Hi-Fi Rush Review (Sonix The NMH)
Coming off of the news that Microsoft had decided to shut down Tango makes it rough for me to say "Purchase this game".
But, if this is Tango's last game in their legacy, I will need to respectfully treat it as such.
Hi-Fi Rush is MY GOTY 2023
From start to finish, you are going to have so much fun and joy experiencing this game. From the aesthetic, the characters, to the idea. And especially with the tag-team duo of this game's Gameplay AND Music. Honestly, at some points it feels like the two are inseparable. Because if you're gonna have this game without the music, you won't be able to keep the rhythm up. And if you have the music without the game, you'll just want to come back to playing the game just to play to the beat of this game's amazing soundtrack.
Whether you have this game on Streamer mode or Not, the Music has been made / chosen to best reflect the game's vibes and aesthetics, and you'll always find yourself wanting to hear the next part of the song whether it's through just jamming out for a hot minute whilst idling OR through finding a batch of robots to fight to hear the more energetic parts.
Not to mention, you're playing one of the most stylish implementations of a Character Action game I've seen since, Iunno Bayonetta 2? DMC5? Hi-Fi Rush has you fighting robots to the beat of the track, with performance graded on how well you can time your hits to the OST's percussion. Enough to the point where you'll be WANTING to play to the game's beat when moving between objectives, despite the fact that Jumping and Dashing out of battle has no bearing on the gameplay at all.
Hi-Fi Rush truly was the perfect game of 2023 with the risk it took, delivering an experience I hadn't felt since playing Jet Set Radio for the first time. Honestly, it feels like Tango took notes from the JSR series but applied it to the Rock Genre of Music instead of Funk. And it's a passion project that I hold dearly to my heart because it showed me that Game Studios can be more than a garbage-slop pumping corporate business. And I will always hold this game as one of the pinnacles in gaming as a whole. It's just too bad Microsoft couldn't see it that way.
Cookie to anyone who gets that TGC reference.