The new rhythm game Hi-Fi Rush is the latest game to go viral, thanks to its unique gameplay style. You’ll either love or hate this title, but if you’ve been wanting something different, this is a rhythm game that you might love playing.
If you want to master Hi-Fi Rush, read through our guide to learn eight essential tips and tricks.
Right now, Hi-Fi Rush is only available on Xbox, so be sure to grab some Xbox Live gift cards from OffGamers today.
8 Tips and Tricks for Hi-Fi Rush – the Rhythm Game
1. Remember to Pick Up Collectibles and Drops
Each stage in Hi-Fi Rush will have collectibles that you can grab. You’ll need these collectibles to upgrade Chai, so get into the habit of picking them whenever you find them.
Collectibles are usually hidden in not-so-obvious places, so be sure to explore every nook and cranny of each level.
Other collectibles include:
- Vandelay pieces, which will boost your own health and special bar. Once you’ve collected all four broken pieces, Chai will automatically get an upgrade.
- Graffiti paintings, which you can display in your hideout.
Along with collectibles, you’ll find gears, energy and health drops. Be sure to grab these, too. Gears are used as in-game currency, and you’ll need them to purchase attacks, upgrades and chips. You’ll find them scattered on the floor, or you can smash crates to get both gears and energy.
Vending machines may also have gears and energy, but you’ll need to smash them until the screen breaks. Each hit has a chance to drop energy and gears.
Here are a few other ways to get gears:
- Hit gold busts over and over until their health is depleted. Like with vending machines, each hit has a chance to drop gears.
- Look for tubs of gears, as they drop larger amounts of gears.
2. Dodging is Fun and Useful
Dodging is such a useful skill in Hi-Fi Rush. In fact, it’s the move you’ll probably use the most throughout the game.
Along with avoiding enemy attacks, you can also use dodge to traverse the map. To manoeuvre large gaps, use double-jump and dodge to go further.
You can chain dodges up to three times. Just time your dodges to the beat to bypass attacks or get through the map more quickly.
Here are a few more tips for dodging:
- If there are no enemies nearby to attack, you can keep your combat rating up by stringing a series of dodges to the beat.
- Press the view button on your controller to get a permanent beat bar at the bottom of the screen. This will give you a visual representation of the beat, which may make it a little easier to time your dodges.
3. The Reward for Parrying is Great
As you progress through Hi-Fi Rush, you’ll unlock more abilities, like Parry. A perfect parry will stun your opponent momentarily, giving you time to attack uninterrupted.
Parry is really useful, but it’s tricky to master. Your timing needs to be perfect to pull it off, which can be tough when you have multiple enemies to fend off.
But once you’ve mastered parrying, you’ll find that battles are much easier.
Look for the purple and yellow flash that will pop up above the enemy’s weapon just before an incoming attack. Active parry when you see this flash.
4. Practice Your Combos
A little practice can go a long way in enhancing your gaming experience. Combos can be a little tricky to get used to at first, but luckily, there’s the Training Room.
The Training Room is where you can practice all of the combos that you’ve unlocked throughout the game and get used to timing your move with the beat.
It’s a great opportunity to practice:
- Breakdown, which will hit several enemies.
- Tremolo, which will deal serious damage to a single enemy.
- Launching enemies.
If you’re struggling with parry and new attacks, take some time to master these moves in the Training Room. It’s worth the time investment to improve your gameplay and your experience.
The Training Room gives you complete control over the fight, including:
- How many enemies you fight.
- Whether enemies can fight back.
- Enemy strength.
Playing around with these settings will let you practice and improve your skills in a variety of settings.
Because you have so much control over the fight, you can also use the Training Room as an opportunity to practice fighting enemies that you struggle with. Continue practising until you’ve mastered encounters with these enemies. It will make gameplay so much easier and more rewarding.
5. Play Around with the Settings
In a game like Hi-Fi Rush, it’s really important to play around with the settings so that you’re comfortable with the gameplay.
Remember that this is a timing-based game, so your settings should be catered to your preferences. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself getting frustrated, and the game will become more of a chore than anything else.
Experiment with different difficulty levels and settings to find a combination that works best for you.
You’ll find four difficulty settings with this game:
- Easy
- Normal
- Hard
- Very hard
If your rhythm game isn’t very strong, try Easy or Normal to start. If you’ve never played a rhythm game, we recommend going with Easy until you get used to the gameplay style.
Because this is a timing-based game, things like lag can really make or break a fight. If you’re having FPS issues or issues with lagging, you can play around with the graphics settings to speed things up.
Check out tip #8 for more help with lag or latency.
6. Call for Help When Needed
In Hi-Fi Rush, you don’t have to fight alone. Once you unlock your friends, use them to your advantage when fighting. Summon allies to help you defeat difficult enemies.
Peppermint is one of the first friends you can unlock in the game, and she can shoot down enemies at range. Macaron does a body slam move that can be really useful in combat.
You can use allies for defensive purposes, to stun enemies or even to gain access to inaccessible areas. Each one will have moves that can help you out in combat or when traversing levels.
7. Always Look at Your Health
Rhythm games are easy to get lost in because you’ll get immersed in trying to find and maintain the beat. For some players, it’s really easy to monitor everything in the game, while others focus on fighting their opponents and never pay attention to their health.
One of the survival tips that you’ll want to follow is to really pay attention to your health during gameplay.
If your health falls to a critical level, try making space between you and your enemies to regain control of the game.
We found that you can alleviate a lot of the pressure by taking the battle to the air. If you learn how to juggle enemies, you can stagger combos with three hits to remain in the air and prevent the enemies from executing attacks on you.
Be careful here because if you complete a four-move combo, you’ll knock the enemy away and allow them to regain balance and start attacking you in the process.
8. Use the Latency Checking Tool
Rhythm games are a ton of fun, but they also need you to time the rhythm properly. You’ll need to eliminate any latency in the game that you can, and this can be done by using the built-in Latency Checking Tool.
You’ll find the tool under the Sound Settings on the Options Menu.
The trick here is to move the cat logo to the point where it blinks as the beat marker passes. The developer did a great job with this mechanic because it is a visual way for you to see how much audio lag you’re experiencing.
When playing on Streamer Mode, this tiny adjustment will make a world of difference.
And on top of this, if you find that you’re still not hitting the rhythm right, you can just adjust the difficulty setting. You need to be a true rhythm master if you have the game on the hardest level.
What to Expect When Playing Hi-Fi Rush
Hi-Fi Rush is a game that has the Internet in an uproar. It’s a different type of game, and players really didn’t know what to expect when playing it for the first time. However, it’s a title that a lot of people state could have easily sold for double the price.
Why?
The concept is different. People are bored of major studios publishing games that are relatively the same.
A few of the things that you need to know before picking up this title are:
You can expect to beat the game in 10 – 15 hours of gameplay.
Getting the rhythm of the game will take a lot of time, but you’ll figure it out if you play long enough. Players really feel like this is a pivotal title in gaming because it doesn’t rehash the same concepts that a lot of games in the industry have a habit of doing.
Each and every level has new content and enemies to beat, moves and things that keep you engaged. This isn’t a game that makes you run across the world in hopes that a random, reskinned monster will keep you engaged.
If you’ve been playing games since the time of PS2, you’re in for a lot of nostalgia. One of the points that people keep reiterating online is that the game feels a lot like a PS2 game – in a good way.
Parrying and dodging really matter a lot in this game. If you’re used to gearing up and then never dodging an attack or trying to mitigate damage, you are in for a major surprise because Hi-Fi Rush requires you to time dodges and parries to win.
If you’re a fan of the music in games, you won’t be disappointed.
The game is very challenging when you have it on hard, and you may find yourself being obliterated by Samurai if you’re not careful.
After you beat the game, there are a lot of unlockable options and new challenges that you can play through. There is even a post-game quest that you can play, which is a lot of fun.
Streamer mode is a massive addition to the game and is something every game should do. The mode is unique because it replaces some of the in-game tracks with originals that are similar so that you can stream the game without worrying about licensing issues or the sound being muted.
Smash everything you can in the game. You’ll find a lot of goodies hidden away and unlocked by bashing objects in your way. For anyone who loves the good old times when you had to check every inch of a level and find goodies along the way, Hi-Fi Rush is definitely a game that leverages these beloved concepts.
And here’s a pro tip for if you’re tired of the Samurai: run away from them. Creating space will allow you to wait until the enemy does two lash attacks before entering their normal stance when you can destroy them without using patterns.
The developer also spent a lot of time on tutorials.
In fact, there may be too many tutorials. With that said, the tutorials are so in-depth that they allow you to really understand all of the mechanics in a game.
We will mention that Hi-Fi Rush is a rhythm game, and it’s something that you’ll either love or not like at all. Many people really enjoy the game and have been waiting for something different to play for a long time.
However, others just don’t like the rhythm part of the game.
If you purchased the game, be sure to watch gameplay on YouTube or Twitch to get some more insight into the game and how it’s played. You may pick up a few tips that make the Hi-Fi Rush more exciting and fun for you to play.
