Aging and eventual death are all but the only certainties in life, though in Sifu you’ll have a slightly different relationship with them. Death, contrary to real life, isn’t as bad as aging. The two are however intertwined, and in this article we’ll talk about how exactly the main meta gameplay mechanic of Sifu works.
Sife: Death and Aging
In Sifu, death is just another part of your journey. You’ll die a lot. Whenever you get your butt kicked, a death is added to your death counter. In theory you could die as many times as you’d want, were it not for the fact that you age one year for every death you died. The aging is best explained using an example.
- Say you’re 20 years old and die for the first time. The death counter reaches 1 and you’ll age to the ripe old age of 21.
- Let’s say you die again. Now, the death counter reaches 2. That means you age two years this time, which makes you 23 years old.
- Again, you bite the dust once more. You’ve died 3 deaths so far. That means you’re now 26 years old.
The Art of Dying
‘Oh wise Game Enthusiast, how does one master the art of dying?’ We’ll teach you, young disciple. There are two ways to cheat death in Sifu, stopping or at least slowing the exponential aging process.
- There are special Shrines scattered throughout every level. Instead of choosing an upgrade, you can spend 1000XP to reset your death counter
- Every time you defeat a Mini Boss, one death is substracted from the total amount of deaths
What carries over after death and what doesn’t
Lastly in this guide, we’ll quickly talk about everything that happens when it’s game over. In this section we’ll talk about everything that happens to your character when you’ve aged past 70.
- You lose all your unlocked skills, except for the ones you’ve unlocked permanently (by repurchasing them 5 times over)
- All upgrades from the Shrines are lost, except the ones you’ve secured after finishing a level
- You start at the youngest age you’ve started a level as. It’s up to you which level you retry, it doesn’t have to be the latest one
As a bonus tip, we’ll quickly talk about that last point in depth. Dying in Sifu isn’t that bad, and even aging past 70 (a.k.a game over) has advantages. That means you can freely retry a previous mission. When you finish said mission at a younger age (meaning dying less) you get a lower starting age for the next mission. That gives you more deaths to brush off before you ultimately perish.
And just like that, retrying, failing and learning helps you carry over more skills for the next round. Kinda like real life right?
