Recent reviews by max

Enjoying it so far.

While I understand that many players want Square Enix include ultrawide support with the game, which is valid, for now there's this: https://github.com/Lyall/FF7RebirthFix
Lyall makes awesome QoL and ultrawide support mods for many JRPGs and other games.

Also, from what I understand this game is "playable" on Steam Deck after tweaking but given the blurriness, performance compromises, and high battery drain, "Verified" seems a bit disingenuous.

This is definitely getting my nomination for the 2025 "Best Game You Suck At" Steam Award.

Oh, it's peak... it's peak fr...
(I have a lot more hours on console, also the optimization on this PC port is awesome)

Okay now this is epic

They are cooking with this.

This is like how I remember it except much more beautifully realized with high polycount, fancier textures, vfx, animations, etc. The gameplay holds up well, too!

A few things are a bit rough around the edges like some sound effects cutting out or camera cutting too soon before a fade to black once or twice. I also found it weird that on an Xbox controller, the buttons to enter/cancel jumping into a projector are Y for enter or X for cancel. It would be more intuitive if it was A to enter or B to cancel. These are minor, minor nitpicks though.

UPDATED REVIEW: Runs way better after patch and GPU driver update. AMD users, make sure to get the exact driver (or newer) that the dev recommended in the Discussions page. Thank you SE for improving your PC port! Would be even better if they uncap cutscene framerates.

While not a perfectly polished, concise game, there's a lot to love here. Cool combat, liked the main cast, and enjoyed the open-world bonus dungeons. DLCs are fun too!
My jaw dropped at the part of the game where you arrive at Altissia.

As much as I like to beat story-based games before reviewing, it’s already become abundantly clear to me in the first 20 hours that yes, this game is amazing.

UPDATE: After beating the game I can conclude that yes, this game is amazing.

Wish I could leave this positive review under better circumstances (as this is an awesome game), but unfortunately I'm giving this thumbs up out of spite to Microsoft/Bethesda for shutting down Tango Gameworks. What were y'all thinking?

UPDATE: shoutout to Krafton for purchasing Tango Gameworks and getting the rights to Hi-Fi Rush IP! Hoping for a sequel.

Highlights:
- art style nailed the textured/cel-shaded combo reminiscent of Borderlands, Roboquest, etc.
- red shotgun firing animation is cool, reminds me of the Halo 4 forerunner weaponry
- I like the SYNC gameplay hook of possessing different robots. Each robot is a unique playstyle. Makes for a fun FPS. Don't think I've seen that used to this extent in a game before.
- electronic score (music) totally nails the theme you're going for.
- Solid FPS gameplay at its core. Some of the platforming segments highlight just how precise the movement is, which not all FPS games have.

Room for improvement:
- I didn't like that the game defaults to 1280x720 and low graphics. 1920x1080 and at least medium is standard.
- volume sliders are slow to drag left & right, they also don't apply instantly when you click APPLY (they apply in the next scene I think, which could mean an entire level later). I usually prefer when I click somewhere on a slider that the slider will jump right to where I clicked.
- The settings menu when pausing the game has no "return" [to pause menu] button, it only has a main menu button which made me afraid that I was going to back out to the main menu mid-mission when I wanted to resume the game.
- dialogue mix is all over the place. robot voice effects/filters are cool but the dialogue volume jumps between too quiet to hear and ridiculously loud/clipping/distorted.
- The red shotgun firing sound lacked kick/oomph to me and sounded more like a laser. I recommend trying to layer that sound with some real shotgun/explosion sounds, definitely something low-mid frequencies.
- permanent cracked-glass 2D texture on the screen when damaged was kind of annoying to me. Would prefer if that faded out after a while, even if my health was still low.
- No footstep sounds... I expect them to be there because there's jump/land sound effects. I also thought the "land" sound effect was very plain and soft. I expected to hear a heavy clunk as if a heavily armed soldier or robot hit the ground.
- A lot of enemy firing sounds were quiet or nonexistent.
- for the flying drone character, I would expect CTRL to be the default button for descend (as it's often used to represent crouch in games), not SHIFT.
- would've liked the ammo count to be permanently visible on the screen, not just when I fire.
- press F to break connection uses default unity font :/
- X feels like a weird default key for ultimate ability because it's hard to reach when my hand is in WASD position. F seems like a better default key for that.
- SYNC recharge needs a sound effect and seemed slow despite being the hook for the game...
- laser door opening/closing sound effect needed
- I think a lot of the sound effects would've benefited from reverb. Small, metallic, interior spaces like this have reverb.
- I wish that playing aggressively had a bigger impact on SYNC recharge. What if those ammo pickups also sped up the SYNC recharge?
- I wish running out of ammo wasn't such a common occurrence in this game. This wouldn't be as much of an issue if the ammo pickups didn't disappear and/or gravitated towards my character.
- desktop taskbar icon is the default Unreal Engine icon, should be a game logo.
- "DESYNCRONiZED" typo... not sure if it was intentional but regardless, I wish it said "DESYNCHRONIZED" instead.
- no checkpoints :(
- wall of text on loading screen - ain't nobody reading alla that (even if the writing is cool)

Don't let all of the critique fool you, I still had fun with this game and give it a big thumbs-up. Hope this helps!