Aging

Aging is a central mechanic in Sifu.

Death
In Sifu, the main character starts at the age of 20. Every time you die, the Sifu Death Counter will gain one number, starting at 0. At every death, you will have two options, reviving or giving up. If you choose to revive, your counter will go up by one number, and you will revive at the same spot you died, at the cost of the durability of the Pendant. Each subsequent death will add one more number. This number escalates really quickly.

You can revive until all your coins break, each coin breaks every decade, so the main character can get until the age of 70, when the last coin breaks.

Age
At every decade you will have a trade-off; the main character will deal more damage, but will have less total health. This is the only gameplay aspect affected by aging, neither the character's running speed nor the character's punching/kicking speed will be affected.

Every time you beat a stage, your age and Death Counter are recorded. If you defeat Fajar at The Squats at the age of 25 and death counter of 2, you will start The Club with these values. If you get a game over or if you give up at any death, you can restart your gameplay at any stage you reached (In this case, The Club) with the lowest age and Death Counter you reached it (In this case, 25 and 2 respectively). The only way to lower these numbers is to replay the stage and beat the boss with a lower age and Death Counter.

Reducing Sifu Death Counter
Once you hit 70 years old in Sifu, all of your coins are broken and you will have one last life before game over. There are ways of reducing your Death Counter to help you not reach 70 years:


 * Redeeming a specific jade altar reward;
 * Defeating special enemies in the stages;
 * Beating a stage.

The altar reward is the most effective way to reduce your Death Counter, as it reduces the counter to 0 at the cost of 1,000 XP. As for the other methods, certain unique enemies and every enraged enemy (Enraged enemies are enemies that countered your takedown attempt. They have a smoking effect too) will reduce your counter by one. Every stage you beat will reduce by one as well.

Trivia

 * The max age you can achieve in Sifu is 79 years old.
 * There is no way of reducing your age.
 * The character's voice changes as you age.