6 Tips to Help Get Started in Hi-Fi Rush | Beginner’s Guide

by Mike Alexander / Articles, Misc. Guides / 04 Jan 2023

At the Xbox Developer Direct, Bethesda and Tango Gameworks dropped one hell of an announcement: a brand new IP that is stylish, action-packed and has great music! Viewers were stunned and the hype to get their hands on the game was immediate. Even more stunning was the fact that the game was releasing the very same day, just a few hours after the presentation.

Now, it’s been a few days since Hi Fi Rush was released, and countless players have already mastered the game’s rhythm-based combat and conquered the ominous robotics company Vandelay Technologies. However if you are just coming across Hi-Fi Rush now, there’s no need to fear! As always, we are here with some helpful tips to get you on beat and ready to beat down some bad bots in style. So pick up your scrap metal axe, snap your fingers and prepare to rock!

Slooooooow Down

Hi-Fi Rush is a character action game and that means you’re going to fight waves of enemies and be graded on how fast and stylishly you dispatched them. However, don’t worry about speed right when you start. That’ll come eventually with time and practice. The much more important thing to get down when you start playing Hi-Fi Rush is finding and staying on the beat.

That means your first instinct of mashing buttons when you enter a fight is not going to be the best way to play. Take a deep breath, slow down, and maybe put on some headphones so you can focus in on the game’s sound better. This will allow you to attack and dodge to the beat, which will give you a sharp damage boost and make you an unstoppable fighter.

Turn on Visual Aids

The world of Hi Fi Rush does plenty to show you the proper beat timing, but that’s not all you can use to find the beat. If you press the view button on your Xbox controller, you will bring up a kind of digital metronome that will constantly show you the beat and make it much easier to follow.

There’s no shame in turning this on to learn at the beginning, and after a while, you might find that you’re already on beat without even using it!

Latency is Death

The game has a tip that warns you about this, but due to its intense focus on music and rhythm, Hi Fi Rush’s experience is heavily defined by the amount of input lag or latency between your controller and the screen you’re playing on. Even just a few milliseconds is enough to completely throw off your timing, making finding the beat impossible.

The best way to fix this is to enable your TV’s “Game Mode” option, if it has that. This will reduce the amount of processing your TV does to the picture, but it will also reduce that latency, which is of critical importance for Hi-Fi Rush.

The Triple Dodge

Attacking isn’t the only thing that benefits from landing on the beat. If you’re in the groove and have the right timing, you can chain up to three dodges in a row, and the final one makes Chai do a leap forward that also draws gears and collectibles towards him. It’s pretty helpful for moving faster through stages too, since there is no sprint button.

Without the right timing, you can only do a single dodge. It will get you out of harm’s way, but it doesn’t look as cool and there is a drawn-out reset animation that needs to be completed before you can dodge again successfully. Just another reason to find the beat!

New Moves, Rock On!

In between stages, don’t forget to take your hard-earned gears over to Peppermint at the hideout. She has a store where you can buy new combos, new special moves, and items that will increase your health and reverb storage.

Increasing your list of combos and gaining access to some really killer moves is some of the most fun you can have in Hi-Fi Rush and you’re going to want all the health and reverb you can get for later stages. The big bosses of Vandelay don’t mess around and neither should you!

Take Time to Explore

Hi-Fi Rush is a linear, stage-based game, but it also hides plenty of goodies just off of that main path. Take your time combing areas, looking around off ledges and jumping to ledges that seem to be within reach. You’ll usually find lots of gears, which you’re going to need to unlock the good stuff.

Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.
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