Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2023
Coming out of nowhere, Hi-Fi Rush was developed by Tango Works and shadow dropped on a Microsoft developers direct conference on January 25th. Launching for the Xbox Series X/S and PC the same day as the announcement. What a way to release, and with a lower price point than typical too!
Hi-Fi Rush is a beat ‘em up with a twist: its rhythm based. As such, all your melee attacks must be timed with the rhythm of the background music to maximise damage. Doing so will deal greater damage and bring attack combos to deadly finishers. It’s a neat and unusual idea for sure.
Let’s take a look and see how it plays out.
Cell shading is a graphical effect that’s been used for many years, clearly, I haven’t followed its development because Hi-Fi Rush uses it, in combination with modern visuals, in such a manner it looks exactly like a playable cartoon! The sharp resolution and responsive 60fps make it a delight to control and gaze upon. The screen is literally pouring out vibrant colours alongside the awesome soundtrack.
With music ranging from some cool inhouse tunes from Tango Works to the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Prodigy. You’re in for an audio treat which works perfectly with the rhythm-based gameplay. Throughout the spectacular looking cartoon environments there are visual clues everywhere to show the rhythm in the background music. From flashing lights, pulsating objects and flashing signs, everything beats along with the music!
The main character, called Chai, is a juvenile and sarcastic young man, who accidentally is thrown into a robot making machine that swaps his disabled arm for a robotic one and implants an iPod looking device inside his chest. Suffice to say, this makes Chai very rhythm oriented, coinciding with his personal dream of becoming a rock star.
Coming out of nowhere, Hi-Fi Rush was developed by Tango Works and shadow dropped on a Microsoft developers direct conference on January 25th. Launching for the Xbox Series X/S and PC the same day as the announcement. What a way to release, and with a lower price point than typical too!
Hi-Fi Rush is a beat ‘em up with a twist: its rhythm based. As such, all your melee attacks must be timed with the rhythm of the background music to maximise damage. Doing so will deal greater damage and bring attack combos to deadly finishers. It’s a neat and unusual idea for sure.
Let’s take a look and see how it plays out.
Cell shading is a graphical effect that’s been used for many years, clearly, I haven’t followed its development because Hi-Fi Rush uses it, in combination with modern visuals, in such a manner it looks exactly like a playable cartoon! The sharp resolution and responsive 60fps make it a delight to control and gaze upon. The screen is literally pouring out vibrant colours alongside the awesome soundtrack.
With music ranging from some cool inhouse tunes from Tango Works to the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Prodigy. You’re in for an audio treat which works perfectly with the rhythm-based gameplay. Throughout the spectacular looking cartoon environments there are visual clues everywhere to show the rhythm in the background music. From flashing lights, pulsating objects and flashing signs, everything beats along with the music!
The main character, called Chai, is a juvenile and sarcastic young man, who accidentally is thrown into a robot making machine that swaps his disabled arm for a robotic one and implants an iPod looking device inside his chest. Suffice to say, this makes Chai very rhythm oriented, coinciding with his personal dream of becoming a rock star.
His new arm has a magnetic stick that can create an electric guitar shape, another music reference, and as he searches for a way to escape from the robot factory owned by Vandelay Technologies. In his journey, he meets Peppermint, young woman with a fiery personality, who helps Chai escape to her hideout, by communicating through a robotic cat called 808, another music reference.
Peppermint and Chai decide to team up and take down the evil empire of Vandelay Technologies. It’s a crazy story for sure, with colourful characters, diverse in personalities and appearance, combined with an upbeat and funny dialogue. Every cutscene in Hi-Fi Rush feels light-hearted and positive, with lots of current day and nerdy reference jokes. A pleasant change from the many depressing stories in modern games.
Along the way, Chai meets new characters with abilities that can be sent through a portal by your companion 808 robot cat. Peppermint jumps in to shoot down enemy shields, while Macaron, a big sturdy but super friendly guy, uses his massive brute force to smash doors and enemy armour to pieces, and so on. I won’t talk about all the characters to avoid spoilers, as they're introduced alongside the story.
The combination of melee and combo fighting enemy robots, together with your friends' abilities, gradually increases how advanced you attack the enemy robots, who increasingly become harder to beat with new abilities. The soft learning curve urges the player to put a lot of variation in their attack patterns and grow their skill set. The trick is to keep a lot of movement in Chai, to dodge oncoming attacks. The fact that you must hit enemies with the rhythm in the music adds a cool element to it all, and makes it stand out from other titles in the beat ‘em up genre.
In between fights, which usually are contained within walled areas, there’s a lot of platforming. Reminding me a lot of how you traversed in Sunset Overdrive, Hi-Fi Rush reminds me a lot about that game in style and presentation too. The platforming can be viewed as filler content between fights, but I enjoyed it and it get increasingly tricky, requiring fast reflexes as you progress. Variety between fights is welcome in my eyes and the platforming was a fun way to do this.
My playthrough clocked in at about 10 to 12 hours, what I felt was a perfect length for this type of hectic gameplay. The chapter lengths have some uneven lengths midway though, and perhaps could've been segmented into shorter ones.
Although I’m not particularly good at keeping rhythm, or remembering long combos for that matter, Hi-Fi Rush does an excellent job at gradually teaching the player cool attack patterns. The enemies help force your playstyle out of comfort zones too. There’s a lot of replay value here too, with locked doors to unlock and tons of attack combos to buy. I found it challenging, but never unfair and impossible to play through in its normal difficulty.
The combination of the beautiful, anime styled, visuals, utilising impressive reflective surfaces and tons of objects moving around, with the funny character dialogue, awesome music soundtrack and super fun rhythm based gameplay, comes together as an extremely polished package!
I haven’t had such a smile, positive energy and just masses of colour thrown at my eyes in such a long time outside a Nintendo platform. Just like Sunset Overdrive, Hi-Fi Rush is such different and delightful experience to play through, I highly recommend it for everyone.
Peppermint and Chai decide to team up and take down the evil empire of Vandelay Technologies. It’s a crazy story for sure, with colourful characters, diverse in personalities and appearance, combined with an upbeat and funny dialogue. Every cutscene in Hi-Fi Rush feels light-hearted and positive, with lots of current day and nerdy reference jokes. A pleasant change from the many depressing stories in modern games.
Along the way, Chai meets new characters with abilities that can be sent through a portal by your companion 808 robot cat. Peppermint jumps in to shoot down enemy shields, while Macaron, a big sturdy but super friendly guy, uses his massive brute force to smash doors and enemy armour to pieces, and so on. I won’t talk about all the characters to avoid spoilers, as they're introduced alongside the story.
The combination of melee and combo fighting enemy robots, together with your friends' abilities, gradually increases how advanced you attack the enemy robots, who increasingly become harder to beat with new abilities. The soft learning curve urges the player to put a lot of variation in their attack patterns and grow their skill set. The trick is to keep a lot of movement in Chai, to dodge oncoming attacks. The fact that you must hit enemies with the rhythm in the music adds a cool element to it all, and makes it stand out from other titles in the beat ‘em up genre.
In between fights, which usually are contained within walled areas, there’s a lot of platforming. Reminding me a lot of how you traversed in Sunset Overdrive, Hi-Fi Rush reminds me a lot about that game in style and presentation too. The platforming can be viewed as filler content between fights, but I enjoyed it and it get increasingly tricky, requiring fast reflexes as you progress. Variety between fights is welcome in my eyes and the platforming was a fun way to do this.
My playthrough clocked in at about 10 to 12 hours, what I felt was a perfect length for this type of hectic gameplay. The chapter lengths have some uneven lengths midway though, and perhaps could've been segmented into shorter ones.
Although I’m not particularly good at keeping rhythm, or remembering long combos for that matter, Hi-Fi Rush does an excellent job at gradually teaching the player cool attack patterns. The enemies help force your playstyle out of comfort zones too. There’s a lot of replay value here too, with locked doors to unlock and tons of attack combos to buy. I found it challenging, but never unfair and impossible to play through in its normal difficulty.
The combination of the beautiful, anime styled, visuals, utilising impressive reflective surfaces and tons of objects moving around, with the funny character dialogue, awesome music soundtrack and super fun rhythm based gameplay, comes together as an extremely polished package!
I haven’t had such a smile, positive energy and just masses of colour thrown at my eyes in such a long time outside a Nintendo platform. Just like Sunset Overdrive, Hi-Fi Rush is such different and delightful experience to play through, I highly recommend it for everyone.
