Where were you when Tango Gameworks reminded everyone else how it was done?
Hi-Fi Rush is a masterpiece, and it's a shining beacon to let the world know that the dying genre it occupies still has some juice. Character action games were always niche, but they've been on life support for the better part of a decade now. Devil May Cry burst onto the scene all the way back in 2001, and its copycats were few; PlatinumGames ended up taking the mantle for themselves for a solid streak, but began fumbling hard around the time of The Legend of Korra, and were never again able to reach the heights of their earlier work. 2019's Devil May Cry 5 helped to remind the people what was up, but an entire genre of games only being able to claim one or two titles to their name every few years is a genre that's one company-going-out-of-business away from going extinct.
Enter Hi-Fi Rush.
Character action games are always described as musical in one way or another by people (like me) who push them onto an unsuspecting public who haven't yet tasted the ambrosia of their first SSS rank. You'll often hear words like "flow" or "like a dance" or "finding the rhythm" to describe the many acts of combat open to the player. Games like Bayonetta have combos that rely on intentionally delaying inputs in the string, forcing you to get a feel for the timing; Devil May Cry's famous royal guard requires the player to parry an enemy attack with near-perfect timing, usually relying on an audio cue to help them get it right.
Hi-Fi Rush takes the above concept to its logical extreme: everything in the game is based around the music. Enemies swing and shoot at the end of each measure. Your light and heavy attacks connect on every beat and every other beat, respectively. Even the shrubs and trees in the background will squash and stretch in time. You can call in partner assists to damage, stun, and knock up enemies, and this philosophy extends to them, too; Macaron — a huge, slow brawler — takes an extra measure to come off cooldown relative to your faster, more lithe allies. It doesn't take long before you start feeling the rhythm game highs of landing a combo in perfect sync with the music, unloading every tool in your kit at once, and then finishing off the enemies just in time for the song to end. It's an immensely satisfying gameplay loop, broken up a bit by platforming sections that are aggressively fine.
Chai is an exceptionally charming character, and the rest of the cast are no slouches, either. There's something about the kind of character who looks to camera and says "that just happened" that really only works if you make sure that guy is treated like the dumbest motherfucker in the room by everyone else. Chai gets away with it because he has a soul. He's a quippy loudmouth, but he never undercuts the emotions of his friends with a badly-timed riff. Every bit of development he gets is absolutely earned, and his constant, stubborn earnestness does a lot to attach you to his character. He's a stupid loser, but he's your stupid loser.
While I do have my complaints about the platforming, I don't care enough to go into them. I'm willing to pave over all of that and give the game a perfect score regardless. I want more games like this to come out. It feels like a title from the Xbox 360 days, plucked out of time and released today after twelve years of being considered lost media. This shit is Jurassic Park. I'm seeing ephemera brought back to life. It's a middle-budget AA title that was made as a passion project and dropped without any marketing. When was the last time you played something like that? Really, think about it. When was the last time? In an era so inundated with hype cycles and live service titles that rely on studios dumping a potentially-bankrupting amount of money into The One Big Game that they can milk for years after, how often do you get to see shit like this?
This is only thirty dollars? And it's on Game Pass, day one? What's your excuse for not playing it?
Hi-Fi Rush is a masterpiece, and it's a shining beacon to let the world know that the dying genre it occupies still has some juice. Character action games were always niche, but they've been on life support for the better part of a decade now. Devil May Cry burst onto the scene all the way back in 2001, and its copycats were few; PlatinumGames ended up taking the mantle for themselves for a solid streak, but began fumbling hard around the time of The Legend of Korra, and were never again able to reach the heights of their earlier work. 2019's Devil May Cry 5 helped to remind the people what was up, but an entire genre of games only being able to claim one or two titles to their name every few years is a genre that's one company-going-out-of-business away from going extinct.
Enter Hi-Fi Rush.
Character action games are always described as musical in one way or another by people (like me) who push them onto an unsuspecting public who haven't yet tasted the ambrosia of their first SSS rank. You'll often hear words like "flow" or "like a dance" or "finding the rhythm" to describe the many acts of combat open to the player. Games like Bayonetta have combos that rely on intentionally delaying inputs in the string, forcing you to get a feel for the timing; Devil May Cry's famous royal guard requires the player to parry an enemy attack with near-perfect timing, usually relying on an audio cue to help them get it right.
Hi-Fi Rush takes the above concept to its logical extreme: everything in the game is based around the music. Enemies swing and shoot at the end of each measure. Your light and heavy attacks connect on every beat and every other beat, respectively. Even the shrubs and trees in the background will squash and stretch in time. You can call in partner assists to damage, stun, and knock up enemies, and this philosophy extends to them, too; Macaron — a huge, slow brawler — takes an extra measure to come off cooldown relative to your faster, more lithe allies. It doesn't take long before you start feeling the rhythm game highs of landing a combo in perfect sync with the music, unloading every tool in your kit at once, and then finishing off the enemies just in time for the song to end. It's an immensely satisfying gameplay loop, broken up a bit by platforming sections that are aggressively fine.
Chai is an exceptionally charming character, and the rest of the cast are no slouches, either. There's something about the kind of character who looks to camera and says "that just happened" that really only works if you make sure that guy is treated like the dumbest motherfucker in the room by everyone else. Chai gets away with it because he has a soul. He's a quippy loudmouth, but he never undercuts the emotions of his friends with a badly-timed riff. Every bit of development he gets is absolutely earned, and his constant, stubborn earnestness does a lot to attach you to his character. He's a stupid loser, but he's your stupid loser.
While I do have my complaints about the platforming, I don't care enough to go into them. I'm willing to pave over all of that and give the game a perfect score regardless. I want more games like this to come out. It feels like a title from the Xbox 360 days, plucked out of time and released today after twelve years of being considered lost media. This shit is Jurassic Park. I'm seeing ephemera brought back to life. It's a middle-budget AA title that was made as a passion project and dropped without any marketing. When was the last time you played something like that? Really, think about it. When was the last time? In an era so inundated with hype cycles and live service titles that rely on studios dumping a potentially-bankrupting amount of money into The One Big Game that they can milk for years after, how often do you get to see shit like this?
This is only thirty dollars? And it's on Game Pass, day one? What's your excuse for not playing it?