After the turbulent era of Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S came with a lot of more community positivity, the console is having a much better performance than its predecessor acccording to sales estimates. However, Xbox as a brand was laking a first-party Series X/S Only exclusive since 2021’s Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is over with Hi-Fi RUSH, a surprising game developed by the japanese studio Tango Gameworks that was announced and released on the same day.
As a rhythmic action game, Hi-Fi RUSH is awesome to play, because literally everything synchronizes with the beat, not just attacks from the protagonist and his allies and enemies, but also the environment, so the player can easily feel that he is inside a musical performance. For accomplishing it's combat proposal so well, it's extremely satisfaying to play this game. The gameplay feels very precise and the combos possibilities are numerous thanks to a companion system implemented by Tango where the player can make a combo by youserlf and before hitting the final beat to increase a combo by calling an ally, the player can select another ally to attack the target individually, which increses the combo counter and total damage.
As japanese developer, Tango may have been inspired by several oriental games. People who already played the Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Saga published by Bandai Namco will be familiar with the companion system even if Tango didn’t think throught about it while making it’s latest game, especially if you played Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, which has the most advanced combat. The “main character” can’t be changed in the middle of fights like on Storm 4, where you could play with Sasuke instead of Naruto for example, Naruto would change from main to support and Sasuke would have the freedom to do just as much combos as Naruto and another characters. Chai is the main character here all the time and the others are support only, which is understandable.
The game also combines very well an “anime” art style with futuristic environments and characters whose visuals are most seen in western media. Character design is especially unique for bosses, the final one can bring a lot of Tron vibes if you watched the 2010’s movie. Game customization unlocked at the endgame is totally won with in-game currency, there’s no microtransactions, something rare and extremely positive these days. No signal of bugs either, just one surprising and small bug after ending the main story.
Despite the story being simple, Hi-Fi RUSH brings important themes that are heavily discussed these days like exploitation of workers, the power of big tech companies, bad money management and it brings them in a light and funny way alongside charismatic characters. Ironically, Tango Gameworks belongs to Bethesda which is now owned by Microsoft, one of the largest big tech companies in the world. Inside the games industry it’s possible to see a lot of examples for those topics like “doing crunch”, when developers are forced to work overtime to deliver a game that needed more time to be ready. Recent examples of crunch are Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption II and The Last of Us Part II, when Naughty Dog was acused of heavy crunch working culture.
By talking about those topics, Tango delivers a message that not only makes it’s game better, but can also make the games industry a better place to work since Microsoft and Bethesda have a lot of game developers under it’s umbrella. HiFi RUSH teaches young developers the need of balance between budget and scope, while the diretor Shinji Mikami coincidentally were helping the developers of the game to improve themselves until his retirement; players can connect with NPC’s difficulties they see along the way and learn, even if it’s just a fraccion, what crunch means; executives can see it as a warning to do or keep doing good work environments.
For most consumers will probably be just one more cool game to play, but Hi-Fi RUSH will always be much more than that for those who can see beyond. Regardless, everyone involveld in games industry should play it.
As a rhythmic action game, Hi-Fi RUSH is awesome to play, because literally everything synchronizes with the beat, not just attacks from the protagonist and his allies and enemies, but also the environment, so the player can easily feel that he is inside a musical performance. For accomplishing it's combat proposal so well, it's extremely satisfaying to play this game. The gameplay feels very precise and the combos possibilities are numerous thanks to a companion system implemented by Tango where the player can make a combo by youserlf and before hitting the final beat to increase a combo by calling an ally, the player can select another ally to attack the target individually, which increses the combo counter and total damage.
As japanese developer, Tango may have been inspired by several oriental games. People who already played the Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Saga published by Bandai Namco will be familiar with the companion system even if Tango didn’t think throught about it while making it’s latest game, especially if you played Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, which has the most advanced combat. The “main character” can’t be changed in the middle of fights like on Storm 4, where you could play with Sasuke instead of Naruto for example, Naruto would change from main to support and Sasuke would have the freedom to do just as much combos as Naruto and another characters. Chai is the main character here all the time and the others are support only, which is understandable.
The game also combines very well an “anime” art style with futuristic environments and characters whose visuals are most seen in western media. Character design is especially unique for bosses, the final one can bring a lot of Tron vibes if you watched the 2010’s movie. Game customization unlocked at the endgame is totally won with in-game currency, there’s no microtransactions, something rare and extremely positive these days. No signal of bugs either, just one surprising and small bug after ending the main story.
Despite the story being simple, Hi-Fi RUSH brings important themes that are heavily discussed these days like exploitation of workers, the power of big tech companies, bad money management and it brings them in a light and funny way alongside charismatic characters. Ironically, Tango Gameworks belongs to Bethesda which is now owned by Microsoft, one of the largest big tech companies in the world. Inside the games industry it’s possible to see a lot of examples for those topics like “doing crunch”, when developers are forced to work overtime to deliver a game that needed more time to be ready. Recent examples of crunch are Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption II and The Last of Us Part II, when Naughty Dog was acused of heavy crunch working culture.
By talking about those topics, Tango delivers a message that not only makes it’s game better, but can also make the games industry a better place to work since Microsoft and Bethesda have a lot of game developers under it’s umbrella. HiFi RUSH teaches young developers the need of balance between budget and scope, while the diretor Shinji Mikami coincidentally were helping the developers of the game to improve themselves until his retirement; players can connect with NPC’s difficulties they see along the way and learn, even if it’s just a fraccion, what crunch means; executives can see it as a warning to do or keep doing good work environments.
For most consumers will probably be just one more cool game to play, but Hi-Fi RUSH will always be much more than that for those who can see beyond. Regardless, everyone involveld in games industry should play it.