level at an optimum age to better my chances of success. It's a great system with very satisfying results.

Luckily this all transfers over to the Nintendo Switch port beautifully and still enables that fast-paced, smooth combat utilizing on-the-fly decisions. Never once did I feel cheated by the hardware limitations. Every death was my own for my own failings and I love that Sloclap had the ability to keep this smoothness during the combat. Unfortunately, we are exposed to some frame drops here which generally take place during cutscenes and have little to no effect on the experience as a whole, and during extremely crowded moments of gameplay. Sifu is full of crowds which sounds concerning but the frame drops only really occur when a lot of enemies fully surround you. I’m assuming this has something to do with off-screen enemies because there are many other moments where I was in a crowded environment and all the enemies were in front of me where no frame drops took place. The iconic hallway fight sequences also don't encounter any frame drops and they are generally quite crowded as well. It's a fortunate realisation that the combat and gameplay are generally unaffected by the port and it would have been detrimental to the reception of this version if it was anything less than it currently is.

One element I was pleased to discover is the ability to remap your moves. This was a big deal because I have previously only played Sifu on PC with a PlayStation 5 controller so the buttons are slightly different from my Nintendo Switch controller. This meant that I didn't have to readjust to a game that is already quite difficult and was just able to enjoy it as I have enjoyed it in the past.

Sifu is a difficult game, resulting in many deaths, especially the first time playing. I’ve played the first couple of levels a number of times before on the PC version and still died at least once each time. Sifu on the Nintendo Switch however seems somewhat easier than its counterpart versions. I cleared the first level, including the boss without a single death, after months of not touching the game. It just felt different and I can’t put my finger on it. I also managed to get further on my first run-through without retrying levels than I ever had at all in my previous play sessions. I am assuming that the difficulty has been slightly tweaked to give players a leg up if the frame drops ever got in the way but from my experience playing the game, it never got in the way of the core gameplay and was never the reason for my deaths. It's a strange thing to notice but is definitely worth mentioning if you prefer the more authentic experience.

Audio and Visual

We are given the privilege of gazing upon this visual masterpiece. The visuals here are top-tier and some of the best I’ve seen in a long time. Continuing the style they established in Absolver, Sloclap has now mastered this look and utilized it in a way that feels both nostalgic to old Kung-Fu movies and fresh for the action genre. Its incredible use of color to convey a mood or set up an intimidating encounter is masterfully designed. The character models are also great representations of Chinese mafia stereotypes and offer a range of interesting enemies to go up against. 

While amazing and stylized, the art style isn't stylized enough to cover up for the Nintendo Switch’s lack of power. The hardware really pulls the game back here and often makes the game look extremely blurry and muddy. From a distance, enemies look like blurry shadow people with smudgy faces and environment details suffer the same fate. This is noticeably the worse version of Sifu visually and can take you out of the action quite frequently. The biggest noticeable issue is the lack of texture quality, reducing some pieces of set design to pixelated messes, leaving the player unsure if the game has fully loaded yet. 

Luckily the audio here is excellent and isn't held back by the Nintendo Switch at all. The sounds are all punchy and satisfying, and the music is incredible and atmospheric. In particular, the soundtrack is quite stand-out from the rest. It calls back to old Chinese martial arts movies while also mixing in a touch of modern beats that blend together really well. It's particular about when it transitions between the two but it's backed up with in-game context, making the transitions completely seamless.

Replayability

The nature of Sifu’s game design begs to be replayed. There are different approaches in which skills you want to pursue, how you go about each level and what age you plan to be at the end of those levels. As a roguelike, it offers a lot of replayability not only to its individual levels but as a whole experience. Even after finishing the main game, I’ll be going back to see how my skills compare to earlier enemies now that I'm fully accustomed to the controls and my character's combos.

What It Could Have Done Better

Sifu has a very steep learning curve and while the tutorial is immersive, it's not the most helpful. Combining a more in-depth tutorial with the story backdrop they use in the game would be a match made in heaven and would give players less of a hard time coming into the game fresh or after a long hiatus. For the Nintendo Switch, in particular, the textures desperately need to be improved here but I understand this is most likely not to the fault of Sloclap but rather the limitations of the hardware itself. 

Verdict

Sifu on Nintendo Switch is very clearly the lesser version which is unfortunate. If you want to give it a shot then I would recommend any of the other versions as they all hold up to each other but if you are limited to the Nintendo Switch then it is still worth the purchase. Despite its flaws, Sifu is still a great game, even on the Nintendo Switch, and carries over all its great gameplay pretty seamlessly.

Sifu is now available on PC via Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.