Sifu isn’t a rogue-like, but you’ll have to play it like one. In Sifu, you’re a kung-fu master avenging your murdered father, taking revenge on five former students. Each time you die on your quest, you’ll be able to revive — at the cost of years. Once you go above 70~ years, you’re a goner for good. How many lives you’ve spent is permanently tracked across 5 levels, and you’ll quickly learn that 70 isn’t nearly enough to win. If you want to get revenge, you’re going to need a few tips.
We’ve been playing Sifu a long time — and after four grueling stages, we think these strategies will seriously help the beginners out there. With some players reporting losing all their lives in the very first stage, we wanted to offer our knowledge to make your quest just a little easier. There are ways to permanently increase your abilities, through XP unlocks and optional Jade Statues, and utilizing every advantage is the only way to overcome the grueling challenges Sifu throws at you. Let’s crack our knuckles and get started.
More Sifu guides:
Best Skills To Permanently Unlock First | Best Shrine Rewards To Unlock First | How To Beat The Warrior | How To Beat The Artist | How To Spare Bosses & Unlock The True Ending
#1: Focus On Permanent Unlocks First
When you first start in Sifu, you’ll be given many options for moves to unlock with XP after each death. There are so many options at first, it can be tricky to decide what to go with — I recommend starting slow. If you overwhelm yourself with new moves, you won’t properly learn how to utilize them in battle. After learning a move, you’ll be able to spend XP to slowly permanently unlock it, so you’ll keep the move even after death. Start by learning one move and working toward permanently unlocking. If the move isn’t great, don’t bother. If the move is working for you, keep it.
#2: How To Deal With Tough Weapon Enemies Easily
Use the Strong Sweep Focus on tough enemies with weapons — enemies like the staff-wielder in the Club’s second trial. Strong Sweep knocks the weapon out of their hands so you can pick it up. Immediately throw it at them to break it. Now you can fight one-on-one without having to deal with weapon dodging. This works great against single opponents, especially when you don’t have a weapon to safely guard against them.
#3: Weapons Are Great Against Fodder, Not-So-Great Against The Boss
Weapons are a powerful crutch against regular enemies in the first three levels of Sifu. You can both fight and throw weapons [R1] to deal high structure damage. Weapons like knives deal high HP damage, but low structure damage — so you’ll have to decide how you want to proceed. Dealing high structure damage means you can perform more takedowns and heal, which is critical for completing stages without building up your death counter too high. Weapons are powerful, but they do very little good for bosses.
I don’t recommend getting the Weapon Durability reward — or any of the weapon-related rewards. While they’re useful, they rarely help against the real challenges of the game. The bosses are the biggest problems. Enemies? You’ll be able to handle them with a little practice.
#4: Get The Snap Kick For The Botanist And Backdash
The first boss, the Botanist, will test your skills. To handle him relatively safely as a beginner, you can use two simple strategies — learn the Snap Kick ability [Forward, Forward+Triangle] to deal a staggering kick. This kick will stun the Botanist for most of the fight, even if he’s in the middle of a combo. It works for both stages of the fight, too. While he’s staggered, you can get in a hit or just back off and do the Snap Kick again. It doesn’t do a lot of damage, but if you get the rhythm right, you can rapidly drain his health while barely trying.
Also remember to perform a backwards dodge. In the second phase of the fight, the Botanist will attack from the bamboo stalks. When he lunges, time your backwards dodge to avoid his machete. Then you can immediately hit him with a kick. If you learn both techniques, the boss can safely be defeated without losing a life. There are many, many other strategies for the Botanist, but the Snap Kick is an easy move to learn early in the game that works well.
#5: Find The Keys And Use Shortcuts For Rematches
You’ll die a lot in Sifu. Fighting through a level, you’ll die multiple times to enemies — and you’ll probably make it to the boss in pretty poor shape. If you build up your Death Counter, you’ll only get a handful of tries against the boss before you’re down for good. Each death (in a row) increases the number of years you lose on revival. Luckily, there’s a way to fight the boss and get through each encounter. At certain points in each level, you can obtain a key.
Keys can be used to unlock doors that can help you quickly progress through levels. You’ll find keys in the first level, letting you bypass directly to the warehouse area. In the Club, you can obtain an invite to the big event, letting you skip the entire club. The Museum has multiple shortcuts that make it possible to fight the boss almost immediately. These shortcuts are vital, and every key you obtain will be kept — even if you die.
#6: Replay Earlier Levels To Improve Your Run
Once shortcuts are unlocked, you can also replay levels to improve your performance. Your progress is saved after each level — if you complete Level 1 at Age 35, you’ll start Level 2 at Age 35. If you complete Level 3 at Age 52, you’ll start Level 4 at Age 52. Your best run will be saved, so you can try to improve and beat the level with more years as many times as you want — the goal of Sifu is to master each boss fight so you can reach the next level with more years, which means more free attempts to take out the big boss. You can’t just scrape by. You need to master the levels.
#7: Practice High And Low Guard
While holding [L1] you can perform high or low guards to dodge specific attacks. Dodging this way saves your structure meter and builds your focus faster — and you can stagger enemies with a perfect high guard. Most enemies exclusively use high attacks, especially weapon uses, so learning to dodge with [L1+Down] is essential later in the game. These techniques don’t matter as much in Level 1, but once you reach Level 2, you’ll need to evade Juggernaut enemies with powerful throws. Learning the proper guard technique is important.
#8: Get Focus Regain & Focus Reserve Upgrades Early
The first level is a cinch compared to every other level in the game, so you might want to complete a full run just to unlock all the Jade Statue rewards. Jade Statues are green dragons that give you an unlockable reward — these rewards are lost when you die, but are retained if you reach another level with them. Get the Focus Regain and Focus Reserve upgrades early — they’re incredibly useful against bosses, and you can always build up your meter higher with further upgrades down the lie. It is worth it to get these upgrades on a perfect Level 1 run. You’ll never have to worry about getting them again.
#9: Even After Getting Shortcuts You Can Still Go For More Jade Statue Rewards
Jade Statue rewards don’t have to be skipped. After unlocking the Museum, you can create a shortcut that goes straight to the boss arena. But if you take the stairs to the fourth floor, you can get an extra Jade Statue without fighting another enemy. You’ll want to remember every Jade Statue location so you can recollect them on later playthroughs. Shortcuts are great, but if you can clear a level and get the Jade Statues without the shortcut, it is worth going for. The more rewards the better.
#10: Save XP To Reset Your Death Counter
As you die, your Death Counter goes up. You can lower your Death Counter by defeating specific tough enemies or empowered (yellow glowing) enemies that randomly appear. Your Death Counter is basically a multiplier — the higher the number, the more years you’ll lose when you revive. The counter can go especially high after a boss fight. If you want to keep going even after a series of defeats, you can with the Death Counter Reset reward from a Jade Statue. It costs 1,000 XP and is absolutely worth the points for later levels. Keep your Death Counter under control so you only lose 1 or 2 years per death.
That’s just a couple of quick tips after 12~ hours with Sifu. I’m sure our strategies will get a lot more elaborate as we scrape our way through Level 4 and beyond.
