It turns out that surprises can sometimes not only just be good, they can be great.

Going into the Xbox Developer Direct I wasn’t expecting much, my thoughts were more surface level on whether the showcase would be fun or really dragging, if Xbox had finally started to crack these videos.
I never suspected that during the middle section not only would a game be revealed that, whilst having a minorly annoying trailer, piqued my interest but it would be out the very same day.

HiFi Rush being a secret to me seemed wild at the time and after finishing it seems even more so.
The game feels so marketable. Possibly a strange word to describe it but one that I use in a completely positive way.

HiFi Rush is No More Heroes for a PG audience, it’s a Saturday Morning cartoon brought to life, it’s an interactive music video that doesn’t require the player to be a rhythm game master and I love all of these elements.

HiFi Rush is fun, the characters are on just the right side of clichés, the protagonist Chai for example very much feels like a teenage MCU Starlord - a dummy who loves their music but has a heart of gold, says a lot of what I would consider cringe teen comedy which in isolation (like the trailer) puts me off but within the world which constantly shows he is stupid to be light-hearted fun.

The art style reminds me of (one of my loves) Jet Set Radio or probably more appropriately Viewtiful Joe, pulled back to be slightly more palatable for some and aesthetically something I just want more of in games - bright, loud, fun -, the transitions between, in-game cutscenes, cinematics and playing are all smooth and very characterful all of which more than once gave me thought that “I’d definitely watch a cartoon of this”.


Combat is fantastic, the game teaches and layers on combos, specials, counters, dodges and all the usual things you’d expect from your character action games.
The rhythm element purely adds to this and is extra brilliant because unlike some rhythm games it never takes away by making you feel crap at the game.
Chai, the enemies, the entire world all goes to the beat. Following that beat will give you a bonus and at most points in the game missing it simply just gives you a lower score but keeps the music pumping and the game progressing.
Admittedly a person like me with no musical background, poor timing and also playing this via the cloud (more on that later) did mean that certain aspects, did feel frustrating at points but the game always just let you have another go, I could always turn the difficulty down and also if needed the game has a generous amount of accessibility options to help.

The story is potentially a weak point, with the style and the demographic that would usually be aimed at - I was never expecting something that would burrow deep and plague my thoughts for weeks.
Protag gets caught in an accident, gets powers, receives help and tries to bring down an evil megacorp. alongside some pals who have their own links and a couple of (fairly obvious) twists along the way. It’s nice, it’s a fun ride more than a deep journey and whilst you can barely call it a huge plus point for the game it certainly is not a negative in my eyes.

There are some negatives though.
One thing I haven’t mentioned outside of the rhythm is the actual music. The licensed tracks add some incredible moments of fun and excitement but for me at least a third of the original soundtrack just isn’t that good.
There are points where I was much more up on it, “Track 8” got me bopping and tapping a long a bit more but earlier stages I felt that weirdly whilst the animation of the characters and the world itself added to the flow, the beat you want to keep to, the music did not feel exaggerated enough.
This becomes more of a thing during the platforming sections where the movement of everything is smart but I feel that actually it’s been done better. Of course this is in Mario.

Maybe the game could have been made with more licensed music. I mentioned JSR earlier and I was really hoping that this game would join the pantheon of good soundtracks that happen to be in games like that.

The platforming sections are not bad, Chai’s jumping never feels quite right but the game gives you the tools and the checkpointing is extremely generous if you have a point at which you’re struggling. My issue with these segments was more the time they took up.
Average platforming keeping you away from excellent combat means that those segments can become ones that you start to resent.
The balance wasn’t quite there for me and the world isn’t diverse enough for the platforming segments to become much more interesting as the game goes on.

Maybe it’s just a case of eating your veg before you get dessert.

A couple things to finish with.
Post credits this game has more to offer and it’s very generous, I won’t list it all but you’ll want to replay levels not just for higher scores but also secrets.

The other thing is how I played this.
It seems over the past year or so I’ve been using Game Pass more and more, this brand new fantastic game is included so is “free” and also a thing that helps me - the poor lad with no modern Xbox or gaming PC - is that it’s playable via cloud gaming.
I appreciate this isn’t a solution for everyone but my older laptop can’t run this natively but my internet is good enough to stream it.
I worried that input lag and the like would cause this rhythm based game to be unplayable and as I write this after finishing the game and doing extra bits you probably realise that thankfully that is not the case.
Oddly I got stuck in a tutorial right at the start, I couldn’t do the beat hit and my work around was install it, play that bit running like crap and melting my laptop then go back to cloud.
In hindsight, it definitely worked but not sure if it was needed. I’ve since done a million of those beat hits, I’ve even done the tutorial again all via the cloud.
Was this a dip in the Internet? Was this the unreliability of having to run a program to trick Xcloud into thinking my ds4 is an Xbox pad? Is it the fact I just have no rhythm?
Honestly, it’s probably a combination of all three to varying degrees.

If there was lag throughout the game I would say it was consistent which meant that I could get used to the rhythm eventually.
The only downside I had was when you occasionally see a screen refresh, but for me they were not very often, very short and other than the mild surprise from it visually it never affected my playing of the game.

With many comparisons to make I will finish by saying that I think this game is more enjoyable than Bayonetta 2.
That doesn’t mean I think it’s better, but it’s a much smoother ride, not just in terms of difficulty but it’s presentation and how it does that.

I will happily take a sequel to this down the line and as I’ve said earlier, I’d for sure watch a show based on this game.