As I’ve been shouting at anyone who will listen to me over the past year,Hi-Fi Rushquickly cemented itself as one of my favourite games of all time. I love nearly everything about it, from its colourful visuals and energetic soundtrack to its heartfelt characters and toe-tapping rhythmic combat that makes you feel like a rock god.
Even if my Hi-Fi Rush tattoo firmly places me as a Chai-hard fan (sorry), that doesn’t mean I was always so smitten with it. In the first few hours, I was worried that its presentation and vibes were acting like a roadie and doing most of the heavy lifting, as the combat initially feels like it’s missing a few crucial elements.
That something turned out to be the parry, a mechanic so essential to character action games that it’s bewildering it’s locked off for so long. The introduction of the counter is the catalyst for unlocking Hi-Fi Rush’s true potential and marks the moment when things go from a novel idea to a wonderful harmony of rhythm and action, but it’s the final act that ascends it to being something special.
Hi-Fi’s final act begins just as the group makes their way through the Vandelay museum and takes out Mimosa, one of the last bosses. Not only do we get a great, albeit easy, fight against her that mixes rhythm and action better than any other section up to that point, but we also start to see Chai take things seriously and bond with the rest of the team.
Mimosa’s defeat leads to Hi-Fi Rush’s most well-known moment and one of my favourite levels in any game, period - the Invaders Must Die sequence. Busting through the window into a massive group of enemies and slowly hearing the deep bass of The Prodigy’s masterpiece kick in is like a shot of adrenaline that lets you know you’re in the endgame now, son.
Some other notable needle-drop moments include 1,000,000 by Nine Inch Nails and Lonely Boy by The Black Keys. Even better, each licensed song has an original version made for Hi-Fi Rush that keeps the same beat.
As great as the OST is throughout Hi-Fi, wrapping the game’s combat around such an iconic and fast-paced bop elevates it beyond anything you’ve seen up to that point and makes for such an electric and memorable scene. It’s an awesome moment that’s made all the better by the fact that the combat is firing on all cylinders at this point and not holding anything back, which comes to a head in the brutal fight against Roquefort.
Hi-Fi Rush pitting you against a mechanical werewolf while Wolfgang’s 5th Symphony plays is another iconic needle-drop moment, but it’s the quieter scene that follows where the gang is locked behind a forcefield which stuck with me the most.
After struggling with responsibility, purpose, and being a part of a team for the whole game, Chai finally steps up to the plate and literally finds harmony through his friendships to bust them out, leaping into the final two levels of the game. It’s very “power of friendship” coded, but the rapport between the main gang is so full of love that it’s a perfect fit.
Even CNMN, who is mainly played for laughs, gets his own hero moment in the final hours of Hi-Fi Rush.
What follows such a tender scene is an even more powerful moment where the team works perfectly in sync with one another to reach Kale, all while Whirring, a song about hidden potential and depth, fittingly plays in the background. Hi-Fi makes you grow so attached to its core cast of characters and root for them to win that such a culminating moment for their individual arcs and relationships makes me misty-eyed every time.
These few levels are such a rollercoaster of epic music and emotional scenes with heroes you simply don’t want to stop spending time with, and it’s all bookended with the most challenging fight in the game against Kale that tests everything you’ve learned up to that point to the beat of a rocking song from Nine Inch Nails. As Chai crosses guitars with a laser beam while lightning rains down from the sky, epic is the only word that comes to mind.
Kale’s defeat leads to a rarity in modern gaming - an actual conclusion without any cliffhangers or live-service promises of unending content and expansions. Hi-Fi ends after accomplishing what it’s set out to do, having taken its characters on a full journey without them overstaying their welcome or cutting things off too early and feeling rushed.
It’s rare that a game’s final act delivers on so many levels and almost makes the rest of the journey look lesser in comparison, but that’s just how great this finale is. Hi-Fi Rush’s final act is the game performing at its very best, throwing out its biggest licensed songs, its hardest boss battles, and its most emotional moments, all without missing a single beat.
