The very first boss battle in Hello-Fi Rush pits you in opposition to an enormous robotic that desires to crush and eat you. As a way to defeat this mechanical titan, it’s worthwhile to wail on it with a guitar that is cobbled collectively from scrap steel, timing every of your assaults to the up-tempo beat of 9 Inch Nails’ “1,000,000.” Developer Tango Gameworks is clearly known for its whimsy, however it was beforehand confined to a horror style that Hello-Fi Rush most undoubtedly doesn’t belong to. As an alternative, Tango’s newest is a surprisingly vibrant Saturday morning cartoon of a recreation, capturing the spirit and electrical power of a Dreamcast or GameCube title in the easiest way attainable. It is large in virtually each respect, meshing its toe-tapping fight with real humor and an enormous serving to of each confidence and magnificence.
At its core, Hello-Fi Rush is an attention-grabbing combine between a character-action recreation like Satan Could Cry or Bayonetta and a rhythm recreation. Its melee motion will really feel instantly acquainted to anybody who’s properly versed within the former, as you utilize your Flying V guitar to pummel enemies with combos consisting of each gentle and heavy assaults, juggle foes within the air, and dodge out of the way in which of incoming hazard. The perfect character-action video games are in a position to lure you right into a trance-like state as you steadily turn out to be more adept at dispatching giant teams of enemies, but Hello-Fi Rush takes it a step additional by baking this rhythmic stream into its very design. You possibly can nonetheless succeed by button-mashing your strategy to victory, however timing your assaults to the beat of the sport’s soundtrack allows you to dish out elevated injury and clear areas in a way more environment friendly method. Enemies additionally assault and transfer on the beat, making every battle really feel like an improvised dance the place you are the primary attraction.
As a way to make it easier to discover your rhythm, the entire world of Hello-Fi Rush pulsates with the beat of no matter music is at the moment enjoying, offering you with each visible and audio cues for nailing its timing. Elevators jerk up and down on the beat, pc lights blink with every snare hit, and the limitations that lock you inside fight arenas are constituted of equalizers that undulate together with the music. The sound of mechanical gears, steam pipes, and the thud of your individual footsteps even coalesce with the soundtrack to create a harmonious noise. There are different optionally available visible cues you possibly can add for additional assistance–like a metronome–but the essential timing idea stays the identical all through, even exterior of its slick and satisfying fight.
Hello-Fi Rush can also be refreshingly forgiving with regards to its rhythmic traits. Your timing would not need to be persistently good all through each battle. Every assault lands on the beat regardless, so it by no means looks like the sport is punishing your fight efficiency for those who mistime a string of assaults. I spent a lot of the sport with round 60% accuracy, but fight was nonetheless an totally enthralling blast. This additionally solves one of many greatest points with rhythm video games. Sometimes, these kinds of video games are discordant for those who’re off-beat. Both your efficiency negatively impacts the music, otherwise you’re chastised with a vexing out-of-tune clang to sign that you simply’re enjoying poorly. In Hello-Fi Rush, there is no unfavourable reinforcement to doubtlessly discourage you from bettering, other than a slight hit to your rating. The problem comes from it being an motion recreation slightly than from it being a rhythm recreation. Your timing needs to be actual to parry incoming strikes, for example, however that is no completely different from every other melee brawler. You are actively rewarded for being on beat with the excited cheers of a crowd, elevated injury, and the next probability of reaching that coveted S-rank. Hello-Fi Rush is at its greatest once you embrace and play alongside to the pulsing soundtrack, however doing so is not important to your enjoyment.
That is partly as a result of Hello-Fi Rush’s fight can also be impressively various. You’ve gotten a plethora of combos at your disposal–both within the air and on the ground–with extra unlocking as you acquire the gear items it’s worthwhile to buy them. You too can name for help from just a few of the buddies you meet in your adventure–each one named after a special taste of tea, for some cause. Peppermint, one in all your gun-toting companions, makes use of a blaster to fireplace pictures that may disable enemy shields. The sport’s musicality is omnipresent, too, so she fires in triplets that match the beat. Macaron, however, is crucial for destroying enemy armor, but may also be utilized to knock again smaller enemies, providing you with time to give attention to more durable foes. Talking of which, bigger enemies do not react to your assaults till you are in a position to break their stun gauge, leaving them weak to being stun-locked and juggled. You are able to do this by dealing sufficient injury to crack it, or by parrying their strikes with skilled timing. There is a truthful quantity occurring, particularly once you issue within the completely different enemy sorts and particular counters required to beat them, but every part matches into this rhythmic stream and by no means feels overwhelming.
Hello-Fi Rush’s boss battles, particularly, are a spotlight. They’re wildly ingenious for essentially the most half, with each throwing a novel problem your method. That is normally the place the licensed soundtrack comes into play as properly, elevating these back-and-forth clashes with tracks from the likes of The Black Keys, The Prodigy, and Quantity Lady. The remainder of the sport consists of authentic music that matches the sport’s uptempo, pop-rock theme. There are many catchy toe-tappers, though I do want there have been barely extra licensed songs, simply because bopping alongside and defeating enemies to acquainted beats has such a palpable impression. Even so, it is laborious to not fall in love with Hello-Fi Rush’s slick aesthetic. The cel-shaded visuals are stunning, with glorious animation and vibrant colours that pop off the display screen, making it seem like a comic book e book come to life. It oozes type, and there is a technical proficiency to it as properly. Not solely does it carry out as easily as butter, however the seamless transitions from gameplay to 2D animation, to blended 3D animation, proper again to gameplay, are phenomenal–and it does all of this with out ever lacking a beat of the soundtrack.
There is a goofy spirit and earnestness that emanates from each a part of Hello-Fi Rush, and this playfulness prevents the dialogue from ever feeling too cringey. The type of writing may’ve been nauseating within the flawed fingers, however Tango manages to make you fall in love with its ragtag forged of characters, together with its rogue’s gallery of bosses. Protagonist Chai could be an overconfident fool, however he is surprisingly endearing, and the sport is genuinely humorous with out having to resort to any irritating snark. The story is pretty simple as you attempt to put a cease to an evil megacorporation, however there are some enjoyable twists and turns alongside the way in which, too.
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The one time Hello-Fi Rush falters is within the moments between its kinetic fight. The sport’s platforming is mostly tremendous, with loads of areas off the crushed path so that you can discover and discover collectibles and forex. Chai’s leaping is a tad floaty and imprecise, however checkpoints are extremely lenient, so that is by no means actually a problem. The issue is that these sections can drag on for much too lengthy at occasions. When the fight is pretty much as good as it’s, you simply wish to get again to it, however there are lengthy stretches with nothing however traversal. To compound this subject, the sport’s environments are aesthetically samey at varied factors, too, with an overabundance of similar-looking labs and factories. This is not a deadly flaw, however a few of the different places look unbelievable, so it is a disgrace the identical creativity is not utilized throughout all of its phases.
Regardless of these missteps, Hello-Fi Rush is an amazing recreation that is equal elements explosive, joyous, and dripping with type. It feeds on the facility of nostalgia by evoking video games like Jet Set Radio and Viewtiful Joe with its old-school vibes and contagious power, however it’s additionally utterly recent and thrilling in its personal proper. For as a lot as I like horror video games and have loved Tango’s earlier output with The Evil Inside sequence and Ghostwire: Tokyo, it is refreshing that the studio hasn’t been pigeonholed into creating video games inside a singular style, and might immediately emerge sooner or later with an infectious rhythm-action recreation that’s positive to dwell lengthy within the reminiscence.