As someone who adores action games, music, and vibrant colourful graphics, Hi-Fi Rush feels like a game that was made for me. It feels like something straight out of the early PS3 era and I do mean that in the best way possible.
Taking a lot of cues from character action and hack-and-slash titles, Hi-Fi Rush has a familiar feeling. Light and heavy attacks that can be strung together and spaced out for different combos, a dodge, a parry, a grapple, and a whole host of special meter moves. The twist here is that EVERYTHING in the game is in-time to the music. Your attacks and the enemy's attacks all line up to land on each beat of the song and you are encouraged to time your moves just right to master each encounter. It feels incredible if you can get into the groove of it, and almost everything makes a noise which indicates if you landed on or off beat to sync up to it. The only thing that doesn't, and perhaps my only major criticism of the game is the parry. You certainly hear and feel when you land a parry perfectly, but you don't get any feedback if your timing was too early or too late (outside of getting hit), so it took me quite a way through the game until I really felt comfortable with it.
That being said, multiple playthroughs are encouraged. There are no small number of secrets hidden in the gorgeous and thoughtfully designed levels, quite a few of which demand you come back later with all your upgrades/post-playthrough. Add in the scoring system for each encounter and level, and it's easy to see why you would want to play it over and over again.
As far as the story goes, it's serviceable for what it is. The strength is in the fun characters and writing, and I was really impressed with how much I loved the main character after my initial apprehension. The game also has a killer original soundtrack and even some well chosen licensed songs for a couple of the boss fights.
Hi-Fi Rush wraps up in a perfect length of around 10 hours, but as mentioned previously there are plenty of extras to look for after completing it. I highly recommend this game, and I am shocked that one of my favourite games of the year thus far just came out of nowhere. Well done to Tango Gameworks.
Taking a lot of cues from character action and hack-and-slash titles, Hi-Fi Rush has a familiar feeling. Light and heavy attacks that can be strung together and spaced out for different combos, a dodge, a parry, a grapple, and a whole host of special meter moves. The twist here is that EVERYTHING in the game is in-time to the music. Your attacks and the enemy's attacks all line up to land on each beat of the song and you are encouraged to time your moves just right to master each encounter. It feels incredible if you can get into the groove of it, and almost everything makes a noise which indicates if you landed on or off beat to sync up to it. The only thing that doesn't, and perhaps my only major criticism of the game is the parry. You certainly hear and feel when you land a parry perfectly, but you don't get any feedback if your timing was too early or too late (outside of getting hit), so it took me quite a way through the game until I really felt comfortable with it.
That being said, multiple playthroughs are encouraged. There are no small number of secrets hidden in the gorgeous and thoughtfully designed levels, quite a few of which demand you come back later with all your upgrades/post-playthrough. Add in the scoring system for each encounter and level, and it's easy to see why you would want to play it over and over again.
As far as the story goes, it's serviceable for what it is. The strength is in the fun characters and writing, and I was really impressed with how much I loved the main character after my initial apprehension. The game also has a killer original soundtrack and even some well chosen licensed songs for a couple of the boss fights.
Hi-Fi Rush wraps up in a perfect length of around 10 hours, but as mentioned previously there are plenty of extras to look for after completing it. I highly recommend this game, and I am shocked that one of my favourite games of the year thus far just came out of nowhere. Well done to Tango Gameworks.