Hi-Fi Rush is a third-person rhythm-based arcade brawler about a young man named Chai thrown into a cartoonish, over-the-top battle with a malignant corporation full of anime lunatics. With that one piece of information borne foremost in mind, a great deal of what makes Hi-Fi Rush special immediately falls into place. Indeed, a lot of the creative leads involved in Hi-Fi Rush‘s development have been around since that era. Masaaki Yamada, the man who designed and in some cases even directed those games, designed Hi-Fi Rush too. The game that you told all your friends to play, before it vanished from memory, slowly building a cult following online, and finally taking its place as a title prized among collectors decades later. It has the feel of that special brand of game that flew under the radar on the GameCube: purchased on sale and owned seemingly just by you. It doesn’t bore you with long cutscenes, only taking control from the player long enough to transfer it back to you at thrilling and surprising moments. It isn’t crammed with mechanics, just a tight selection from which it wrings a lot of value. It isn’t an open world, it’s linear and highly curated. It defies all the genre conventions of major video games from major publishers in 2023. Even the game’s alt-rock soundtrack, seemingly pulled from the Hottest 100 of 2004, evokes a specific time and place through bands like The Prodigy and The Black Keys. Anime of the era like FLCL and Beck are clear inspirations. The DNA of early 2000s games like Viewtiful Joe, Jet Set Radio, Okami, and Devil May Cry run in its veins.
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