I’ve been listening a lot lately to The Joy Formidable, the Welsh band’s 2008 hit Whirring. Before the band takes over, frontwoman Rhiannon Bryan sings, “Open up my words, I can feel they’re not enough,” as the guitar escalates to an ecstatic peak. The song is perhaps about the inability to express emotion in words, and the music takes over all the feeling in a nearly seven-minute long crescendo. That’s how I feel about Hi-Fi Rush, because it’s hard for me to put into words how much I enjoy it.
Whirring is one of the few licensed tracks used in the game, accompanying the late game’s climactic level. Without spoiling too much, this is the kind of level where you’re up close to the bad boss, all your friends are with you, and the music hits just the right level of delight. It’s a testament to the power of empowering music, whether it’s Linda Ronstadt’s mournful song in a post-apocalyptic world or a young hero banging a robot with a metal guitar.
Hi-Fi Rush thrives in these moments. Everything hisses and thumps over time, enemies blare, and beats dance at your fingertips.
Tango Gameworks had been teasing Hi-Fi Rush as a total surprise until it was announced at last week’s Xbox Developer_Direct. One look at the trailer was enough to make me run to the console and play it immediately–I’m a sucker for music games. Hi-Fi Rush’s visuals may remind many of Sunset Overdrive, but the game is actually a silly cartoon Devil May Cry with music to answer the question: What if Iron Man’s heart was an iPod? How about it?
This isn’t the first time pacing has been applied to gameplay, but it still comes with risks. In practice, tempo additions can sometimes be too structured and tie you down, or too loose to be impactful.
Hi-Fi Rush shines. Players can move and jump freely, but every step is timed, as is every attack, dodge, and parry. Where other role-action games have a certain rhythm to combat, Hi-Fi Rush makes it explicit. Light attacks take one beat, heavy attacks take two, and while the pause between attacks becomes a firing combo, the beat rewards right timing and powerful strikes. Then there are special attacks that add to the reverb meter: hit, hit, slap, and then into a dive guitar whip that feels really good. Gameplay becomes music; attacks become gibberish and parrots; combinations are phrases.
So I sit in front of the TV. Toes twitch. Head bobbing. Frowning. Eyes and ears focus. Shoulders shrugged. Thumb tap to pause. There is no other way to play.
In addition to its relentless rhythm, Hi-Fi Rush’s accessibility is also excellent. Bonus points and damage are awarded when the button is tapped exactly on the beat, but even if the player is slightly off, the animation still happens rhythmically. Its immediacy is satisfying, but the levels gradually add new moves to an ensemble that’s hard to master. Additional options include an on-screen metronome, color blindness indicator and customization of your pulsating cat companion.
All of this comes with enthusiastic feedback. Every action is accompanied by guitar strumming, cheering, clapping or shouting. It was like I was improvising on the soundtrack, with cartoony bangs and explosions and explosions that made me laugh non-stop. Get it right, and bright, perfect notes appear in the score.
I did find the later bosses a bit frustrating. Rather than learning attack patterns, bosses need to call and respond to rhythmic patterns for perfect parries, testing memory and syncopation. Later in the level, I found myself surrounded by enemies, the screen was full of lights, and I couldn’t hit the bash button, and I was overwhelmed. That’s where those nods get when I tap tap tap…
But when it all plays out to the music, it feels great. I’ve never felt so powerful in an action game like Music Man. Once the rhythm of attacking, parrying, and dodging was in place, I was able to not only effectively kick butt, but also pre-emptively hit enemies and think ahead of the bar line. Listen carefully and you can feel from the music what is going to happen next. The rhythmic structure only enhances the inherent musicality of the battles, taking typical gameplay to a whole new level. I felt like I wasn’t just in control of a character beating up bad guys, but that I was absorbed into the music.
That’s why the Joy Formidable moment is so high for me. But other licensed tracks from Nine Inch Nails, The Black Keys, and The Prodigy have similar beats, often used during boss fights. Appropriately interesting choices, too: wrestling with Wolfgang Gartner’s remix of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is fun, but also easy to read. The original track has a similar vibe, with a punchy, clear beat to battle through, plus enough catchy guitar licks to add character, and not repeat itself over the course of a single level. But what really makes Hi-Fi Rush sing is the anarchic mix of high-octane rock and slickly controlled combat chaos.
These licensed tracks are all from the ’00s; coupled with the stunning halftone visuals, the whole experience is, for me, full of nostalgia. Bittersweet, wistful rock melodies are accompanied by high-energy action, mean dialogue, and corny cool, delivered through comic book graphics so vivid and detailed you can almost smell the ink drying. More than anything, Hi-Fi Rush reminded me of GameCube’s Viewtiful Joe — a game exec’d by Tango head Shinji Mikami — for its similarly cheeky and (then) dizzying aesthetic. Others may point to Director Mikami’s Rhythm Fight PN03.
I’m not too interested in the plot because it relies on some clichés. It’s a corporate satire where protagonist and wannabe rock star Chai overthrows the deranged leader of an evil tech giant who struggles with budgets, creative research, malfunctioning coffee machines, and a culture of austerity (eyeballing the camera sideways) struggling. Chai is a bubbly, bold young man with a robotic arm, a guitar made from scrap metal and a music player fused to his chest: a sweet chap, but his mischief really goes awry at the end. Gotta be a little tiresome. His new friends are a straight but brave bunch: the sly and rebellious Mint, the gentle giant Macaron and, of course, the adorable 808 the Doraemon.
However, this goofy plot isn’t meant to be taken seriously, as it’s filled with cheesy dialogue and slapstick comedy. It’s there to set up the next level of mayhem, with each level throwing in jump pads and magnetic tracks and light puzzles using companion abilities. It’s definitely exciting, but it’s also a sincere and unapologetic video game.
That’s definitely a compliment. Hi-Fi Rush may have the clean visuals and power of the current generation, but it feels refreshingly retro compared to its modern counterparts. This is due in part to its aesthetic, and its use of music from similar eras. But it also exists in its neat level-based structure, its unique focus on pacing, and its focus on – most importantly – just having fun and looking cool.
Hi-Fi Rush is unashamedly loud and playful, and it executes with confidence. On the surface, it might seem boring, but there’s a deep combat system here that rewards combo memory and, of course, pacing. It’s upbeat, expansive, and unpretentious, but that’s part of its inescapable charm, a game that soothes my inner teenager and rewards musicality in equal measure. I had a great time.
