Tango, what do you think you're doing. After three games of the purest, unadulterated mid you can't just drop this joyous, gen 6-ass, best action game in a decade out of nowhere.

If you go looking for it, there is stuff to complain about in Hi-Fi Rush. The mid-game isnt nearly as good as the first few or last few chapters, the combat feels like it has a relatively low skill ceiling compared to the absolute peak of the genre, I think it could have done with a few more licensed tracks, the assists are a bit clunky to use, and it feels like Tango didnt quite have the time or budget to put everything they wanted in. But I don't really care about that.

Y'know what i care about? When the game throws me through window, sticks me with a room of enemies and the world pops off to one of my favourite tracks from when I was 15. God, what the hell, it actually did that.

Hi-Fi rush's world moving to the rhythm, and the sheer enthusiasm of it all could have probably carried a game with combat of something like DMC1 or even a Ratchet and Clank, but the combat here is legitimately fantastic. I guess having Masaki Yamada - old guard from Capcom's Clover team and platinum's glory days - as lead game designer helps, but you could honestly make a case for this being his finest achievement. Not quite up to Bayonetta 1 combat, sure, but I don't feel bad about mentioning it in the same breath, which is insane for this stupid gimmick idea for an action game. I have no reservations saying its a miles better action game than DMCV, for instance.

And y'know, I even liked the characters and dumb jokes, most of the time. Yes, a lot of that is just Korsica and Macaron's accents, don't at me.

Tango has really captured lightning in a bottle here. Mad respect for Shinji Mikami and crew for fostering such a "Not 2023" concept, and also someone should help them because Director John Johanas is clearly a master manipulator to get everyone on side for this.