There is a late scene HiFi Rushthe rhythm action game by now defunct Tango Gameworks, in which protagonist Chai explores a museum dedicated to the antagonistic, oppressive megacorporation Vandelay Technologies. In it, the company tells a sanitized version of its own story that glosses over the influence of its founder and her ousting in order to protect exploitative corporate interests. To put it this way: Hi-Fi Rush To say it hits a little harder a year after its launch in 2023 is an understatement.
We never published a review HiFi Rush However, last year I wrote down some impressions from the first few hours. Maybe that was for the best as I reviewed the game again afterwards the tragic, senseless closure of Tango Gameworks made everything special about him shine brighter than ever. While we once praised it as a deeply charming, innovative passion project from a major studio, we now appreciate it just as much for the truth of its themes. Observe a ragtag group of mistreated employees, alienated members of a family business, etc an idiot with a heart of gold Beating the shit out of a corrupt CEO was cathartic back then HiFi Rush started. Now, however, it feels like something more: the last word from a studio that wanted to be more than just another cog in the machine.
HiFi Rush is an extraordinary mix of rhythm and action
Aside from becoming a retroactive statement piece, HiFi Rush still whips like a video game. I had forgotten how good HiFi Rush It felt like I was gaming after being away for so long, but damn, I love the way my controller dances when I play it. Tango Gameworks combines character action with rhythm mechanics in a holistic way continue to be accommodating even for those who cannot clap in time at a concert.
Chai is a wannabe rock star with a disabled arm who goes to Vandelay to find a replacement robot to help him play the guitar. Due to a freak accident, he ends up with his legally protected non-iPod in his chest and is deemed “defective” by the company. They send their revamped robots after him, but like everything else around him, they are affected by Chai’s new musical heartbeat.
Every swing of your guitar-like sword lands in time with the music playing in the background of each stage. You gain bonus evasive maneuvers when you run to the beat. Your enemies strike in time to the music, so you’ll know when to dodge, parry, or jump if you’re counting. More so than most character action games Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, HiFi Rush makes it so easy for me to get lost in the action because my musical feeling takes over. I no longer had to worry about precise timing of combos because my fingers fell into the groove of the song being played.
Some of these rhythm associations can be frustrating. There are sections where the action stops as enemies force you into a memorized parry pattern to deliver the final blow. The rigidity of these parts seems at odds with the expressive play of most parts HiFi Rush‘s action that I dreaded every time a powerful enemy appeared, knowing I would have to contend with the strange, often inaccurate patterns. Ironically, when HiFi Rush makes it harder to become a rhythm game than an action game full of rhythm elements, it rubs against its own joy.
When HiFi Rush doesn’t limit you, it’s a sublime, visceral action game where you surrender to the rhythm. I’m one of those people who walks along to the rhythm of the music in my headphones; So I remember much of Chai’s journey as choreographed dances that could be written beat by beat on a piece of sheet music. It’s like strolling through a battlefield, but the people sitting in the pit with me are corporate bosses who see their robot workers, human test subjects, and even their colleagues as just numbers on a spreadsheet.
HiFi RushThe anti-business issues are more pressing than ever
Every level in HiFi Rush takes place in part of a corporate campus, but there are dangers lurking there that Chai must jump, run and dance through to save himself from Vandelay’s brainwashing. But these erupting volcanoes, electrified platforms and bottomless pits are just the working environment in which Vandelay’s employees must work in order to survive. And these dangers are only half the threat, because the stability and legacy of an employee in the company, no matter how hard-working or successful, is only guaranteed to Vandelay’s leadership.
The relentless work for Vandelay is often depicted through tongue-in-cheek text logs or jokes from robotic employees that Chai passes by, and it’s not always subtle. Bosses are willing to spend budgets and resources trying to pin down Chai, which is their supposed “fault,” while others are more than willing to put their workers in our hero’s line of fire when it comes to a problem of their own making to fix. Only after Chai passes through the death trap that is Vanderlay’s campus can he eliminate the source of all this pain and suffering: the bosses at the helm.
HiFi Rush was in development long before Bethesda and its studios were acquired by Microsoft and the Xbox company started tearing things down, but it has become prophetic for the fate of Tango Gameworks. It stars a crew of workers who endure nothing but the torment of corporate bullshit in an attempt to make a difference. Her ending is happier than the studio that made her story, but HiFi Rush still exists as a statement of its creators’ values, succumbing to the same corporate rot it sought to combat. But a lost battle is not a lost war. Movements like the one spearheaded by Chai and his friends take different forms over time. The artists pick up their pens, the designers open a new document and the musicians compose new songs again. If HiFi Rush proves that the fight for a better future in which we are free from the clutches of corporations is only possible if we fight together. I hope that this will be remembered by most people.
