‘You need to look at what you have in your mind, and then how the timing feels.’ For off-mainstream game projects to make a splash, that seems to be the key – the team behind the unique medieval narrative adventure Pentiment also made similar remarks in the wake of the game’s successful release. And I like to think that we can kind of do anything now.’Īs to what kind of broad form that takes, that’s still an unknown to him at the moment, despite having several ideas in his head. But we did, and I think we did a good job with it. ‘I mean, we’re probably looking at a very specific audience who are super hardcore and coming back into it, but they’re kinda breezing through it, which is like a shock because even our teams internally took a long time!’ Image: Tango Gameworks The Next Hit RecordĪs to what the future holds for Johanas and Tango’s future projects, he continues to be emboldened by the success of Hi-Fi Rush in the wake of its successful surprise release. ‘I know that sounds like a marketing thing, but the people in the office originally were sceptical, and then when they finally played it, they were like, “Oh, okay! This is like its own thing.”‘Īt the time of our talk, the audience reception to the newly-released modes had been positive, but also quite surprising to Johanas. ‘But the spin that they put on how you approach combat really makes it feel like a whole new experience.’ The second, Power Up! Tower Up! puts a roguelike twist on the mechanics, starting you off with a vanilla version of Chai that must tackle rooms of enemies and earn upgrades as he progresses. ‘With these two new modes, the gameplay is essentially the same,’ says Johanas. The mode increases the maximum tempo limit of the combat system to a blistering 200 beats per minute (BPM), where the original ceiling was 160 BPM. The catch is that the music tracks, which inform the cadence of enemy attacks and have the potential to power up Chai’s moves (providing you can match your inputs to the beat), increase in tempo each time. What resulted was a new mode, BPM Rush, which pits Chai against increasing waves of enemies. The team at Tango, who only had solidified post-launch plans for additional costumes at the time of release, decided to additionally expand on those modes with increased challenges, which also seemed like a reasonable task, given the relatively short turnaround, in terms of development time. ‘When the game came out and we saw the positive reception, one of the things that came back from a gameplay perspective was that people actually played the extra content, and they just loved the gameplay of it.’ The game’s free Arcade Challenge Update, released six months later (around a day after Anime Expo) is an attempt to continue to sate the audience hungering for this now-classic style of character action game. Looking back, the arrival of the game actually heralded a year that featured multiple remasters and remakes from the same era – among them, Metroid Prime Remastered and the remake of Resident Evil 4 – and capitalised on the nostalgia of an ageing population of game lovers.įrameborder="0" allow="accelerometer autoplay clipboard-write encrypted-media gyroscope picture-in-picture web-share" allowfullscreen> Here Comes A New (Arcade) Challenger I wish the whole team was here to see it.’ĭespite being a brand new intellectual property, Hi-Fi Rush itself is a callback to the console action games of the early 2000’s, like Okami and Viewtiful Joe, and other media of the time, like Futurama and the films of Edgar Wright. It was a little bit overwhelming, and I think I got blindsided by how many people were there. I’m not used to people saying they like our game in person. Johanas tweeted that it was surreal to hear an audience chat ‘Chai, Chai, Chai!’ during the panel, mimicking the in-game crowd chants that egg on the protagonist, Chai. They’re probably mostly there for the voice actors, but they’re also coming up to us and super passionate, telling us about how much they love the game – they made unique art for us to have as gifts.’ ‘But we went to this room, and there are hundreds of people. I just assumed if there’s more than zero, it’s a success,’ Johanas remarks. ‘Going in, I didn’t know how many people were going to be there. At the time of our conversation, Johanas had just returned from Anime Expo 2023, where he sat, for the first time, on a public panel with members of the Hi-Fi Rush cast – Erica Lindbeck (Peppermint), Sarah Elmaleh (Korsica), Gabe Kunda (Macaron), and Robbie Daymond (Chai) – to talk about creating the game’s memorable characters. There are some heartening indications that the fire Hi-Fi Rush lit is still burning, however. Read: Hi-Fi Rush, the surprise Xbox exclusive, is pure delight The Hi-Fi Rush Legacy Image: Tango Gameworks
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