This electrifying feeling feeds into the wider world as you race through Hi-Fi Rush's thumping linear levels. Hi-Fi Rush’s rhythmic gimmick on its own is absolutely absorbing - landing a string of successful hits in time with the beat and building to a big climactic attack gives an immediate rush of confidence and satisfaction, a high that’s just demanding to be chased again and again because it’s so damn pleasing and not impossibly unobtainable. This constant attention to rhythm creates an incredible energy, picking you up by the scruff of the neck and demanding your attention for eight or so hours. The challenge is to strike and dodge in time with the music, to create a smooth flow to combat and make you feel like you’re a god of the dance. The action part of Hi-Fi Rush is a free-flowing brawler, where Chai smacks robotic enemies with a metal guitar, all while dodging and ducking through hordes of outstretched robot weapons. This beat wants to be synonymous with your own actions, too. We too see these rhythmic motions, as Hi-Fi Rush's soda pop-infused world moves to this steady pulse - platforms move in time with the music, lights flash in pleasing rhythmic patterns, and enemies attack to the beat of the drum. Protagonist Chai has undergone a risky medical procedure and emerged from the other side with a robot arm and an iPod accidentally implanted in his chest meaning his every waking moment is punctuated by a catchy beat. Hi-Fi Rush is an action-adventure game with a mechanical core fuelled by musical beats. Developer Tango Gameworks shadow-dropped the rhythm-action game out of nowhere shortly after an Xbox presentation, jettisoning The Evil Within’s murky mental hospitals and Ghostwire: Tokyo's supernatural shinanigans for something markedly different: bright pulsating neon colours and a gang of loveable anime ruffians, where every whack and dodge is underscored by a beat. Hi-Fi Rush falls into the latter category. Other times I just want to write that a game is really bloody good, actually, and I like it lots. I might smugly write something like “it elevates the genre” while sipping wine and eating cheese, musing on how a game pushes the media forward as an art form. Sometimes I want to describe games in the most high-brow way possible.
Hi-Fi Rush is only let down by its writing and character development, or lack thereof. The fact that these are my only complaints (and that they're all related to scoring) is more an indication of how pitch perfect the rest of the game is than anything else, but I wouldn't want this to be another Bayo 1 situation where its annoying antics undermine the fun of a doing another playthrough every single time.A brilliant combination of rhythmic motions and a deep action-packed battle system make for a compelling adventure. I'm also finding that the lack of lock-on is making crowd-control more akward than it needs to be at times, with the directional parry feeling especially off. Having a great rank downgraded because the game suddenly throws you off with environemental damages that briefly become insta-death is just lame, on the other hand (it's at least not a blink-of-an-eye QTE I guess, so there's that), and refusing to let you restart the level makes it feel pretty cheap. The Samurai mini-boss that seems to reset the entire fight if you don't do a perfect multi-parry (?) is annoying but I'm sure it willl make more sense with a couple more tries. As good as the game is, it's starting to throw some moves that remind me of Bayonetta for the wrong reasons.
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