Hi-Fi RUSH was a smash hit when it arrived on Xbox Game Pass out of nowhere back in January, but as is becoming increasingly less-common these days, the title shipped with just one performance mode on Xbox Series X|S. The game plays out at a rock-solid 60FPS on both systems, but at one stage, 120FPS was considered.
Speaking in an interview with toucharcade, Hi-Fi RUSH director John Johanas discussed 120FPS, and why the team opted for a solid 60 instead.
"We were at a point like early on where we were kind of figuring out what we would need to do to make it run at 120fps, and if we wanted it to do that, it would have to be solid for us. If it isn’t, what happens is audio desync occurs which would affect the gameplay experience.
We kind of saw what we need to do to maybe reduce fidelity to get it to run at 120fps. It wasn’t just for example, just lowering the resolution. It would be like turning off various shaders, like changing the graph, like the polygon counts on lots of things. A lot of work to do that, and we weren’t sure that it would hit 120fps solid the whole game as well.
So that would be an incredible amount of work to hit that. I think it would be great to have, but from a limited dev aspect we needed to sort of like draw the line and for us 60fps was a very clear goal that was achievable."
This is certainly understandable - rock-solid performance seems super important in a rhythm game and locking down 60FPS sounds like it was the right move for Hi-Fi RUSH in the end. We'd have loved 120 for that extra fluidity, but alas, the game was great at 60 anyway!
Speaking of which, it's somehow been almost a year since this Xbox exclusive was shadow dropped by Microsoft back in January. We'll drop our initial review from back then below - this ended up being one of the best surprises of 2023!
Are you happy with how Hi-Fi RUSH turned out on Xbox? Tell us your thoughts below.
[source toucharcade.com]
Comments 10
Saw that interview and wondered why that site was even doing that story when they focus on mobile and Switch. But interesting read nonetheless.
And loved the game as is. One of the few games that launched with almost no bugs and great framerate (fine with 60 FPS).
How good is this game actually is it worth a go?
Rock solid performance should be important for any game - not just limited to rhythm.
Interesting insight, though.
@eire-shabba It's pretty fun. If you like games like Bayonetta, it's worth a go since it has a very similar mechanic (as in you get graded for every combat encounter and the higher the score, the better the bonuses) - but everything is based on the rhythm of the music.
The developers added a "Beat Meter" that you can turn on for those having a hard time figuring out the beat for themselves.
Game is perfect as it is.
@eire-shabba I don't even like rhythm action games much but thought it was fantastic, just a few niggles here and there. Saturday morning cartoon vibes in a game. Definitely worth a try if you have Game Pass.
60fps was absolutely the right choice. You lose too much fidelity trying to hit 120fps, not a good trade.
@GamingFan4Lyf @themightyant I'll give it a go so looking for something fun to just pick up and play and have a buzz thanks lads👍
@eire-shabba I'm not a huge fan of rhythm based games, but I absolutely loved it. Once you get the hang of the rhythm pressing, the action seems to take over and produces some great visuals... it's very satisfying too. Definitely give it a try.
@RetroMan71 is the rhythm vital to playing the game as I wouldnt have the patience to constantly go with the beat I have 2 left feet in real life so it's not my strongest suit unless I have some Dutch courage in me haha
@eire-shabba Some elements of pressing buttons at the right time are required, but you get a screen prompt for them, but most of the time you'll just press to the rhythm for the perfect attack. It's not as daunting as you might think... 👍
Really a shame given that 120fps .makes rhythm games feel even better thanks to the tighter controls it affords. Was still good nonetheless.
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