【4K】SIFU - Master Mode - Full Game / No Deaths / True Ending (NG / Chinese VA)

Last week, Sloclap released a new update for Sifu that adds a bunch of new features to the game. They've added a training mode, an easy mode, new costumes, and most importantly to me, a higher difficulty called Master mode. Of course, I had to check it out.

Master mode has some significant changes. For starters, you have less health, and a smaller structure meter - pretty standard stuff, it just means you can't make as many mistakes and need to be careful about how often you block without evading. They also adjusted the enemy AI, making them more aggressive, which means they no longer wait for their "turn" to attack. If you fight a group of enemies, they're going to gang up on you. Combine that with your smaller health and structure bars, and you'll find yourself dying very quickly if you aren't careful in group battles.

Bosses also have more intricate attack patterns. A few of them can now cancel and extend their combos, making them more unpredictable instead of always following the same patterns, as they did before. They also finish their combos with random high or low attacks that you'll have to evade on reaction. Successfully avoid it, and you'll be able to punish them with a quick combo (most of the time...). This makes bosses a lot more dynamic and fun to fight against - they keep you on your toes now instead of letting you autopilot through predictable patterns. Although the difficulty balance is all over the place.

The first boss, Fajar, is easily the hardest one in the game in my opinion, at least if you're going for the true ending (or Wude end, whatever people are calling it). He's not that hard if you're just going to kill him - you can drain his health pretty quickly in a few different ways, especially by abusing the charge heavy punch. But if you want the true end, you need to break his structure and keep his health intact. So the strategy I use for his second phase in this video is pretty effective for that. Knock him down and grab a stick ASAP - this not only helps a bit with parrying, but it lets you get a small punish in after parrying his sweep. Just press the light attack when he backs away, and your combo should intercept whatever he tries to do, getting one quick hit in. I think you can follow that with a heavy attack, which he'll block, then you can back away and wait for him to come at you again. Just focus on dodging his spin kick and parry everything else, because that move is extremely dangerous.

Sean is still pretty easy. He'll interrupt his combo with a sweep pretty often, but it has a long start up, so you have plenty of time to react to it once you get used to the animation.

Kuroki is a little tricky, but I have a stable strategy for her second phase. When she comes at you, she'll attack twice, then either go for a sweep, her dropkick, or continue her regular combo. So after parrying her first two attacks, just pretty RT to backstep. This gets you away from her sweep and regular attacks, and gives you time to react to the dropkick. And that's all you really need to beat her.

Jinfeng is easy to abuse. Stay at mid range, and she'll do two attacks, then either go for a high or low. If she does the overheard, it has a lot of recovery, so you can run up to her and charge your heavy punch to start a combo. Her sweep recovers a lot faster, so I don't go for anything besides a quick running attack. Just rinse and repeat.

Yang has exploitable AI. The first phase is very simple - evade two of his attacks, and he'll stop attacking. Try hitting him, and he'll counter you with two quick swipes. You can evade those and punish him. Just do that over and over. His second phase has a little more going on, but it's similar. If you evade two of his attacks, he'll always go for a sweep. You can parry it to slowly break his structure, but I play it a little bit riskier. If he starts attacking you with the step kick, parry that and his next attack, then he'll go for one of his punishable combos. He has a few different ones, but you can react to them all with a bit of practice. When he comes at you and starts with his fist attack, I just evade twice to make him sweep and reset.

And that's Master mode in a nutshell! It's not perfect, but it's a great update that helps elevate an already excellent game by making it more intense and engaging. Give it a shot!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:27 BOSS: Sifu
6:00 Opening
9:45 The Squats
19:44 BOSS: Fajar - The Botanist
23:38 The Club
38:36 BOSS: Sean - The Fighter
42:57 The Museum
58:30 BOSS: Kuroki - The Artist
1:05:00 The Tower
1:18:54 BOSS: Jinfeng - The CEO
1:22:50 The Sanctuary
1:31:41 BOSS: Yang - The Leader
1:36:51 Ending
1:39:44 Credits
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