Sifu’s martial arts roguelike is sure to give players a run for their money, as they try to travel through a city and take down five kung fu masters responsible for the death of your master in one day. No pressure or anything, but at the very least, you’ve got plenty of skills you can learn in order to make your life much easier. Here’s everything you need to know about skills in Sifu.
What Are Skills?
Skill are learnable moves that give the unnamed protagonist more of an advantage in battle, offering plenty of options and attack strategies to get the upper hand on the game’s many crafty opponents.
How Do You Unlock Skills?
In order to unlock skills, you’ll need to earn XP, which you’ll receive during the course of the game when battering goons. Once you’ve either died, or you’ve made your way to a shrine, you can use that XP to open the skill tree and purchase skills. Once you’ve bought a skill, it’ll be available for you to use until the end of the run. If you restart the level, or decide to reset your run, those moves will be gone.
It’s also worth noting that skills are age gated, meaning that you need to be of a certain age to access certain skills. Every ten years of age, starting from 20, you’ll lose access to a tier of upgrades. Those lower age tiers are usually filled with useful but expensive skills, so it’s imperative you perfect running through the earlier levels to get enough XP for the better skills, before the deaths begin to accumulate.
Can I Unlock Skills Permanently?
Yes, but you’ll be paying a lot of XP for it. After purchasing a skill for that particular run, you’ll be able to buy the skill again another five times. Once you’ve paid up five more times, that skill is yours to keep forever. It’s an expensive process, but it’s made easier by the fact that your progress through the permanent purchases is retained. If you purchase a skill, then buy three stocks of the permanent upgrade for that skill, you’ll only need to buy the skill and then two stocks of the permanent upgrade during your next run. Basically, make sure you spend all your XP when you can, before you lose it all.
It’s also worth noting that, as mentioned above, certain skills are gated by what age you are during your current run, but if you’ve purchased a skill, then you cross that age threshold, you can still purchase the permanent upgrades for that skill. You won’t be blocked off from upgrading something you’ve purchased on that run, but the rest of the tier will be inaccessible.
Which Skills Should I Focus On?
Skills involving focus attacks are always a good shout, as focus attacks are a great way at dealing damage or opening up enemies and bosses for follow-up damage. A number of them involve holding weapons, but the leg sweep and vertical strikes focus attack skills are extremely versatile and effective in almost every situation.
Another easy skill to recommend is the slide kick, which is a great way of engaging enemies when approaching from a distance, potentially knocking them down for some follow-up damage. Depending on the encounter type, the slide kick can even catch an enemy unaware, allowing you to get a quick takedown on them, removing them from the fight entirely.
Lastly, you’ll want to purchase the environmental interactions skill, which lets you use the R1 button to kick interactables around like it’s a Jackie Chan movie. Not only does it look cool, it’s a brilliant way of catching enemies off guard. Kicking a stool to take the legs out from under an enemy means you can safely perform ground attacks and take them out quicker, but you can also kick weapons too.
Sifu is available on PC, PS4 and PS5.
READ MORE: Sifu (PS5) REVIEW – Zen And The Art Of Kicking Ass
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