Its wide range of difficulty settings and swath of accessibility options give this one the malleability to cater to any kind of player, which I really appreciate. While your attacks do help contribute elements to the music, it never felt like it was actively punishing me for being a bit off-key, but rather rewarding me when I was on the right beat. While Hi-Fi Rush is definitely a part of the new wave of rhythm games where music isn’t just the genre, like Metal: Hellsinger, BPM, and Cadence of Hyrule, I find that this one is more forgiving than most of its contemporaries. But that’s just something that stood out to me. Maybe this quickens with upgrades over time, or maybe I’m unfairly comparing the game to Sunset Overdrive thanks to their shared attitude and color palette. That said, my one complaint at this early point in the game is that Chai’s basic movement speed feels a tad slow, especially when I’m exploring every nook and cranny looking for secrets.

When I mentioned the Dreamcast thing earlier, this is what I meant – the colorful take on this outlandish premise has big Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, and Crazy Taxi energy, as does its love and admiration for all things music. The environment all moves to the beat of the soundtrack – pistons pump in a factory, crowds cheer at a concert, and even Chai himself taps his foot as an idle animation.

On paper, Hi-Fi Rush is a character action game where you play as Chai, a kid who gains the ability to feel the internal rhythm and pulse of the world around him, all while being able to use his rad new mechanical arm to magnetize bits of scrap metal into a battle ax guitar. Hi-Fi Rush feels like a forgotten Dreamcast game in the best possible way, and it is the first great gaming surprise of 2023.

While the reveal trailer stood out thanks to its use of every single color in the Crayola box, it wasn’t till I got a chance to actually play the thing that I realized just how special it was. While Xbox’s successful new Direct format didn’t have a marquee game to show off like Starfield, the reveal of Hi-Fi Rush from Shinji Mikami’s Tango Gameworks was a wonderful surprise, only made better by the fact that it stealth-dropped on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass that very day.

Hi-fi rush difficulty