4/5 ★ – nickmazz15's review of Hi-Fi RUSH.

HI-FI RUSH REVIEW - Yeah this game was a lot of fun. Takes a little bit to reach it peak but once all the ingredients are hitting at once this is a blast. Firstly the whole vibe of this game is electric. The artstyle is awesome. Colorful cellshade with cybernaric aesthetic. It feels like you’re playing through an animated series. The soundtrack and sound design are both phenomenal. I’ve had the instrumentals and sound effects ringing in my head throughout the week. Hi-Fi Rush is all about the music and rhythm. You and the enemies move and attack at the beat of the music. It takes a bit to get used but once you get into the flow and lock in with different combos, companion stun attacks and special attacks the combat is awesome. Boss fights are all unique and challenging in their own right. The last three especially are some of the best I’ve played recently. Only thing I wish was tweeked more was parrying. There’s so much audio and visual information hitting you at once that I found myself just moving and dodging across the battlefield more. Parrying didn’t come naturally. I had to go out of my way to do it cause the enemy signal for parrying isn’t as striking as it should be. Platforming at first wasn’t doing it for me. Mainly cause the jumping isn’t great. When you jump you come down very fast and far steeper than you’d expect. I got used to it and in the latter half when the level design got more vertical and started utilizing grappling more the platforming became better. There’s these side scrolling sections that I found totally pointless. They felt totally transitory and just there for the sake of being a throwback. Exploration is rewarding but much of it feels restraint for when you replay the levels in the post game which isn’t bad. I’ll likely run through this game again. Lots of arcade style modes once you finish the story so there’s lots to come back to even after you finish the story. As far as the narrative goes, its solid but felt like there were obvious missed opportunities. I liked the whole cast of characters. The protagonist you play as, Chai, was a little annoying and too dumb for me at first but as the story progressed and his chaos became controlled I got on board with him more. The crew Chai builds a team with are fun and have great chemistry. The schemer Peppermint, the softy Macaron and my Scottish queen Korsica. The villains are all also super colorful and scene chewing. The corporate workplace and consumerism satire elements are funny and well integrated. I was just surprised how with the main cast being called defects because of their subpar robotic prostetics this game didn’t dive into that more character wise. There’s a story right there for each character but other than Peppermint the story doesn’t explore that at all. I suppose the point may be it doesn’t matter why the characters have robotic enhancements cause there’s more to people than their disabilities but I cant say the writing had anything more compelling for its characters instead. But you like the characters and where this adventure takes them anyway so its fine. Just felt lime there was more to mine here. Overall I had a blast with Hi-Fi Rush and its such a crime that Microsoft shut down Tango GameWorks. I don’t know how you have a great mid-level game like this served up for you on a silver platter and punish the people who made it happen and could’ve expanded upon it in the future. I’d like to see this series continuing in whatever form but it’d be bittersweet no matter what. Still recommend you play this cause its well worth your time.