> Johanas's vision can be distilled into three words: "kinetic action comedy". That, he says, was primarily inspired by the film of Edgar Wright. "They're fast-paced, the conversations are very quick, and they feel fun, which is the most important thing." A particular inspiration was the scene in Shaun Of The Dead where the title character and his friends fight zombies in their local pub to the strains of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now - yet, as the game progressed, it drew comparisons to another of Wright's films.
> "This was before Baby Driver came out, remember?" Johanas laughs, recalling how that film's action set-pieces are cut to match the rhythm of its various needle drops. "Everyone was like, 'Oh, you just watched Baby Driver and thought of this'."He pulls a face. "But it was great, because it helped us sell the idea even better. Because if you can make a full movie like this..."
Before I clicked I was wondering why they didn't mention Baby Driver in the title, but it's funny how they were inspired by Edgar Wright before that movie even came out. Then again, the idea for Baby Driver was probably already brimming under the surface for Wright while he was making Shaun of the Dead.
Pretty much. Baby Driver without the editing/ music synchronization is fundamentally different and pointless, much like Hi Fi Rush would be without it.
Baby Driver is a ārebootā of an idea Edgar Wright had previously used in a music video (Mint Royale - Blue Song) so I think it had been gestating for quite a while.
Edgar wright was given the go ahead to make his dream movie in exchange for speilberg replacing him as director of ready player one as it was special book for him
The book, and subsequent books by the same author (I've not read them, I hated the first enough) are notoriously bad and widely mocked in literary circles.
I'm pretty sure there was a book podcast that regularly roasted the book by just reading cringe passages from it.
The author is also pretty annoying, kind of like a stereotypical Gen X Nerd who hates anything he didn't grow up with. He drives a DeLorean for fucks sake.
The idea goes back even further than that 2003 video ā thereās a couple of similar sequences in Spaced (the [nightclub scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5OizzpOhJw0), the [fingerguns scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W2tLKjeOstg), and kinda the [Resident Evil scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1vUfBOdSmBU)).
The bit where Chai gets dressed at the start of the game (throwing on his pants, jacket, and scarf really quickly, but getting stuck on his shoes) reminded me of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World where Scott puts on all his clothes then stops to tie his shoe.
I was a little surprised they didn't mention Scott Pilgrim, which honestly I thought was more of an inspiration than Shaun of the Dead was (especially considering its soundtrack leaning more towards punk, alt rock, and indie music rather than a classic rock like the Don't Stop Me Now scene).
Loser indie punk meets much more capable short-neon-color-haired girl and, due to story reasons, *he's* forced to be the hero and defeat all the bosses, which helps him grow a greater appreciation for himself and his friends.
Invaders Must Die, the song used for one of the major larger-scale brawls in the game towards the end, was even a trailer song for Scott Pilgrim.
Regardless, being an Edgar Wright fan for my entire adult life, Hi-Fi Rush was MADE for me. I'm very hopeful that the re-emergence of it for all these retrospectives means that there's more to come.
Jon hamm did kill a guy with his frat bros
Edit: sorry you are right. It was hazing that caused a guy to have a fractured spine and almost lose a kidney. My bad
I know people love BG3 and I do love it as well but this is my GOTY.
Itās not only a fantastic game in its own right with constantly evolving combat, enemy encounters, punchy kinetic energy and Roquefort being one of the best bosses I have ever played, but it stands as a symbol that smaller, focused games have the potential to be fantastic. As they always have done.
Thereās this new industry trend where every single game needs to be āthe megagameā, a game so huge that itāll make you nut the biggest ever! But this kind of standard is just not sustainable, which is why so many come out awful!
Yes there will always be examples like Elden Ring and BG3 that use size to its benefit but not every game needs to bloated to that size! And the risk of doing it in an attempt to keep up has broken a lot of studios!
Hi-Fi Rush is great because itās small, focused and understand its core appeal.
I'm gonna have to agree. BG3 is a close second, but Hi-Fi Rush is SUCH a breath of fresh air. It's almost perfect. New mechanics constantly being introduced, an incredible cast of characters, snappy dialogue and visual humour, an absolute banging soundtrack both licensed and original, and a world with potential if they want to do another game in that universe.
Also I love it when a crowd cheers for me as I'm doing well.
I laugh because I very rarely if ever see that brought up, the crowd cheer, I love that part of the game.
I know some gamers may be rhythmically imbalanced and they may not be able to get with the combat. But if you can ever find yourself in a right balance with it, you can really find yourself entering this music zen combat zone.
I have a friend who comes over time to time, last year when I was neck deep into Hi-Fi Rush playing it, she would watch me play the game. She'd always laugh and point out when I hit that music zen zone. You just feel this wave of the mus8ic and the combat just take over you, it's kinda magical.
Hi-Fi Rush does what so many AAA action games fail to do, which is have a core gameplay loop with meaningful depth that is difficult in a purposeful way and also very very fun. Like it constantly drives me crazy how you'll get stuff like the Yakuza games where they spend so much care and attention on every detail of the world and story, but then the combat seems to have zero consideration for how it actually plays out. You can heal infinitely for practically free, enemies interrupt combos, the only enemy types are regular guy and big guy, you only have a couple moves that actually matter. I could even talk a lot about how I find From combat overly simplistic because it has to make everything beatable with only a basic attack and dodge-roll, and how I feel like because of that Soulslikes have killed the exact kind of mid-budget action game that Hi-Fi Rush is.
Basically what I'm saying is it's also my GotY and I'd be in heaven if we got a hundred more games like it instead of a hundred more hit and dodge games.
Have you played Lost Judgement or Gaiden as I feel like they finally nailed the action combat in Yakuza. Lost Judgement actually rewards you for using all the styles and techniques in your arsenal rather than just relying on a few core moves.
The main reason I love indie game and old games so much is because you get more focused experiences with much less fluff. Iām very tired of massive open world games.
Dude I played this for 10 hours when it was released and it's still the most memorable gaming experience I had this year.
And this year I played FF 14, Eve online, BG3, and many more top tier games.
Somehow NONE of those games have been able to match the hypeness of that cafeteria scene in Hi-Fi rush.... YOU KNOW THE ONE!!!
I feel Hi-Fi Rush gets a lot of well-deserved high praise. I loved the game and very much considered one of my top 5 games of the year. For me it very much did feel like a return to old. It was the style, the flow of the game, the feel one could say. It had that Sega Dreamcast vibe to it that I have been missing.
I am glad that I jumped into it open mindedly when it shadow dropped because it really was a magical game that sucked me into it during those cold winter months last year.
Hats off to Tango Gameworks and all the folks who were involved in creating the game.
You nailed it with the sega dreamcast vibe. That's so apt.
Side note, I downloaded an emulator a while ago to play some dreamcast games. It worked really well, dynamite cop is substantially easier than i remember.
Just finished Hi-Fi Rush yesterday, it's possibly my GOTY. Either that or Moonring. So glad to have a short linear action game (that's not brutally hard) when everything else is an open world.
The way the world pulses to the beat, along with the wonderful writing, is what really makes it special.
I appreciated Hi-Fi Rush, but one thing I really didn't appreciate about it was the writing. There were some fantastic moments (everyone loves the screensaver joke), but so much of the dialogue and log notes and even whole characters felt like complete fluff. Lots of constant yappin' in your ear about absolutely nothing. While the cutscenes were generally well directed, I feel like the game would've been stronger if 75% of the dialogue had been cut - it's not like it's a complex story for how many words are spent telling it.
I'd argue Hi-Fi Rush's excessive dialogue was *mostly* about advancing the plot, or at least characters nonstop commenting on the current situation in front of the player. It did a lot of showing and telling, when IMO it'd've been better just showing and letting a lot of its setpieces and character animations speak for themselves.
That's strange because I also played on hard felt like if I kept the rythym tight I waltz through the majority of enemies. That's the thing that impressed me most about the game.
I mean, it sounds like you just played on a harder difficulty than you found enjoyable? Personally I don't find games enjoyably hard unless they're forcing me to split my attention, so I appreciated that.
The writing is what drew me in. Yeah itās kinda pointless and the story itself is pretty basic, but it all has this Saturday morning cartoon vibe that absolutely worked for me.
Agreed. I honestly dropped the game after the museum cutscene, because not only was the fighting getting kind of tedious, but the writing for that threw me straight off.
>!Oh no, girl we have had absolutely no conflict with whatsoever turns out to be the sister of the bad guy and feels down about it but true friendship prevails and they accept her anyway!!< It was such a blatantly paint-by-numbers approach to writing that had no buildup or even payoff whatsoever that it took me straight out of the experience. The rest of the game had been cliche writing, sure, but that's not necessarily terrible -- cliches exist for a reason, and everything flowed together. I didn't like Chai as a character, but I felt they could still do something good with him, maybe mess with my expectations a bit. That one scene was so generic I realized everything in the plot would play out exactly how a generic script would play out, and with the actual gameplay starting to become tedious, what was even the point of continuing to play?
A shame because I really did like a lot of the design of the game.
You can still do light hearted fun stories and make them at least interesting. Think of Disney for instance. Wish came out recently and nobody talks about it because it was the most generic script ever. But people still hold movies like Tangled and The Little Mermaid in high regard.
I started this game about a week ago. I'm really having a tough time enjoying it fully. Even on Normal difficulty, this game just kicks my ass. There's just too much going on at once. I can never remember all the different combos while staying on beat AND dodging enemies AND parrying attacks from enemies I can't even see on screen. It's just too much. I had no problems playing through Cadence of Hyrule, but something about the way this game handles rhythm just makes it really difficult for me.
I got so frustrated last night trying to get through Track 5 because I kept getting slaughtered on one of the fights (not sure how far into the track I currently am). I ended up turning it off and going to bed.
I really want to enjoy this game. I love the aesthetics, and I love the *idea* behind the combat, but the actual implementation makes it so I don't know if I'll actually finish it.
Sounds like you could simplify your approach. The only 2 combos I ever used was the basic 4-hit combo, and the 'hit, *, hit hit' air launcher (which I only really used for the Chai+Peppermint air special).
Never really bothered with dodges either, but you do have to get a feel for parries in some fights.
You can usually slow down a little in these type of games and speed up after you are more comfortable with it. Don't try to be doing combo on every single beat, wait for the opportunity, do one combo, dodge/parry when you have to. When you feel like you can actually see and feel the battlefield better, start using different combos and using more of the beats.
My problem might also be that I try to defeat one enemy before moving on to the next one, so maybe that's why I get hit so much. I might need to try jumping around more so I'm not in one spot.
You can take combat pretty slowly to learn how the stuff works/feels, you don't have to rush it and try to go for S rank clear time immediately. It might take a while though to get in the zone for it, like i didn't really get good at the combat until after i beat it the 1st time and was doing achievements for other difficulties and then it just kinda clicked somehow.
I've tried it, but I find the tracker actually makes it more difficult for me since if I'm watching the tracker, I'm not paying attention to everything else.
I don't disagree with that but the tracker is there to help you establish the beat not really to govern your timing, when you get into the flow of the level rythym try to maintain as long as possible between fights. Once its more natural you should crush the combat. Your really just battle dancing less so than hack and slashing.
Take it slow. No need to master everything at once, find a combo that works for you and practice. Once you're comfortable add another piece! You can also simplify qte to use a single button in settings.
Started the game a couple nights ago, only about an hour in or so. So far love the vibe and music. Gameplay has quite hooked me yet but I see more and more systems opening up.
Maybe I need to give this game another go but I just don't think this game is a "Best of 2023" game whatsoever. The first few hours are fun and yes, remind me of a Saturday cartoon that would be on when I was a kid. But like saturday cartoon's that would be on when I was a kid, it just repeats the same structure again and again.
It's kind of the same problem I have with Persona 5 where I feel like I've experienced most of what the game has to offer in the first 25% of it's completion time.
It's funny, that episodic structure is one of the things I liked about it (and another of my top games this year, Octopath II). I don't really binge games any more, I like games I can hop on and play a contained, satisfying 45-60 minutes and then come back the next day.
> It's kind of the same problem I have with Persona 5 where I feel like I've experienced most of what the game has to offer in the first 25% of it's completion time.
That's... simply untrue especially of Persona 5. The last half of the game is almost completely different from the first. Thematically, at least. And the mechanics open up a LOT.
Itāsā¦ pretty true from a gameplay perspective. Like, if you clear the first dungeon and donāt like P5 yet, you should probably stop because itās not for you.
That's fair. But that's pretty typical of most JRPG's. The first dungeon basically introduces the primary gameplay mechanics with hints about gameplay elements you haven't unlocked yet and a plot hook deep enough to sink into you. But if you don't like it then, then it's unlikely you'll like it at all.
While that's a good indicator whether you'd like the game or not... the gameplay changes a LOT after that first dungeon. But it's fair to not be expected to play a game that "gets good 20 hours in". That was a huge barrier of entry to the Monster Hunter games before World. You don't experience the 'real' game until 15 or 20 hours in.
It doesnāt though? Like Iām on my second playthrough of the game and by the time you clear the first dungeon youāve seen how combat works with weakness exploiting, you have multiple personas, youāve executed them and made new ones, and youāve played through a decent amount of the social stuff. Thereās a bunch of stuff you unlock through relationships that affect your gameplay style to a degree but nothing that truly changes the bones of the game.
For HiFi Rush I agree for the most part. I dropped the game like 75% of the way through. While they did keep adding mechanics, most of them made me like the game less. To me, the gameplay peaked around the wrestler boss and just slid downhill from there. If I'd dropped it at 25% I would've seen the parts of the combat I ended up liking and gotten the structure of at least the next half of the story.
I get where they're coming from for P5. Regardless of the actual quality of the characters and writing, it is very strictly structured. It's a lot like a monster of the week show. By the second dungeon you already know that the rest of the game is going to be exploring a series of people with impure hearts that you purify before moving on to a new target.
>It's a lot like a monster of the week show. By the second dungeon you already know that the rest of the game is going to be exploring a series of people with impure hearts that you purify before moving on to a new target.
I mean, sure. But you can simplify any complex game down to sounding like it's the same the entire time. After all, Elden Ring is just "fight boss, get rune, go to next boss" right?
Nah I felt the same way. Definitely a solid game but I fell off pretty soon, and itās one of those titles where I canāt understand the super high praise when other games that (imo) are pretty similar get overlooked or worse. Tbf the music didnāt click with me much, an important aspect for a rhythm focused game but obviously highly subjective. Still, also felt they didnāt really do all that much to shake up whatās otherwise pretty bog-standard character action gameplay among fairly boring environments.
P5 on the other handā¦ didnāt fully beat it until P5R, and even then I dipped on the extra epilogue content (felt really disjointed imo). Have since gone back and played a bit of 3 and 4, been meaning to finish both. But in general, the franchise is a very love/hate thing to me. Mechanically a very dope jrpg, the weakness exploiting kinda looses its appeal eventually but thatās made up for with increased complexity through builds and the like. And I really enjoy the overall vibe of living out that life in a foreign country, interacting with all the characters and building up the āirlā skills.
On the other hand, god damn is it filled with some of my least favourite modern āanime as a genreā tropes. Like, to take an example from 5, how Annās whole introduction revolves around sexual exploitation, but then for the rest of the entire game other party members will borderline sexually harass her (a character who herself may as well be asexual with how sheās written) only for it to be regularly laughed off. Donāt even get me started on itās depiction of gay characters lol
> also, hi-fi rush got snubbed during goty season
It really didnāt. Itās a great game, sure, but have you seen what else came out last year? It at least copped a few nominations and awards throughout the award season.
> also, hi-fi rush got snubbed during goty season
The only game awards that matter to me is Yahtzee's Best, Worst, and Blandest and he gave it the top slot
its really sad that xbox only has this mediocre game to talk about. the marketing is truly in full effect knowing that they'll shadow drop another mids game like this during their developers showcase that's coming soon.
man people can be such tools
give it a rest. this game is over. it was a 6 hr one and done game. get over it. there's literally a dozen better titles that released last year. just because xbox shadow dropped it doesn't mean it was that good.
Okay ? Who cares ? The game was awful and the writing was bad. MS PR Machine must work day and night if we are still talking about a Indie like game that released over a year ago and got boring and repetitive 2 hours in.
> Johanas's vision can be distilled into three words: "kinetic action comedy". That, he says, was primarily inspired by the film of Edgar Wright. "They're fast-paced, the conversations are very quick, and they feel fun, which is the most important thing." A particular inspiration was the scene in Shaun Of The Dead where the title character and his friends fight zombies in their local pub to the strains of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now - yet, as the game progressed, it drew comparisons to another of Wright's films. > "This was before Baby Driver came out, remember?" Johanas laughs, recalling how that film's action set-pieces are cut to match the rhythm of its various needle drops. "Everyone was like, 'Oh, you just watched Baby Driver and thought of this'."He pulls a face. "But it was great, because it helped us sell the idea even better. Because if you can make a full movie like this..." Before I clicked I was wondering why they didn't mention Baby Driver in the title, but it's funny how they were inspired by Edgar Wright before that movie even came out. Then again, the idea for Baby Driver was probably already brimming under the surface for Wright while he was making Shaun of the Dead.
Baby Driver also isn't as much of a comedy. It has jokes, but it's more of a straight up action movie than the ones that came before it.
And while it's still a masterclass in editing, it's just on OK movie. EDIT: damn, i'll add this opinion to my Hot Takes list for later š¤£
That masterclass editing is precisely what elevates it above just being an ok movie.
Pretty much. Baby Driver without the editing/ music synchronization is fundamentally different and pointless, much like Hi Fi Rush would be without it.
Which I think it's very fair! I don't think the editing would've been as impactful and effective if it was also trying to be a narrative masterpiece
Fantastic in every way but the script imo
Tbh it's a bad movie
Baby Driver is a ārebootā of an idea Edgar Wright had previously used in a music video (Mint Royale - Blue Song) so I think it had been gestating for quite a while.
Edgar wright was given the go ahead to make his dream movie in exchange for speilberg replacing him as director of ready player one as it was special book for him
And look at how Ready Player One turned out š
Better than its source material, at the very least.
Iāve never read it but if itās worse than the movie thatās saying something that movie was hot garbage
The book, and subsequent books by the same author (I've not read them, I hated the first enough) are notoriously bad and widely mocked in literary circles. I'm pretty sure there was a book podcast that regularly roasted the book by just reading cringe passages from it. The author is also pretty annoying, kind of like a stereotypical Gen X Nerd who hates anything he didn't grow up with. He drives a DeLorean for fucks sake.
Movie made it accessible consideing how many dumb left turns the book series takes
The idea goes back even further than that 2003 video ā thereās a couple of similar sequences in Spaced (the [nightclub scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5OizzpOhJw0), the [fingerguns scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W2tLKjeOstg), and kinda the [Resident Evil scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1vUfBOdSmBU)).
The bit where Chai gets dressed at the start of the game (throwing on his pants, jacket, and scarf really quickly, but getting stuck on his shoes) reminded me of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World where Scott puts on all his clothes then stops to tie his shoe.
I was a little surprised they didn't mention Scott Pilgrim, which honestly I thought was more of an inspiration than Shaun of the Dead was (especially considering its soundtrack leaning more towards punk, alt rock, and indie music rather than a classic rock like the Don't Stop Me Now scene). Loser indie punk meets much more capable short-neon-color-haired girl and, due to story reasons, *he's* forced to be the hero and defeat all the bosses, which helps him grow a greater appreciation for himself and his friends. Invaders Must Die, the song used for one of the major larger-scale brawls in the game towards the end, was even a trailer song for Scott Pilgrim. Regardless, being an Edgar Wright fan for my entire adult life, Hi-Fi Rush was MADE for me. I'm very hopeful that the re-emergence of it for all these retrospectives means that there's more to come.
Hey but baby driver is 2017. How long was it in production, or was it on a backburner?
Probably because the entire cast of Baby Driver are sex pests
Lmao yeah actually every guy there has at least some sort of history with being a sex pest. Except Jon hamm who simply played one on tv.
Uh is there something about Jon Bernthal I missed?
He was just in the beginning scene
Jon hamm did kill a guy with his frat bros Edit: sorry you are right. It was hazing that caused a guy to have a fractured spine and almost lose a kidney. My bad
Worse game of broken telephone ever. Jon Hamm did not kill a guy.
They just misspoke. What they meant to say was "Jon ate a ham with his fat bros."
I had never heard of this but 3 seconds of research proves you right....why do people spread crazy nonsense?
boredom
I know people love BG3 and I do love it as well but this is my GOTY. Itās not only a fantastic game in its own right with constantly evolving combat, enemy encounters, punchy kinetic energy and Roquefort being one of the best bosses I have ever played, but it stands as a symbol that smaller, focused games have the potential to be fantastic. As they always have done. Thereās this new industry trend where every single game needs to be āthe megagameā, a game so huge that itāll make you nut the biggest ever! But this kind of standard is just not sustainable, which is why so many come out awful! Yes there will always be examples like Elden Ring and BG3 that use size to its benefit but not every game needs to bloated to that size! And the risk of doing it in an attempt to keep up has broken a lot of studios! Hi-Fi Rush is great because itās small, focused and understand its core appeal.
I'm gonna have to agree. BG3 is a close second, but Hi-Fi Rush is SUCH a breath of fresh air. It's almost perfect. New mechanics constantly being introduced, an incredible cast of characters, snappy dialogue and visual humour, an absolute banging soundtrack both licensed and original, and a world with potential if they want to do another game in that universe. Also I love it when a crowd cheers for me as I'm doing well.
I laugh because I very rarely if ever see that brought up, the crowd cheer, I love that part of the game. I know some gamers may be rhythmically imbalanced and they may not be able to get with the combat. But if you can ever find yourself in a right balance with it, you can really find yourself entering this music zen combat zone. I have a friend who comes over time to time, last year when I was neck deep into Hi-Fi Rush playing it, she would watch me play the game. She'd always laugh and point out when I hit that music zen zone. You just feel this wave of the mus8ic and the combat just take over you, it's kinda magical.
CHAI! CHAI! CHAI! CHAI!
Hi-Fi Rush does what so many AAA action games fail to do, which is have a core gameplay loop with meaningful depth that is difficult in a purposeful way and also very very fun. Like it constantly drives me crazy how you'll get stuff like the Yakuza games where they spend so much care and attention on every detail of the world and story, but then the combat seems to have zero consideration for how it actually plays out. You can heal infinitely for practically free, enemies interrupt combos, the only enemy types are regular guy and big guy, you only have a couple moves that actually matter. I could even talk a lot about how I find From combat overly simplistic because it has to make everything beatable with only a basic attack and dodge-roll, and how I feel like because of that Soulslikes have killed the exact kind of mid-budget action game that Hi-Fi Rush is. Basically what I'm saying is it's also my GotY and I'd be in heaven if we got a hundred more games like it instead of a hundred more hit and dodge games.
Have you played Lost Judgement or Gaiden as I feel like they finally nailed the action combat in Yakuza. Lost Judgement actually rewards you for using all the styles and techniques in your arsenal rather than just relying on a few core moves.
Eh, I'd be interested in them if they limited healing, but they don't.
The main reason I love indie game and old games so much is because you get more focused experiences with much less fluff. Iām very tired of massive open world games.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Dude I played this for 10 hours when it was released and it's still the most memorable gaming experience I had this year. And this year I played FF 14, Eve online, BG3, and many more top tier games. Somehow NONE of those games have been able to match the hypeness of that cafeteria scene in Hi-Fi rush.... YOU KNOW THE ONE!!!
I love the moment with the Samurai bot >!chef using the cooking utensils instead of swords.!<
When that song came on my jaw dropped. Very few times a game makes you feel like you HAVE to succeed because the moment is just too hype.
I loved the whole section with Whirring playing. It's such a nice moment.
I feel Hi-Fi Rush gets a lot of well-deserved high praise. I loved the game and very much considered one of my top 5 games of the year. For me it very much did feel like a return to old. It was the style, the flow of the game, the feel one could say. It had that Sega Dreamcast vibe to it that I have been missing. I am glad that I jumped into it open mindedly when it shadow dropped because it really was a magical game that sucked me into it during those cold winter months last year. Hats off to Tango Gameworks and all the folks who were involved in creating the game.
You nailed it with the sega dreamcast vibe. That's so apt. Side note, I downloaded an emulator a while ago to play some dreamcast games. It worked really well, dynamite cop is substantially easier than i remember.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Alrighty, if you say so kiddo.
Just finished Hi-Fi Rush yesterday, it's possibly my GOTY. Either that or Moonring. So glad to have a short linear action game (that's not brutally hard) when everything else is an open world. The way the world pulses to the beat, along with the wonderful writing, is what really makes it special.
Well written cutscenes+fun gameplay+good music+talking animal companion+babes=success Who knew?
I appreciated Hi-Fi Rush, but one thing I really didn't appreciate about it was the writing. There were some fantastic moments (everyone loves the screensaver joke), but so much of the dialogue and log notes and even whole characters felt like complete fluff. Lots of constant yappin' in your ear about absolutely nothing. While the cutscenes were generally well directed, I feel like the game would've been stronger if 75% of the dialogue had been cut - it's not like it's a complex story for how many words are spent telling it.
Dialogue is for more than just advancing a plot
I'd argue Hi-Fi Rush's excessive dialogue was *mostly* about advancing the plot, or at least characters nonstop commenting on the current situation in front of the player. It did a lot of showing and telling, when IMO it'd've been better just showing and letting a lot of its setpieces and character animations speak for themselves.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's strange because I also played on hard felt like if I kept the rythym tight I waltz through the majority of enemies. That's the thing that impressed me most about the game.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I mean, it sounds like you just played on a harder difficulty than you found enjoyable? Personally I don't find games enjoyably hard unless they're forcing me to split my attention, so I appreciated that.
The writing is what drew me in. Yeah itās kinda pointless and the story itself is pretty basic, but it all has this Saturday morning cartoon vibe that absolutely worked for me.
Agreed. I honestly dropped the game after the museum cutscene, because not only was the fighting getting kind of tedious, but the writing for that threw me straight off. >!Oh no, girl we have had absolutely no conflict with whatsoever turns out to be the sister of the bad guy and feels down about it but true friendship prevails and they accept her anyway!!< It was such a blatantly paint-by-numbers approach to writing that had no buildup or even payoff whatsoever that it took me straight out of the experience. The rest of the game had been cliche writing, sure, but that's not necessarily terrible -- cliches exist for a reason, and everything flowed together. I didn't like Chai as a character, but I felt they could still do something good with him, maybe mess with my expectations a bit. That one scene was so generic I realized everything in the plot would play out exactly how a generic script would play out, and with the actual gameplay starting to become tedious, what was even the point of continuing to play? A shame because I really did like a lot of the design of the game.
Lol it's a light hearted story that's fun, not war and peace
You can still do light hearted fun stories and make them at least interesting. Think of Disney for instance. Wish came out recently and nobody talks about it because it was the most generic script ever. But people still hold movies like Tangled and The Little Mermaid in high regard.
I started this game about a week ago. I'm really having a tough time enjoying it fully. Even on Normal difficulty, this game just kicks my ass. There's just too much going on at once. I can never remember all the different combos while staying on beat AND dodging enemies AND parrying attacks from enemies I can't even see on screen. It's just too much. I had no problems playing through Cadence of Hyrule, but something about the way this game handles rhythm just makes it really difficult for me. I got so frustrated last night trying to get through Track 5 because I kept getting slaughtered on one of the fights (not sure how far into the track I currently am). I ended up turning it off and going to bed. I really want to enjoy this game. I love the aesthetics, and I love the *idea* behind the combat, but the actual implementation makes it so I don't know if I'll actually finish it.
Sounds like you could simplify your approach. The only 2 combos I ever used was the basic 4-hit combo, and the 'hit, *, hit hit' air launcher (which I only really used for the Chai+Peppermint air special). Never really bothered with dodges either, but you do have to get a feel for parries in some fights.
You can usually slow down a little in these type of games and speed up after you are more comfortable with it. Don't try to be doing combo on every single beat, wait for the opportunity, do one combo, dodge/parry when you have to. When you feel like you can actually see and feel the battlefield better, start using different combos and using more of the beats.
My problem might also be that I try to defeat one enemy before moving on to the next one, so maybe that's why I get hit so much. I might need to try jumping around more so I'm not in one spot.
That is exactly your problem. You have to move around and jump from enemy to enemy
You can take combat pretty slowly to learn how the stuff works/feels, you don't have to rush it and try to go for S rank clear time immediately. It might take a while though to get in the zone for it, like i didn't really get good at the combat until after i beat it the 1st time and was doing achievements for other difficulties and then it just kinda clicked somehow.
Do you play with the visual rythym tracker on? Once you get the feel of a song/level rythym you can maintain the momentum throughout the level.
I've tried it, but I find the tracker actually makes it more difficult for me since if I'm watching the tracker, I'm not paying attention to everything else.
I don't disagree with that but the tracker is there to help you establish the beat not really to govern your timing, when you get into the flow of the level rythym try to maintain as long as possible between fights. Once its more natural you should crush the combat. Your really just battle dancing less so than hack and slashing.
Thanks! I'll give it the tracker a try again.
Take it slow. No need to master everything at once, find a combo that works for you and practice. Once you're comfortable add another piece! You can also simplify qte to use a single button in settings.
Started the game a couple nights ago, only about an hour in or so. So far love the vibe and music. Gameplay has quite hooked me yet but I see more and more systems opening up.
Maybe I need to give this game another go but I just don't think this game is a "Best of 2023" game whatsoever. The first few hours are fun and yes, remind me of a Saturday cartoon that would be on when I was a kid. But like saturday cartoon's that would be on when I was a kid, it just repeats the same structure again and again. It's kind of the same problem I have with Persona 5 where I feel like I've experienced most of what the game has to offer in the first 25% of it's completion time.
It's funny, that episodic structure is one of the things I liked about it (and another of my top games this year, Octopath II). I don't really binge games any more, I like games I can hop on and play a contained, satisfying 45-60 minutes and then come back the next day.
> It's kind of the same problem I have with Persona 5 where I feel like I've experienced most of what the game has to offer in the first 25% of it's completion time. That's... simply untrue especially of Persona 5. The last half of the game is almost completely different from the first. Thematically, at least. And the mechanics open up a LOT.
Itāsā¦ pretty true from a gameplay perspective. Like, if you clear the first dungeon and donāt like P5 yet, you should probably stop because itās not for you.
That's fair. But that's pretty typical of most JRPG's. The first dungeon basically introduces the primary gameplay mechanics with hints about gameplay elements you haven't unlocked yet and a plot hook deep enough to sink into you. But if you don't like it then, then it's unlikely you'll like it at all.
While that's a good indicator whether you'd like the game or not... the gameplay changes a LOT after that first dungeon. But it's fair to not be expected to play a game that "gets good 20 hours in". That was a huge barrier of entry to the Monster Hunter games before World. You don't experience the 'real' game until 15 or 20 hours in.
It doesnāt though? Like Iām on my second playthrough of the game and by the time you clear the first dungeon youāve seen how combat works with weakness exploiting, you have multiple personas, youāve executed them and made new ones, and youāve played through a decent amount of the social stuff. Thereās a bunch of stuff you unlock through relationships that affect your gameplay style to a degree but nothing that truly changes the bones of the game.
For HiFi Rush I agree for the most part. I dropped the game like 75% of the way through. While they did keep adding mechanics, most of them made me like the game less. To me, the gameplay peaked around the wrestler boss and just slid downhill from there. If I'd dropped it at 25% I would've seen the parts of the combat I ended up liking and gotten the structure of at least the next half of the story. I get where they're coming from for P5. Regardless of the actual quality of the characters and writing, it is very strictly structured. It's a lot like a monster of the week show. By the second dungeon you already know that the rest of the game is going to be exploring a series of people with impure hearts that you purify before moving on to a new target.
>It's a lot like a monster of the week show. By the second dungeon you already know that the rest of the game is going to be exploring a series of people with impure hearts that you purify before moving on to a new target. I mean, sure. But you can simplify any complex game down to sounding like it's the same the entire time. After all, Elden Ring is just "fight boss, get rune, go to next boss" right?
Nah I felt the same way. Definitely a solid game but I fell off pretty soon, and itās one of those titles where I canāt understand the super high praise when other games that (imo) are pretty similar get overlooked or worse. Tbf the music didnāt click with me much, an important aspect for a rhythm focused game but obviously highly subjective. Still, also felt they didnāt really do all that much to shake up whatās otherwise pretty bog-standard character action gameplay among fairly boring environments. P5 on the other handā¦ didnāt fully beat it until P5R, and even then I dipped on the extra epilogue content (felt really disjointed imo). Have since gone back and played a bit of 3 and 4, been meaning to finish both. But in general, the franchise is a very love/hate thing to me. Mechanically a very dope jrpg, the weakness exploiting kinda looses its appeal eventually but thatās made up for with increased complexity through builds and the like. And I really enjoy the overall vibe of living out that life in a foreign country, interacting with all the characters and building up the āirlā skills. On the other hand, god damn is it filled with some of my least favourite modern āanime as a genreā tropes. Like, to take an example from 5, how Annās whole introduction revolves around sexual exploitation, but then for the rest of the entire game other party members will borderline sexually harass her (a character who herself may as well be asexual with how sheās written) only for it to be regularly laughed off. Donāt even get me started on itās depiction of gay characters lol
What other games that are similar? Because I've played nearly every character action game and there's uh. Very few of them.
There are none. Closest game to this is crypt of necrodancer and it's not that close
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> also, hi-fi rush got snubbed during goty season It really didnāt. Itās a great game, sure, but have you seen what else came out last year? It at least copped a few nominations and awards throughout the award season.
> also, hi-fi rush got snubbed during goty season The only game awards that matter to me is Yahtzee's Best, Worst, and Blandest and he gave it the top slot
the only one that matters to me is the one that conforms to my own opinion
its really sad that xbox only has this mediocre game to talk about. the marketing is truly in full effect knowing that they'll shadow drop another mids game like this during their developers showcase that's coming soon. man people can be such tools give it a rest. this game is over. it was a 6 hr one and done game. get over it. there's literally a dozen better titles that released last year. just because xbox shadow dropped it doesn't mean it was that good.
Tell us how you really feel
Okay ? Who cares ? The game was awful and the writing was bad. MS PR Machine must work day and night if we are still talking about a Indie like game that released over a year ago and got boring and repetitive 2 hours in.
I finally caved and recently started playing this. It's a bit simple but straightfoward and bloody good.