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Hi-Fi RUSH

This is a game I was worried I wouldn't like, and it rapidly put those worries to rest. I'm quite the fan of rhythm games but beat-'em-ups have never been of interest to me, so I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the combination of the 2, but the moment the environment around me started moving to the beat, I was into it. There's very little to the story and characters, but that didn't really bother me aside from the frequency of "Marvel quips" at times. Gameplay was fun and never got old. I will say it was rather chaotic, but I don't typically play games that look like this, so maybe it's just a matter of experience. I had a great time and have already recommended the game to friends.

Exploration

This was one of those special games where walking around from place to place was a large part of the fun. Whether it was a little parkour challenge, quick time event, rhythm minigame, or even just a neat set piece, it felt like there was never a dull moment as I traveled through the various buildings. The little side characters and signs were fun to read and interact with and didn’t appear too frequently as to shatter the flow of exploration.

My favorite example of good set building in this game has to be the clockwork in the museum, which not only moved to the beat, but also added its own instrument to the soundtrack when you were within earshot. Touches like that throughout the game really made it so that there was never a dull moment exploring the various buildings, which was a refreshing thing to see, as a lot of other games only focus on what happens at your destination and don’t concern themselves as much with the details you encounter along the way.

Movement was also fun, especially since you got positive feedback for jumping, dashing, or grappling on-beat, which I would do constantly as a result. The one thing I noticed about the controls is that they weren’t very precise, which was scarcely an issue, but very noticeable at the small handful of times a jump was a slightly awkward distance or there was a balance beam to walk across. I’d assume that was just part of the exploration and not a control issue, but those few sections just felt really out of place to me next to all the other challenges.

I always appreciate it when a game rewards an explorative player, so the various hidden bonus areas were fun for me to find, though I think I was probably slacking off on the exploration based on how much I think I missed. A lot of the bonus seemed trivial to spot but there’s also a bunch I simply never found, maybe I’ll get more of it if I revisit the old levels.

Story

The story and characters were really nothing to write home about. It really did just feel like playing a Marvel movie. This didn’t really bother me though. I appreciate a good story in a game, but a mid story can easily be compensated for with good gameplay. Nothing wrong with it, but it won’t be winning any awards.

Also, Chai is really annoying for like, most of the game. He gets a sudden wave of emotional maturity at some point in the museum and that’s more or less his whole arc. Fine by me, but it did initially rub me the wrong way when I 1st realized I did not like the player character. That said, there is a certain solidarity among morons that I felt with him.

Combat

I really wish I’d been better at combat in this game because I felt like it got more fun the better you were at it. That said, even though I wasn’t very good at combat, I still had a lot of fun with it. Hitting things to the beat and learning combos was just fun. I did end up dying a lot because I was just, God-awful at keeping track of my surroundings and gauging when I should attack vs parry. The fact that everything was synced to the rhythm did make it a lot easier for me to learn and adapt though. Nothing against the game for me being bad, I just lament not getting better.

Interestingly, I would occasionally find the encounters leading up to a boss more interesting than the boss itself. A lot of the bosses were fun, but Mimosa and Kale fell short of the mark for me. Both fights were kind of just, walk around and spam friend summons while you wait for them to become vulnerable or wait for them to attack you, then parry, then hit them 4 times before they become invulnerable again.

Especially for Kale, I was disappointed in the encounter. The cinematics were reserved for cutscenes, and the fight itself was one of the blander encounters in the whole game. It was still fun, but I had hoped he’d be whipping out some sort of yet-to-be-seen tech, putting all the things I learned throughout the game together in one fast-paced cinematic death match (the sequence at the end was neat, but like, why wasn't the whole fight a series of things like that?). Instead, I got 4 spooky tentacles to play some convoluted version of whack-a-mole with. It should’ve been a little more difficult and a lot more exciting.

Still, engaging in combat was largely fun and exciting, and it made me want to play the game more and get better at it.

Music

The games soundtrack, which I am listening to as I write this, goes hard. All bangers, very pleased that I didn’t feel like I was missing out by playing in streamer mode, even after listening to the licensed songs that were replaced.

Very well done, no notes.

Other Notes


Final Thoughts

I started this game uncertain if I would like it, and I ended up loving it. The combat is fun, the exploration is fun, everything is musical, genuinely just a good time simulator. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes games, especially rhythm games. I think that an awesome story or a better final boss would easily earn this game it's final point. Definitely a banger, I hope there's a sequel because it left me wanting MORE.

9/10

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