Microsoft’s incredibly ill-timed “Developer Direct” was this Wednesday, right off the heels of MS slashing 10k roles across all business units, studios, etc. We didn’t expect anything too crazy . . but Tango Gameworks came out swinging. They haven’t really been on my radar because The Evil Within isn’t my jam and Ghostwire: Tokyo wasn’t either. Wednesday they told us what they’ve been working on, and released it too, and it owns.

Hi-Fi RUSH is a character-action game, and a rhythm game, and a goofy action anime, and it has a soundtrack made up of a mix of original and licensed music. On paper this shouldn’t be great, I mean, someone will enjoy it, but it won’t be a Big Deal. Like, SCARLET NEXUS was a sorta-character-action game from last year, and it was super duper anime, and it wasn’t my jam. But just from the tiny tiny trailer this game had me. I was sold entirely, ready to put it on my calendar and patiently wait for it, but then they just released the damn thing same-day.

The game is amazing and shocking considering what the studio has previously produced, seemingly a complete tonal 180 from all these super serious horror games, but this sent me down the rabbit hole of the drama of mid-2000s Capcom. They made a ton of amazing and exceptionally weird stuff at that time. Phoenix Wright, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, P.N.03, Killer7, etc. Shinji Mikami was involved in all these games, and also Devil May Cry, and this is his studio, and the studio has a ton of talent formerly of these various Capcom and Capcom-adjacent studios responsible for all those amazing games. So duh, of course this studio would be uniquely positioned to build an amazing goofy upbeat character action game, they basically invented the genre.

So Hi-Fi RUSH starts with the basis of world-class character action combat, it’s got a light attack, a heavy attack, combos, parry, specials, ‘scenes’, combo-scoring, etc. Then they layer in the musical element: the protagonist has experienced a critical biomechanical whoopsiedoodle in the cybernetic medical experiment he signed up for, and now has a robot arm and an mp3 player in his chest. As a side effect, he can now sense a musical vibe in the world, and can summon a Flying-V guitar from scrap metal, and can bludgeon robots to death according to the beat. A Rhythm game! In 2023! On modern hardware! Intended to be played on HD televisions with input lag! Played with wireless controllers! And somehow against all odds it works PERFECTLY. I don’t know exactly what kind of special sauce they have implemented here to make it work, some of the wiggle-room might come from having attacks “happen” on a beat regardless of if you hit it or not, but they still somehow have rewards for timing accuracy.

Aesthetically and tonally this all works beautifully because the game is styled as a bright vibrant blue-sky hyper-saturated cel-shaded anime, all the way down to having seamless transitions to cutscenes that are literally just full-on anime, animated by a real animation studio (Titmouse, interestingly!). Is some of the dialogue cringe? Ehhh, sorta? But it’s anime, it’s very clearly intentional, and they manage to keep it more goofy and endearing than cringe.

I have nothing bad to say about this game, all I have is shameless gushing. It feels perfectly tailored to my specific interests. It’s hard to not compare it to FLCL, what with smashing robots with guitars and all, but it’s goofier, and I’m totally into it as a recovering weeb. The combat is tight and as complex as you want it to be: it’s totally supportive of button mashing but rewards learning at least a couple combos. There’s nothing frustrating about the game, the difficulty scaling is fair, nothing over-stays its welcome, missions are a great length. Technically it’s seemingly flawless: I encountered no bugs, no glitches, solid framerate, no loading, and transitions back and forth from pre-rendered cutscene to in-game cutscene to gameplay is seamless unlike anything I can recall playing in recent history.

And a quick side-note about that, games have tried to do anime styling before, and this is the best I’ve seen. It always seems a bit off, like the cel-shading will be a little weird, or there’ll be a clear visual difference between the quality of the cutscenes vs the gameplay that’s jarring. Or there’ll be a compromise leaving the animation quality still looking like 3d/CG animation. There’s none of that here, there’s no compromises on either side. It looks absolutely unlike anything else I’ve played, and it makes it all blend together perfectly.

And the MUSIC! Licensed music in games is always a risk, outside of stuff like skating games or “actual” rhythm games, it almost always ends up cringe and feels out of place. Here it’s perfect. Most of the soundtrack was produced in-house, and the base soundtrack is great uptempo guitar rock. The handful licensed tracks are reserved for critical moments, boss fights, set piece encounters, and they’re not just there they’re chopped up and seamlessly reassembled to match what’s going on, looping during lulls, choruses during heavy combat, shifting verses during boss phases, etc. And the selection is great . . for me! Two Nine Inch Nails tracks are used to great effect for boss fights, a fight with the head of marketing is set to a cover of Fiona Apple’s Fast as You Can, and again, tailoring the game precisely to my personal interests, the entire penultimate mission is set to The Joy Formidable’s Whirring. That mission is going to stick with me for a long time as one of (if not the) best usage of licensed music in gaming. This single level is up there for me as perfect example of a deeply synesthetic gaming/music experience, as good as as Rez (particularly Infinite), Tetris Effect Connected, or one of those god-tier difficult end levels from the Ouendan series.

While I keep saying this game seems like it was made specifically for me in particular, it’s getting an amazing reception: lots of 9’s and 10’s from critics, 98% positive on Steam. I hope everyone involved gets the message that yes we want more unashamedly goofy games like this. Every game doesn’t have to be an 80 hour gritty realistic dystopian misery simulator. Greenlight all the weird ideas, please, I am begging you.

This game deserves so many accolades, but it probably won’t get them come December. Last year it was hard for anything to get past the insurmountable duo of God of War: Ragnarok and Elden Ring. This year it will almost certainly be Tears of the Kingdom and Final Fantasy XVI, maybe Diablo IV, hopefully Starfield, and it will be so hard to remember this plucky game from January. For now, while we wait for this year’s releases to really get rolling, I am highly recommending it to anyone who will listen to me.