Playing Hi-Fi Rush has made me realize just how absurdly good and criminally underrated the Ratchet & Clank level design over the years were. For pretty much every gen, though some argument could be made that Rift Apart leaned too heavily into the open world sandbox at times.
That’s not to say Hi-Fi Rush is bad, it’s just that they could have taken a lot of pointers from R&C’s level designs through the years to create a world that feels busy and expansive, while still being mostly linear guided levels that more often than not felt like they weren’t. Hi-Fi Rush is extremely guided, and I don’t even know why they have the constant literal glowing arrows pointing where to go that are everywhere, you can’t exactly backtrack through the level most (all?) of the time. It feels claustrophobic, but the rest of the design says they want the level to appear expansive and lived in.
Hi-Fi Rush is a great time, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. But this is the one major issue I have with it. Especially with all the little collectibles scattered throughout the various levels.
