>>963814
The game is great but the character designs are really bad. It's basically similar to how Nero plays in the Devil May Cry series, but with an added twist of having to time your combos to the rhythm for bonus damage and points. It's really a lot of fun and I would argue is a much better game than what
>>963815 said. I've played both Hi-Fi Rush and No Straight Roads, and I can say with 100% certainty that Hi-Fi Rush is a much better game with a better combat system after you play through the third chapter and actively unlocking moves and shit.
That being said the story and characters DO have a lot to be desired. The protagonist is basically Fry from Futurama, but the other characters are your stereotypical archetypes, where you have the cute hacker girl that ran away from her responsibilities, the black bro, the strong stuck up white girl, and the evil CEO. I would not put too much into the story and characters, as I doubt the devs gave a shit about them considering they're as deep as Super Mario Bros on the NES. They basically work as a plot device to give your characters new abilities. Think of it as a spin on DmC's color coded enemies, but instead of having to change weapons, you basically have to use a certain character to break a certain type of shield and then unleash a combo of musically timed attacks.
I'd ask you to pirate it and see if you like it, but sadly denuvo makes that impossible due to the cracking scene filled with trannys without a solidified focus. That being said, the game is fairly cheap and you can probably get it for 20 bucks at the next major sale, which I think is 100% worth it as the game really is a ton of fun despite its flaws. I'd argue that it's worth the full 30 dollars, but the game gets REALLY good around three hours in once you unlock the grapple arm and parry since those are really core mechanics to the game, and you won't have a good understanding without unlocking those mechanics.
In general I think it's worth it considering that Hi-Fi Rush despite its flaws is a very fun game. I wouldn't go in expecting to fall in love with the characters, story or even the music since its kinda generic radio rock, although the game makes up for it bringing a lot of interesting gimmicks to the stylish action genre for a decent price. Basically my recommendation is to just have a cheap lunch and use the money you saved to buy the game since you can't pirate it and get a feel for it. That and Steam is usually better than piracy since it offers services like Cloud Saves and easy Linux support where you can play most games with Proton and have it work decently well, unless you have a game using some fucked up anti-cheat of course. Although I understand games are too expensive these days, and your time is just as valuable.
Personally I think Hi-Fi Rush is more worth than the Investment than No Straight Roads which doesn't have a nearly as good combat system and the story of NSR take itself somewhat more seriously with long story bits instead of Hi-Fi Rush where you get a single cutscene telling you "Here's your character, here's your mechanics, here's your motivation, have fun". The story of Hi-Fi Rush is basically about Chai gets an iPod stuck in his heart when getting a new robotic arm since he lost his previous arm in an unknown accident, thus leading to the CEO of Microsoft trying to kill Chai because he's basically a "defect" and you team up with Hackergal in order to kill the CEO
for lack of a better term restore the founder of the company to the previous position held by the CEO. Where as No Straight Roads i about the tired old trope about being a rockstar combating the evils of electronic music and EDM, and it's just tiresome bullshit about anti-corporate propaganda and how rock music will never die. Regardless Hi-Fi Rush is more engaging than No Straight Roads for being faster with its story than anything else.
tl:dr: Get Hi-Fi Rush and ignore anyone who recommends No Straight Roads since they're very different games when it comes to gameplay and combat mechanics.