Miss a beat in Hi-fi Rush and Chai will attack on beat anyway. It’s probably unreasonable to expect it to punish this sort of thing in the same ways that other rhythm action hybrids like Patapon, Metal Hellsinger or Cadence of Hyrule do, because it’s so notable in part specifically for being so different from everything else, but there’s being different and then there’s being disincentivisingly handholdy. It’s a symptom of a larger problem – Hi-fi Rush seems almost afraid of allowing the player to fail.
With a scarce few exceptions like one of the final boss’ more belligerent attacks, the contrast between proper timing and mistiming in Hi-fi Rush isn’t success versus failure, it’s success versus negligibly less success. It’s true that enough mistimed attacks can detract from your final rank, but this is inconsistent with how assist attacks contribute to your score despite not requiring any timing at all (exacerbated by their charitable cooldowns), as does an offbeat jump if it ‘avoids’ an enemy’s attack that was nowhere near you anyhow, and the penalty’s so minor it’s hard to notice. Rhythm Master difficulty goes some way toward assuaging all this by giving you an immediate game over if your rhythm meter falls below C, but it’s not hugely impactful because of the aforementioned inconsistencies, while the fact that it’s only available after beating the game also makes the common action game mantra of “the first playthrough is the tutorial” feel unfortunately literal.
As another example of this, Hi-fi Rush affords the player a generous helping of attack magnetism, or whatever you prefer to call the melee equivalent of aim assist that’s particularly common in western action games. Chai’s mobility is so rigid that I imagine the designers may have felt the absence of this might’ve led to a frustrating amount of dropped combos. Even still, it’s at best unnecessary given that Chai already has an equivalent of Nero’s Snatch from DMC4 & 5, and at worst a net negative for how it diminishes positioning. It doesn’t stop Hi-fi Rush from getting better as you yourself do, like any other worthwhile action game, but being able to both feel and see the developers artificially nudging things in your favour like this does cheapen the appeal of getting to grips with what is, in the grand scheme of things, quite a cool combat system.
Apparent influences from other action games, like its equivalent of Astral Chain & Bayonetta 3’s wink attacks, lend themselves naturally to the combat’s rhythm-based formula and complement the game’s lovely presentation well. Environmental doodads bounce to the beat like in Metal Hellsinger, diegetically communicating helpful information to the player not only in terms of timing but also because enemies always attack to the beat, which ensures consistency on their part (albeit hampering their ability to surprise you). Another caveat to the combat’s strengths, though, is that there isn’t really enough of it, at least until you unlock Rhythm Tower i.e. the Bloody Palace analogue.
Most levels in Hi-fi Rush are very long by action game standards and a hefty proportion of nearly all of them consists of platforming segments. This sounds inoffensive in a vacuum, particularly for a genre in which “gimmick” seems to be a dirty word in most people’s minds, until the stiffness of Chai’s movement and the absence of a proper bossfight for two or three entire chapters in the game’s midsection make it apparent how drawn-out these sections often are. The latter feels especially deflating because the bosses that are here are of a really high standard, being diverse both visually and mechanically, with a huge amount of effort and artistry gone into even just the freezeframes in their introduction cutscenes. I’d much rather have had a couple more of them than be Letz Shaked twice in a row.
What makes it feel especially disappointing to be part of the internet’s propensity for contrarian armchair criticism, aside from the fact that Hi-fi Rush couldn’t be any more up my street conceptually, is that it isn’t a game that deserves to be ragged on like this. At the end of the day, this is a new IP in an historically niche genre that’s feature-complete out of the box, bereft of tonal carcinogens like irony or cynicism, stuffed with substantial post-game unlocks and has Korsica in it. It’s just also one which is eclipsed several times over in depth, variety, pacing and general well-consideredness by any number of other action games both modern and from the period it’s a love letter to, which don’t tend to lack for sincerity, charm or bonus content in the first place.
Is it funny, deserving of success and easy to recommend to anyone interested in action games despite this? Yup. Is it the best action game ever, as suggested by its average rating here (at the time of writing) and elsewhere? That's kind of wild. I’m potentially open to the idea that Hi-fi Rush is in the top seven or so best games that Masaaki Yamada has worked on.
More firmly, I’m genuinely delighted that Tango’s thrown its hat into the action game ring and that doing so’s rewarded its clearly, transparently talented staff with their most unambiguous success so far. I’d love even more to be able to speak of them in the same vein as Capcom or Platinum or Team Ninja who, barring one or two semi-recent and enormously overemphasised missteps apiece, have long comprised a reliable triumvirate of quality action experiences which light up my frontal lobe in a way few other developers can. How often I found myself smiling during Hi-fi Rush’s cutscenes and character interactions versus actually playing the game means that I can’t yet, but it’s still promising enough to be indicative of their potential to someday join them on stage as one of the action genre’s rockstars.
With a scarce few exceptions like one of the final boss’ more belligerent attacks, the contrast between proper timing and mistiming in Hi-fi Rush isn’t success versus failure, it’s success versus negligibly less success. It’s true that enough mistimed attacks can detract from your final rank, but this is inconsistent with how assist attacks contribute to your score despite not requiring any timing at all (exacerbated by their charitable cooldowns), as does an offbeat jump if it ‘avoids’ an enemy’s attack that was nowhere near you anyhow, and the penalty’s so minor it’s hard to notice. Rhythm Master difficulty goes some way toward assuaging all this by giving you an immediate game over if your rhythm meter falls below C, but it’s not hugely impactful because of the aforementioned inconsistencies, while the fact that it’s only available after beating the game also makes the common action game mantra of “the first playthrough is the tutorial” feel unfortunately literal.
As another example of this, Hi-fi Rush affords the player a generous helping of attack magnetism, or whatever you prefer to call the melee equivalent of aim assist that’s particularly common in western action games. Chai’s mobility is so rigid that I imagine the designers may have felt the absence of this might’ve led to a frustrating amount of dropped combos. Even still, it’s at best unnecessary given that Chai already has an equivalent of Nero’s Snatch from DMC4 & 5, and at worst a net negative for how it diminishes positioning. It doesn’t stop Hi-fi Rush from getting better as you yourself do, like any other worthwhile action game, but being able to both feel and see the developers artificially nudging things in your favour like this does cheapen the appeal of getting to grips with what is, in the grand scheme of things, quite a cool combat system.
Apparent influences from other action games, like its equivalent of Astral Chain & Bayonetta 3’s wink attacks, lend themselves naturally to the combat’s rhythm-based formula and complement the game’s lovely presentation well. Environmental doodads bounce to the beat like in Metal Hellsinger, diegetically communicating helpful information to the player not only in terms of timing but also because enemies always attack to the beat, which ensures consistency on their part (albeit hampering their ability to surprise you). Another caveat to the combat’s strengths, though, is that there isn’t really enough of it, at least until you unlock Rhythm Tower i.e. the Bloody Palace analogue.
Most levels in Hi-fi Rush are very long by action game standards and a hefty proportion of nearly all of them consists of platforming segments. This sounds inoffensive in a vacuum, particularly for a genre in which “gimmick” seems to be a dirty word in most people’s minds, until the stiffness of Chai’s movement and the absence of a proper bossfight for two or three entire chapters in the game’s midsection make it apparent how drawn-out these sections often are. The latter feels especially deflating because the bosses that are here are of a really high standard, being diverse both visually and mechanically, with a huge amount of effort and artistry gone into even just the freezeframes in their introduction cutscenes. I’d much rather have had a couple more of them than be Letz Shaked twice in a row.
What makes it feel especially disappointing to be part of the internet’s propensity for contrarian armchair criticism, aside from the fact that Hi-fi Rush couldn’t be any more up my street conceptually, is that it isn’t a game that deserves to be ragged on like this. At the end of the day, this is a new IP in an historically niche genre that’s feature-complete out of the box, bereft of tonal carcinogens like irony or cynicism, stuffed with substantial post-game unlocks and has Korsica in it. It’s just also one which is eclipsed several times over in depth, variety, pacing and general well-consideredness by any number of other action games both modern and from the period it’s a love letter to, which don’t tend to lack for sincerity, charm or bonus content in the first place.
Is it funny, deserving of success and easy to recommend to anyone interested in action games despite this? Yup. Is it the best action game ever, as suggested by its average rating here (at the time of writing) and elsewhere? That's kind of wild. I’m potentially open to the idea that Hi-fi Rush is in the top seven or so best games that Masaaki Yamada has worked on.
More firmly, I’m genuinely delighted that Tango’s thrown its hat into the action game ring and that doing so’s rewarded its clearly, transparently talented staff with their most unambiguous success so far. I’d love even more to be able to speak of them in the same vein as Capcom or Platinum or Team Ninja who, barring one or two semi-recent and enormously overemphasised missteps apiece, have long comprised a reliable triumvirate of quality action experiences which light up my frontal lobe in a way few other developers can. How often I found myself smiling during Hi-fi Rush’s cutscenes and character interactions versus actually playing the game means that I can’t yet, but it’s still promising enough to be indicative of their potential to someday join them on stage as one of the action genre’s rockstars.
Reviewed on Feb 26, 2023
2 Comments
Appreciate it, thanks for reading 👍
Ess
1 year ago