'Sifu' Is So Tough That Most Players Can't Clear Level 2
On paper, Sifu is actually a very short game.
Whether you've played Sifu or not, you probably know by now that the game is tough as nails, and a big part of the game involves the player dying repeatedly.
According to PushSquare, the current Trophy data for Sifu on the PlayStation 4 and 5 shows that 96% of players have beaten the Prologue, and 82% of players have beaten the first proper level.
However, less than half of players (33%) have managed to clear the game's second level, no thanks to its huge difficulty spike.
The Trophy gains reduce with every subsequent level and only 6% of players have beaten the fifth boss.
- Beat the Prologue - Common, 96%
- Beat the First Boss - Common 82%
- Beat the Second Boss - Uncommon, 33%
- Beat the Third Boss - Rare, 17%
- Beat the Fourth Boss - Very Rare, 11%
- Beat the Fifth Boss - Very Rare, 6%
On paper, Sifu is actually a very short game. Theoretically, its five levels can be completed in just a handful of hours but in reality, your first playthrough might take at least 10 hours.
In the second level in particular, each time you die, you have to play through 10 to 20 minutes before you even get a chance to attempt the boss again. It surely is a substantial hump that you need to clear – but once you do, you'll truly fall in love with the masterful combat and moment-to-moment gameplay of Sifu.
Why is Sifu so difficult?
You see, the way Sifu handles death is truly unique: with the help of a magical talisman, you’ll be able to revive right from where you keeled over and continue fighting, but you’ll age up by however many years your current death counter is at.
So while your first few deaths may only age you up by just one, two, or three years, if you continue dying to the same enemy or boss you’ll quickly find yourself aging by five, six, seven years or more each time you go down.
Basically, what that means is that it’s not enough to just beat a level – you need to beat the level and have enough of a lifespan leftover so that you can realistically tackle everything after it.
This is the one pain point in Sifu’s design: similar to a roguelike, it demands that you replay levels repeatedly until you’re able to basically master them. But unlike a roguelike, there’s no procedural level generation or randomized loot to alleviate some of the repetition involved with playing the same levels over and over again.
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