9/26/2023 0 Comments Hifi rush chai ageIt helps that the protagonist is voiced by Robbie Daymond (Prompto from Final Fantasy 15), who has the kind of endearing voice that can flip a scene from hilarious to emotional in about five seconds flat. There are many low-key but biting jokes about the dangers of AI, widespread automation, and not reading the EULA… as well as a ‘Left Shark’ gag that thoroughly puts the joke to bed. Hi-Fi Rush is the kind of modern cyberpunk story that could skew cringe if it didn’t have an intelligent writing team behind it, but it gladly sidesteps those pitfalls with its sincere voice-acting performances and a believable anti-corruption story. It’s a boon for replayability – I’ll certainly be diving back in to get those coveted S-ranks. A meaty upgrade system is available during missions and at the hideout between levels, so you can tune your special attacks, find your best arsenal and build upon your stats. Eventually, enemies will stop you in your tracks for a quickfire memory game, where Chai has to block to a beat, which shakes up the tempo of combat when you think you’ve got it down. There’s a really careful drip-feed of new abilities throughout the game, like the introduction of a magnetic pull that lets you lurch towards enemies and eats away at the dead time spent on the ground. Different instruments serve as accents to the soundtrack that you end your combos with, too. Rest and juggle attacks are denoted by an off-beat step and clap system, with visual cues that help you learn the rhythm. These tiny details abound as you explore the game’s combat system. The mind boggles at how they managed to implement this sort of thing. If you let it sit still for a moment, you’ll also notice one of the thousands of subtle Tango touches in Hi-Fi Rush, like metal doors Chai can platform across that shut in a deferred fashion, which syncopates the backbeat. There’s this fantastic shading effect that follows Chai and other characters, as well as a fun mix of comic book storyboards, static scenes and 3D Spider-Verse motion with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it transitions into playtime that hammer home the wow factor. Hi-Fi Rush borders on the synaesthetic at times with its audio-visual harmony. Take the production zone, where we have shipping containers turned into slaloming ski lifts, jutting pickers, tricksy tubes and pulsating machines, all reacting to the music in your ears. For a game set in a giant factory (well-trodden ground for the medium), I was never bored of my surroundings. Suddenly the walls are alive with the sound of music, and the environmental design team knock it out of the park with this challenging brief. Your robotic arm is now a scrap metal Flying V, and you’re demolishing droids with combo attacks that do more damage if you can tap with tempo. Alas, Chai’s trusty iPod falls into the machine during the operation and is fused to his chest, letting him tap into the rhythmic undercurrent of this mechanised world. This particular sequence comes at the end of the game’s tutorial level once you’ve been introduced to Chai, the self-stylized “future rockstar” protagonist with a broken arm.Ĭhai is branded a ‘defect’ by the money-grubbing Vandelay corporation, so they affix him with a robotic arm so he can grab their garbage. The funny thing is that it actually delivers upon this promise. You’re going to fight a giant robot to the beat of a Nine Inch Nails song in an immaculately cel-shaded cyberpunk world. Hi-Fi Rush throws up some tantalising prospects. Hi-Fi Rush is a refreshing pivot away from the studio’s affinity for horror, and one that comfortably breaks this curse. Generally, the studio is well-known for their beautiful aesthetics, but they tend to falter in the way they feel, giving them a niche, cult quality. As the game’s industry embraces the safety of endless sequels and almost constant remakes, Tango has delivered three new, fascinating worlds since 2014 – The Evil Within, Ghostwire Tokyo, and now Hi-Fi Rush. It’s hard to be sceptical of a game with the Tango Gameworks pedigree, especially if you believe in the studio’s general mission statement.
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