I have yet to obtain the remainder of the Arena-based achievement, but I want to write this review before the Dragon Arena pisses me off too much. Sifu is a fantastic game.

I played it on Master difficulty from the get-go, and it was quite the learning experience. Learning how to utilize your combos and getting better at reacting to enemies is incredibly satisfying, and it's a good way to improve your spatial awareness and reaction time because it's far less forgiving than games like Spider-Man (where you can just hit R2 and somersault over enemies with 0 consequences). I really like the deflect/avoid system too. In general, the game gives you great control over how your character moves and handles attacks, which leads to great player agency and good challenges. The level designs are interesting, the environments are well-designed (both visually and in terms of how they contribute to the fights), and the music is pretty good (it's a nice touch but doesn't obstruct your senses). The game also has a cool story (and it doesn't use up a million cutscenes to tell it, which is great).

The rougelike elements and the upgrade system add a surprisingly deep level of strategy to the game and give the stages a lot of replay value as a side effect. This is especially true with how the game works after the massive updates it received (I'm glad I played the game post-updates. I heard that in the older versions of the game, the aging and shrine upgrades conflicted in a really bad way. Now they are saved separately from each other).
Regarding the age mechanic, whenever I first saw trailers for this game, I thought the whole aging mechanic was just gonna be some cheap gimmick, but even though it's simple in concept, it's implemented really well. Between A) how it carries between levels depending on how well you do in previous levels, B) how the rate of aging increases with each death, C) how your max health decreases but damage increases with certain age milestones, and D) how age factors into eligibility for some shrine upgrades or temporary skill tree unlocks, the aging system is actually really fleshed-out.
Regarding the shrine upgrades, they're all really useful in their own ways, and they're so well-balanced that I honestly occasionally found myself weighing pros and cons for several minutes, deciding what upgrades would be best after I replayed levels to reset my build.

Besides Story Mode, there is also an Arena mode. The Tiger Arena was pretty fun overall. The use of the modifiers/cheats and different environments was cool, mostly fun, and overall pretty clever for the most part. On the other hand, I just started playing the Dragon Arena, which is substantially more challenging. I'll probably update this review with how I feel about it after I'm done getting the rest of the achievements because ngl—it's definitely gonna get me heated (hence why I want to write this review now before I dive back in).

Update: I've finished getting the rest of the achievements in the game. The Dragon Arena wasn't even remotely as bad as people online were making it out to be. It's still well-designed and not nearly hard enough to warrant any complaints. So Sifu is still an all-around great game. Would highly recommend.

I have yet to obtain the remainder of the Arena-based achievement, but I want to write this review before the [spoiler]Dragon Arena[/spoiler] pisses me off too much. Sifu is a fantastic game. I played it on Master difficulty from the get-go, and it was quite the learning experience. Learning how to utilize your combos and getting better at reacting to enemies is incredibly satisfying, and it's a good way to improve your spatial awareness and reaction time because it's far less forgiving than games like Spider-Man (where you can just hit R2 and somersault over enemies with 0 consequences). I really like the deflect/avoid system too. In general, the game gives you great control over how your character moves and handles attacks, which leads to great player agency and good challenges. The level designs are interesting, the environments are well-designed (both visually and in terms of how they contribute to the fights), and the music is pretty good (it's a nice touch but doesn't obstruct your senses). The game also has a cool story (and it doesn't use up a million cutscenes to tell it, which is great). The rougelike elements and the upgrade system add a surprisingly deep level of strategy to the game [i]and[/i] give the stages a lot of replay value as a side effect. This is especially true with how the game works after the massive updates it received (I'm glad I played the game post-updates. I heard that in the older versions of the game, the aging and shrine upgrades conflicted in a really bad way. Now they are saved separately from each other). Regarding the age mechanic, whenever I first saw trailers for this game, I thought the whole aging mechanic was just gonna be some cheap gimmick, but even though it's simple in concept, it's implemented really well. Between A) how it carries between levels depending on how well you do in previous levels, B) how the rate of aging increases with each death, C) how your max health decreases but damage increases with certain age milestones, and D) how age factors into eligibility for some shrine upgrades or temporary skill tree unlocks, the aging system is actually really fleshed-out. Regarding the shrine upgrades, they're all really useful in their own ways, and they're so well-balanced that I honestly occasionally found myself weighing pros and cons for several minutes, deciding what upgrades would be best after I replayed levels to reset my build. Besides Story Mode, there is also an Arena mode. The Tiger Arena was pretty fun overall. The use of the modifiers/cheats and different environments was cool, [i]mostly[/i] fun, and overall pretty clever for the most part. On the other hand, I just started playing the [spoiler]Dragon Arena[/spoiler], which is substantially more challenging. I'll probably update this review with how I feel about it after I'm done getting the rest of the achievements because ngl—it's definitely gonna get me heated (hence why I want to write this review [i]now[/i] before I dive back in). Update: I've finished getting the rest of the achievements in the game. The [spoiler]Dragon Arena[/spoiler] wasn't even remotely as bad as people online were making it out to be. It's still well-designed and not nearly hard enough to warrant any complaints. So Sifu is still an all-around great game. Would highly recommend.