Developer: Tango Gameworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £26.99 (Steam, Humble and Epic)
Released: 25th January 2023
Available on: Steam, Humble and Epic
Played Using: An Xbox Series X Control Pad
Approximate game length: 12 Hours ish
It’s rare that a game gets released with essentially no pre-released marketing, especially a game that’s being published by one of the major publishers. Usually a game appearing in such a manner is a sign that the publisher has little to no confidence in the games prospects, but that isn’t the case with Hi-Fi Rush.
You play as a young man named Chai, and all Chai wants in his life is to be a rockstar, unfortunately that particular dream has been hampered by his disabled arm (guitars don’t really work for you if you only have one fully functional arm). This is where the Vandelay Corporation comes in, one of the many things they create is robotic prosthetics. They also just so happen to have an ongoing project called ‘Project Armstrong’ that gives these prosthetics away to a limited group of people that somehow Chai has gotten to be a part of. This ends up being a double edged sword for Chai as something goes wrong with the process and he is labelled a defect and defects have to be destroyed. However, this ‘defect’ is actually something of a superpower as now the whole world moves to his rhythm.
If, like me, you struggle with rhythm you can turn on an ‘assist mode’ that will show a clear visual for when the beat hits. Technically, this actually exists everywhere in the game as pretty much everything is bopping along in time with the beat, but it’s good to have a distinct visual identifier. There are further accessibility options available to allow those that struggle with timing to play, such as easier parrying, while I didn’t require the additional assistance it was nice knowing that such lengths were made to accommodate those that may struggle.
As I said previously, everything in this game moves to the rhythm be it the combat or the exploration. Each level (or track as the game calls them) in this game is made up of exploration sections and combat arenas. You’ll explore each level to complete objectives and, hopefully, find some secrets, but as you explore you’ll repeatedly enter into unavoidable combat arenas. Once you enter a combat arena you cannot leave until the combat is over.
The combat can really flow, especially once you unlock the various different attack moves you can perform. Any actions you perform in combat are improved by doing them in time to the beat, attacking does more damage, dodging makes you go further and parry’s can briefly stun an enemy. The really great thing is that attacking off of the beat won’t negate your attacks, thankfully, even I, with my terrible sense of rhythm, was able to easily find the beat (the visualiser mentioned previously was really a big help there).
All of the usual enemies you’ll face in combat are robots and when you destroy one in combat they will also sometimes drop energy drinks, as well as gears and batteries. Energy drinks restore health, batteries build up your ‘reverb’ energy and gears are the currency used to buy new moves and upgrades.
Now, I just mentioned ‘reverb’ energy. This is used to perform special attacks, which you buy using gears. As mentioned in the above paragraph you can collect batteries that enemies drop in combat (or are scattered about the level) to build it up between combats. This energy is also built up by performing attacks on the beat. However, this energy can’t be stored up indefinitely and will disappear at the end of each combat.
Just like batteries, gears and energy drinks can also be found scattered around the levels and in crates you can destroy.
Scattered throughout the game are pieces of licensed music such as Nine Inch Nails. Something I really like is that when the track appears the information about the track (the track name, artist, album etc) appears in the bottom left of the screen like in a music video. I really hope that Tango Gameworks (or Bethesda) paid for a ‘forever’ licence for the music. I’d hate for this game to be delisted in the years to come due to licensing issues like Spec Ops: The Line has become.
Once you complete the campaign some post end game content appears including challenge rooms that are hidden around the levels, an arcade cabinet with two new game modes and a further extra game mode called rhythm tower.
I love the aesthetic of this game, but then I’ve always been a sucker for the cel shaded look. It really makes this game pop, it’s all so bright and vibrant. Actually that can also be said for the cast of characters you’ll be interacting with both the villains and the heroes.
My thoughts? This game is great! I truly hope that Tango Gameworks can keep creating games of such high quality. I know that there has been some… drama regarding Microsoft firing all the staff, but thankfully they all got picked up by another company and have been able to keep the company name. I’ll be keeping my eye on what they have in store.
