Hi-Fi Rush: A Stylish Rhythm Beat ‘Em Up

Last week Xbox held a games showcase event designed to provide updates about a number of titles that are coming in the near future. During this event, they announced and released Hi-Fi Rush, a previously unannounced game from Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda (now a subsidiary and first party publisher for Microsoft). This game caught most players off guard and captured people’s attention as it is a solid 10 hour experience with a fun art style and rewarding controls.

Hi-Fi Rush follows Chai (voiced by Robbie Daymond who has done a ton of voice work but is probably best known for voicing Spider-Man in the 2017 Disney XD series and Jesse in season two of Infinity Train), a self-proclaimed future rock star, who volunteers for cybernetic enhancement at Vandelay Technologies. During the process, his MP3 player gets grafted into the power source for his new robotic arm causing him to synchronize with music and feel a connection to the environment. Because of this error, Vandelay declares him a defect and seeks to destroy him before he can escape. Chai teams up with a robotic cat named 808 and a hacker named Peppermint among others to try and escape the facility and expose Vandelay’s evil future plans.

The game plays kind of like Devil May Cry in so much as the action and combat elements are not just rated by the ability to defeat the enemies and bosses but based on the style and ability to keep the player’s actions in sync with the music. It is an interesting combination of rhythm game that one would expect from Theatrhythm Final Fantasy with the action of a somewhat deep fighting game. The times the game works best is when the action flows nicely, however enemy variety is somewhat limited so it can get repetitive when it boiled down to different combinations of the same robots over and over. The soundtrack is also a benefit to the game, however considering the size of the release the soundtrack is a little shallow and maybe a sequel could have a wider selection. That’s not to say that the soundtrack is bad, it just needs more musical options.

The art is another place where the game really shines. It takes the cel shading art style and brings it to a 3D environment in a unique way where it feels like a 3D comic book. This visual style hasn’t been seen with this level of fidelity (in a video game) since Viewtiful Joe 2 in 2004 or Ultimate Spider-Man in 2005. This speaks a lot to the way games are moving as a visual medium where the ability to go highly-stylized is more impressive than the ability to create visuals that look realistic since realistic-looking games are a dime a dozen and are often not great (see Forespoken last week).

All that said, the game is not perfect. Some of the platforming elements can be frustrating, especially as they get repetitive later in the game. There is a certain lack of clarity regarding secret areas in the game that can come off as a shallow attempt to push the player to spend more time in the game, however modern games tend to just use things like achievements to illustrate these rather than the intrigue of a fire-blocked door. That said, considering the game is relatively short (a player can get through the entire story within 20 hours), it is not the worst thing in the world.

At the end of the day, Hi-Fi Rush does nail what one would want from a smaller release out of a major studio. Its beautiful art style sets it apart from the competition and the gameplay loop is rewarding, even if it can be a bit repetitive. If someone has Xbox Game Pass or PC Game Pass, it is included in their subscription so experiencing this game does not come at tremendous cost to the consumer and, even if they want to pay out of pocket for the game, $30 is not an exorbitant price for a new release game.

Final Rating: 8/10