Miss a beat in Hi-fi Rush and Chai will attack on beat anyway. It’s probably unreasonable to expect it to punish this sort of thing in the same ways that other rhythm action hybrids like Patapon, Metal Hellsinger or Cadence of Hyrule do, because it’s so notable in part specifically for being so different from everything else, but there’s being different and then there’s being disincentivisingly handholdy. It’s a symptom of a larger problem – Hi-fi Rush seems almost afraid of allowing the player to fail.

With a scarce few exceptions like one of the final boss’ more belligerent attacks, the contrast between proper timing and mistiming in Hi-fi Rush isn’t success versus failure, it’s success versus negligibly less success. It’s true that enough mistimed attacks can detract from your final rank, but this is inconsistent with how assist attacks contribute to your score despite not requiring any timing at all (exacerbated by their charitable cooldowns), as does an offbeat jump if it ‘avoids’ an enemy’s attack that was nowhere near you anyhow, and the penalty’s so minor it’s hard to notice. Rhythm Master difficulty goes some way toward assuaging all this by giving you an immediate game over if your rhythm meter falls below C, but it’s not hugely impactful because of the aforementioned inconsistencies, while the fact that it’s only available after beating the game also makes the common action game mantra of “the first playthrough is the tutorial” feel unfortunately literal.

As another example of this, Hi-fi Rush affords the player a generous helping of attack magnetism, or whatever you prefer to call the melee equivalent of aim assist that’s particularly common in western action games. Chai’s mobility is so rigid that I imagine the designers may have felt the absence of this might’ve led to a frustrating amount of dropped combos. Even still, it’s at best unnecessary given that Chai already has an equivalent of Nero’s Snatch from DMC4 & 5, and at worst a net negative for how it diminishes positioning. It doesn’t stop Hi-fi Rush from getting better as you yourself do, like any other worthwhile action game, but being able to both feel and see the developers artificially nudging things in your favour like this does cheapen the appeal of getting to grips with what is, in the grand scheme of things, quite a cool combat system.

Apparent influences from other action games, like its equivalent of Astral Chain & Bayonetta 3’s wink attacks, lend themselves naturally to the combat’s rhythm-based formula and complement the game’s lovely presentation well. Environmental doodads bounce to the beat like in Metal Hellsinger, diegetically communicating helpful information to the player not only in terms of timing but also because enemies always attack to the beat, which ensures consistency on their part (albeit hampering their ability to surprise you). Another caveat to the combat’s strengths, though, is that there isn’t really enough of it, at least until you unlock Rhythm Tower i.e. the Bloody Palace analogue.

Most levels in Hi-fi Rush are very long by action game standards and a hefty proportion of nearly all of them consists of platforming segments. This sounds inoffensive in a vacuum, particularly for a genre in which “gimmick” seems to be a dirty word in most people’s minds, until the stiffness of Chai’s movement and the absence of a proper bossfight for two or three entire chapters in the game’s midsection make it apparent how drawn-out these sections often are. The latter feels especially deflating because the bosses that are here are of a really high standard, being diverse both visually and mechanically, with a huge amount of effort and artistry gone into even just the freezeframes in their introduction cutscenes. I’d much rather have had a couple more of them than be Letz Shaked twice in a row.

What makes it feel especially disappointing to be part of the internet’s propensity for contrarian armchair criticism, aside from the fact that Hi-fi Rush couldn’t be any more up my street conceptually, is that it isn’t a game that deserves to be ragged on like this. At the end of the day, this is a new IP in an historically niche genre that’s feature-complete out of the box, bereft of tonal carcinogens like irony or cynicism, stuffed with substantial post-game unlocks and has Korsica in it. It’s just also one which is eclipsed several times over in depth, variety, pacing and general well-consideredness by any number of other action games both modern and from the period it’s a love letter to, which don’t tend to lack for sincerity, charm or bonus content in the first place.

Is it funny, deserving of success and easy to recommend to anyone interested in action games despite this? Yup. Is it the best action game ever, as suggested by its average rating here (at the time of writing) and elsewhere? That's kind of wild. I’m potentially open to the idea that Hi-fi Rush is in the top seven or so best games that Masaaki Yamada has worked on.

More firmly, I’m genuinely delighted that Tango’s thrown its hat into the action game ring and that doing so’s rewarded its clearly, transparently talented staff with their most unambiguous success so far. I’d love even more to be able to speak of them in the same vein as Capcom or Platinum or Team Ninja who, barring one or two semi-recent and enormously overemphasised missteps apiece, have long comprised a reliable triumvirate of quality action experiences which light up my frontal lobe in a way few other developers can. How often I found myself smiling during Hi-fi Rush’s cutscenes and character interactions versus actually playing the game means that I can’t yet, but it’s still promising enough to be indicative of their potential to someday join them on stage as one of the action genre’s rockstars.

I was pondering what game to write about for my 100th review on this website, and it recently occurred to me that I haven't discussed this title yet. Feels like a good time.

Lets open with this: I have never, in all the games I have played, felt anything like the way I did with this one: it strings you along thinking the entire game is utter nonsense: the tone is all over the place, it has almost no cohesion or flow. The dialogue is hard to follow. It feels like a parody at times.

Then you get to the ending. Those final few hours. After you're 95% done with the game. And it explains EVERYTHING. You realize every singular moment that didn't make sense was all building to the last few moments. And what's even more, the actual explanation you're given is impactful and heavy.


This is a special game. One that took a really special kind of craft to make. And it's a game that rewards patience more than others. You have to be willing to put up with all the tedious moments. The bugs, the jank, the poor performance.

Because on a technical level it is a rough game, even with this version being one of the better ones. But in this one instance it dosent matter. The story and characters are what keep you playing.

We really need to do emphasize characters. York is so zany, so wacky, so out there that you can't help but like how quirky and odd he is. He's probably one of my favorite gaming characters next to Travis Touchdown.

But the other characters are great too. Thomas, George, Emily, and the other odd ball residents. It's a very lived in kind of game and setting. And this feeling is magnified with the schedule system. You can follow characters on their daily routine around the map and the conversations can differ depending on where you are. It is not polished or done well at all, but the concept still works anyways. It's a detail that most games wouldn't bother with

And that's the key: attention to detail. If you stop and observe everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, and you're really paying attention, the story and the twists it take are actually in front of you the entire time. It's hard to believe but the game is subtle: it dosent draw attention to any of it and just leaves it to the player to see if they can spot it early.

Let's discuss it as a game briefly because the actual mechanics are pretty surface level: you run around, you pick things up, you shoot. Etc. it's a very basic game in terms of combat. But it's serviceable and it keeps your attention.

Normally a game like this should be scored lower, like a 2.5 or a 3. But the experience is unlike any other. It transcends any issues it has.

It's been burned in my mind for the past 4 years since I've played it and it's not going away anytime soon.

Skullgirls is a fairly endearing if a bit risque fighting game that served to set the example that more than one FG can use rollback netcode to immense success, while oozing pure style and fluidity. It was also one of the earlier examples of an actually good in-game tutorial and walkthrough, making it by far one of the best on-boarders to the genre short of getting a veteran to coach you personally.

The music is lovely and the stage selection while literally just a flat line in physicality offers a lot of nice variety in tone and mood, preventing sessions from feeling stale so much; not to mention the countless character-on-character specific battle intro/outros, you can tell so much care went into this despite what's apparently pretty awful working environ- wait, I'm getting something...

Oh noeys my broskis, sisterinos and they/themmings, they're removing content from a game I haven't booted up in 6 years!

W-what content? U-um, yknow, stuff like uh..

sexual comments involving minors, allegorical nazi imagery, a few pantyshots, the announcer voiced by the creepy ass ex-CEO(/director?)..

This level of censorship is proof western civilization can only dream of creating masterworks such as Bakemonogatari.

Just remember to fight that good fight and not buy Skullgirls for the third time, /a/lrighty?


lmfao get real. Favorite piece from the OST.