PSA: Stick With Hi-Fi Rush Until You Get The Parry

thegamer.com:

From the moment Hi-Fi Rush launched on Xbox last year, I’ve been singing its praises to anyone who will listen, begging them to give one of my all-time favourites the chance it deserves.

That’s something I’m going to keep doing now it’s come to PS5, not that it really needs the extra help considering how well it reviewed and sold for such a niche game. But I’ll be damned if I let another musical-focused masterpiece suffer the same fate as Brutal Legend.

Hi-Fi Rush is brilliant in so many different ways that convincing people to give it a chance and then being told how right I am is an easy gig, but there’s always one caveat to my recommendation: stick with it until you at least get the parry ability in the third level.

The opening hours of Hi-Fi Rush are great at welcoming you into its vibrant, fast-paced world and making you start to fall in love with its wholesome cast of characters, but it’s not such a great introduction to the combat mechanics and how satisfying they later become. Things purposefully start slowly so you can get used to the unique rhythm-based combat mechanics, but the small movepool and basic encounters can make it feel pretty bare-bones in its first few levels.

Don't even get me started on how slowly Chai meanders around until you get used to triple-dodging to the beat.

This starts to change as you buy new moves and abilities after the first level and master performing actions to the beat, but Hi-Fi Rush continues to slowly drip-feeds important mechanics, like calling in partners and using powerful special attacks. For some reason, though, the parry takes longer to unlock than any other ability, and it makes the biggest difference of all.

Towards the end of the third level (roughly three hours in), Chai finds himself up against Zanzo, the anime-loving head of Vandelay’s R&D department. After making your way across lava and tons of robots, you’ll eventually come up against laser-firing turrets, forcing Chai into coming up with a new way of