Hi-Fi Rush

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Some people like surprises, but I’m not sure I’m one of them a lot of the time. Typically, a surprise tends to be like finding a spider in your bed, stepping in some cat puke…that kind of thing. That’s not to say there’s no such thing as a pleasant surprise, however. Rhythm brawler Hi-Fi Rush definitely qualities as one of the nicer surprises in recent times, appearing out of nowhere after a sudden announcement from Microsoft. And for a game from a pedigreed studio like Tango Gameworks (Ghostwire: Tokyo), that’s saying something.

Surely there’s no way it’s good, right? Surely they just sent it out to die, right? Well, no, it turns out it’s actually kind of amazing…

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Chai’s a lucky dude! He’s been selected for Project Armstrong, an initiative from the high-tech Vandelay Corporation to enhance regular humans like him and turn them into incredibly productive cyborg workers. Surely nothing can go wrong with that kind of thing, right? Like…there’s no chance that there could be a mishap in which Chai’s heart is replaced by his MP3 player, which would both give him rhythm-based superpowers and also make him hilariously obsolete compared to streaming services?

If that were to happen, he’d be considered a defect who’d be hunted down by Vandelay, and he’d have to team up with new pals like hacker Peppermint and engineer Macaron to stop the company’s evil plans. Yeah, if that happened we just might have a video game.

Let’s say that’s how things were to go, then. Hi-Fi Rush is a bizarre-yet-effective cross between a Devil May Cry-style character action game and, well, Guitar Hero. Chai’s got a guitar to smack enemies with and plenty of targets ripe for that kind of treatment, so you’ll just start button mashing and repeat until victory, right? Sure, that sort of works! Chai’s attacks, as with pretty much everything in the game, come out to the beat of the background music, so you could theoretically play this like any other 3D beat-’em-up and get somewhere.

You’ll have a lot more luck playing with a little finesse, though. By paying attention to the beat and timing your attacks so they sync up, you’ll deal more damage, cover more of an area, move faster and more. Basically everything Chai can do is better if you do it to the beat, so Hi-Fi Rush’s combat turns into a delicate balance of timed attacks, precision dodges and even blocking enemy attacks by paying attention to the soundtrack. Essentially every element of the game syncs up to the music, so if you’re able to feel the rhythm you’ll be able to take your combat skills to a new level.

It’s a bit like walking and chewing gum at first, but with a little practice you’ll be smashing away like a rockstar – so it’s good that Hi-Fi Rush continually adds in new gameplay elements as well. Chai can summon allies to assist with breaking shields and armor, for instance, and later upgrades add team-up combo attacks to your arsenal as well. The enemies have fancy tricks of their own, though, including cinematic finishing attacks where you’ll have to correctly parry an extended series of blows in order to avoid massive damage.

This game never gets particularly difficult, but there’s enough of a challenge that it feels great when you start to get into the groove and sync up your battles perfectly, to say nothing of the amazing and memorable boss battles strewn throughout the plot.

If this rock-solid and unique gameplay conceit was all we had here, Hi-Fi Rush would still be an easy recommendation. That’s not the case, though. It’s an awesome-looking game with a gorgeous anime art style and a fantastic soundtrack. The latter is a highlight, unsurprisingly, and it’s particularly great when a licensed track from a well-known artist like Nine Inch Nails kicks in at an opportune moment.

Hi-Fi Rush isn’t particularly long, running around six to eight hours depending on how quickly you adjust to its unique style of gameplay. That said, it’s an astoundingly high-quality experience that merits a look from pretty much everyone. The combination of action and rhythm mechanics works on such a fundamental level that it’s a little surprising it hasn’t been done so well before. If a randomly-dropped game announced about two hours before it became available (on Game Pass, no less) manages to blow away a sizable chunk of what was available to play in 2022, the new year’s looking pretty impressive indeed.