Hi-Fi Rush: Beginner’s Guide [Our Tips & Tricks]

The infusion of musical Rhythm along with Hack and slash action can be a daunting sight for newcomers, but with our Hi-Fi Rush Beginner’s Guide, you will be easily slaying enemies to the beat of the music in no time flat. The game incentivizes you to learn its creative gameplay mechanics to play it efficiently, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed if you’re not familiar with its general gameplay consensus.

Here are some main tips that you should keep in mind while playing Hi-Fi Rush:

Enable The Beat Visualizer

You can enable an immensely helpful feature in the game called the Beat Visualizer, which essentially allows you to visually read the beats as they’re appearing on-screen. It is an accessibility tool that can be toggled on and off at your leisure by pressing either the Tab key on your keyboard or the View button on the Xbox controller.

As shown in the image above, the beats will appear as red circles, which stop in the middle-ringed area, so make sure to have it enabled so you can run into fewer mistakes when performing inputs or other attacks.

Completing Challenges For Rewards

As soon as you gain access to the hideout after the first chapter, it will act as your base of operations, allowing you to interact with a bunch of NPCs, among other things. One of these includes the graffiti wall behind the couch here, which will allow you to view a list of different challenges. These challenges are split across various categories, from battle-related ones to even miscellaneous ones, such as acquiring a certain number of items.

Completing the objectives of these challenges will reward you with a high sum of Gear, which can be used to unlock additional combos and abilities for Chai. Make sure you regularly visit the challenges board to see which ones you have completed so you can reap their rewards or even ones you’re close to finishing up.

Exploring For Items

But the main thing that each of these missions comprises is the multi-layered level design, which may not seem like that at first but trust us when we say that fully exploring them will be necessary as each level contains one or two hidden items needed to be collected. It is honestly one of the few things that are worth keeping in mind from our Beginner’s Guide for Hi-Fi Rush.

These items are specifically the Life Gauge or the Electric Reverb Cores, which, when collected in a specific amount, will permanently increase either the total HP or Reverb gauge of Chai. The items in question are tucked away in hidden parts of the levels or alongside alternate paths, so keep your eyes sharp.

Timing The Beat Hits

You can perform different kinds of finishers at the end of each combo in the game in the form of Beat Hits, which have an interesting mechanic in order to execute them properly. As shown in the image above, Beat Hits will require you to press either attack button as the outer red circle perfectly overlaps with the green circle. Correctly timing the beat hits will allow you to deal extra damage upon performing combo finishers.

The In-Game Shop

Just like most action games in the market, you are able to stylize and upgrade Chai in a few different ways, most specifically, being able to unlock new combos for him as well as a brand new set of special attacks to equip. These can all be purchased and unlocked via Peppermint’s in-game shop found in the hideout. There are also a few instances where you can encounter her portable shop while playing missions.

We strongly recommend picking up a couple of combos right from the get-go, as Chai will have access to a limited set of combos from the early going in Hi-Fi Rush.

Additional Rhythm Indicators

Head into the settings, at the bottom of the accessibility tab. There should be an option to enable another Beats indicator for 808, the cat, which essentially acts as Chai’s sidekick. As shown in the image above, you can tune it to your personal liking with up to three different modes to choose from. This will further ensure that you don’t end up missing any beats while performing inputs during the combat scenarios.

Combat Tips And Tricks

Despite the Rhythm aspect being a major element of the gameplay, at the core of everything, Hi-Fi Rush is still a complex action game with deep combat mechanics, so mentioning a few pointers for our Beginner’s guide will help you master things quickly.

Practice In Training Mode

The training mode itself contains a variety of functions that you can tweak to your liking, from adjusting enemy types and their behavior to using the Beat Visualizer to master the rhythm inputs instinctively. Fighting enemies in training will help ensure you remain at your best for the combat sections, as well as practice any of your combos at your own leisure, so we highly recommend taking time out for it.

Airborne Juggles And Dash Attacks

If you’re familiar with most action games and maybe an expert with their deeper mechanics, then you will easily understand what we mean by air juggling. By launching enemies high into the air, you will gain an advantage over most mobs by staying in the mid-air section for longer than the intended period.

While most games have different methods to learn air juggling properly, a fun way to do that in Hi-Fi Rush is by using Chai’s grappling hook to latch onto enemies as soon as you execute your Beat Hit. If timed correctly, it will cancel out the ending animation and strike the enemy once again for additional damage. Of course, it can take some practice to execute timely, so again, practice it in the training mode whenever possible.

Parry Or Dodging Attacks

In order to avoid most attacks, you will need to time your dodges, or else you will get hit quite often, interrupting your combo chain as well as disrupting your ranking in the process.

The dash button will, of course, be your means to dodge, and only inputting it to the beat will allow you to chain it successfully up to 3 times. Just keep in mind that you can only dash a single time while in mid-air. Lastly, you will unlock the ability to parry in Mission #3, “Trial by (Volcanic) Fire,” by pressing the B button on your controller.

Special Attacks

By building up the Reverb Gauge, Chai can unleash special attacks that can inflict an insane amount of damage on the enemy or boss, changing the tide of the battle at any given moment. There are a number of special attacks available for Chai to equip, as most of them can be bought from Peppermint via her in-game store. You can only equip a single special attack during the starting stages of the game.

However, as mentioned previously, you can even unlock another special attack attachment slot. Still, since the price can be concerning, it doesn’t hurt to wait until you’re a few missions into the game to grab it. Lastly, it is worth pointing out that not every special attack will be the same and vice versa, as each one has a different range of attacks or abilities that it unleashes.

Using Allies In Battle

Hi-Fi Rush allows players the opportunity to call in NPC allies who can provide assistance to them during any kind of combat encounter. You gradually unlock new characters throughout the main campaign, with the first one being Peppermint, but later on, as you meet and unlock new characters such as Macaron, they will become an indispensable sidekick that can hop in and out of combat to deal extra damage to foes.

Furthermore, they have a slight cooldown whenever you call them in, too, so make sure to rotate each one during the battle in order not to mess your rhythm up.

This wraps up our Beginner’s Guide for Hi-Fi Rush. It contains a few obvious things, but with them explained more in-depth, it will help provide every essential piece of information that you need when starting out as the quick-witted Chai for the first time. If you have any other questions, then be sure to let us know about them in the comments section below, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.