Hi-Fi Rush

[Neon Ignition]

Fired this up last night and as is commonly the case with others my first play went through the first full level and boss. I saw someone had edited the cover art on Era to mock it up as the cover of a Dreamcast or original Xbox release and that is very much how this game feels.

I'll throw it out there early that I'm just gonna say it - I don't rate Tango Gameworks typically. I know it has its defenders but Evil Within was a jankfest poor recreation of the Resi formula whilst its sequel steered toward simply being forgettable, meanwhile last years Ghostwire teetered after the first hours toward Ghostdire being a 15 minute gameplay loop repeated ad nauseum so of the studios waiting to deliver the goods for MS, they haven't been one I've been watching out for.

Hi-Fi Rush feels like it fits right within their playbook but in a much better way. The gameplay is simplistic and slightly clunky, the hits are rhythm based but not remotely in a way that excludes simple button mashing whilst the platforming is stiff but not difficult. There's really nothing great here behind the excellent looking (if inconsistent) art style.

But - this is also exactly the kind of thing Game Pass and Xbox needs. It rails against the tone and style of game MS often puts out. AA tier games, god I miss them, and they're also simpler and cheaper to produce and exactly what MS needs to dial up the frequency of content. I've seen this game listed on Epic store and it's wisely been priced at around £27 which frames the game differently than if it was another £55 pitched offering. It's very hard to look at Hi-Fi Rush and pull out something to specifically praise but whilst playing it so far I feel like it is already set to easily be TG's best game to date and be a fun, schlocky ride the same way games like Lollipop Chainsaw were back in the day.

[fuse]

I was originally looking jealously through the window of Game Pass HQ, making puppy dog eyes at it until I realised it was also released on Steam and that I could play it on the Deck. Although I've managed to play even less of it than NI has, I'm also well on board for it.

It's colourful, light-hearted, and fun brawling action that does not take itself very seriously at all and is generally quite a gorgeous, joyous thing. For anyone in the same boat as myself, it also runs great on the deck!

I might have some complicated feelings on a game of this quality being "stealth dropped" to push gaming's Netflix, but for now I'm just keen to play more.

[Lebowski]

i thought this was bloody brilliant, fantastic art style, great combo potential with a really nice score based ranking system. It’s had me tapping along to it. That first boss with the NiN track got me super hyped up, it wasn’t a push over either you had to dodge and move and counter him to make sure he didn’t burn your health bar down super quickly, and the way he fights to the beat and compliments the track worked perfectly for me.

pure sunshine gaming i love the way the level moves to the beat and i found myself enjoying just moving about and fighting the enemy’s more so thanks to the beat based gameplay. if i had one criticism it would be, that maybe they could of skipped some the tutorial bits as they kind of repeat them selves a bit, it did seem to settle down after the first 15 minutes and just let you enjoy the game thankfully.

[Tobal]

Beaten Rekka the first of the exec's, alot of fun, turned upthe bass right up on the sound system . Mostly clearing levels with B's and A's.

Reminds me alot of the Dreamcast heyday and early/mid years of the experiential PS2 stuff, loving it.

[fishbowlhead]

This is good, its a classic 7/10 PS2 game in all the good ways, if that makes sense, its simple, fun, great graphics and art and the gameplay is serviceable.

Good job Tango.

[charlesr]

This is P.N.03
Blatant

[eastyy]

Game is great , actually reminded me of the DMC remake in some elements though a lot more fun and when they show the parrying one of my earlier irks are gone

And the non licensed Original soundtrack is definitely my jam shame its not available to listen to

[kryss]

Game is great , actually reminded me of the DMC remake in some elements though a lot more fun and when they show the parrying one of my earlier irks are gone

And the non licensed Original soundtrack is definitely my jam shame its not available to listen to

Can't you switch to Streamer mode for that?

[eastyy]

Meant way to listen to music outside of the game can find playlists for the licensed stuff but nothing for the original stuff,

[charlesr]

This is literally pn03. Jumping over the lazers, timing the dodges. Just less gratuitous ass

[dataDave]

Less ass is never a good thing, it doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is.

[eastyy]

This is P.N.03
Blatant

Didn't Shinji Mikami do both games ? lol

[charlesr]

Oh right!

[Lebowski]

I played pn03 recently, as i just got back into the game-cube and its surprisingly not an expensive game to pick up, where this differs is it has an actually functioning camera controls pno3 suffers from that early 3d issues of "we didn't quite know how to do 3d cameras", it also feels very stilted as if you remember you cant attack and move at the same time.

Did the second boss fight on hifi rush last night and got the secondary attack as well as the ability to grab onto enemy's and the combat just gets better and better when you start getting up into the the S rank and the crowds start cheering and the music rises it feels amazing. I quite like how they have timed a lot of the puzzle and jumping bits too the beat too as it feels pretty nice dashing and jumping to the beat. The platforming could be a bit nippyer though, it took me a bit to get used to the fact that he seems to lack decent forward momentum.

[eastyy]

Loving the game so far, more mechanics come in like team based attacks, and some cool combos can be bought as well, and when you work in assist attacks that can come in at any times it makes for some amazing stuff, the only minor gripes i have so far is sometimes the jumping can feel weird, camera can sometimes get in the way and I feel that some of the memorizing rhythm based bits go on for a bit to long