bayonetta

all those words in my post and not one mention of the gimmick of this one: it's a stylish action/rhythm game hybrid where everything in the world works on a 4/4 beat and timing attacks and dodges correctly gives scoring and damage bonus. parries have tighter timing, mashing won't work at all for those, unlike attacks that always come out even if you input them off-beat

it plays like bayo/dmc and not god hand, the camera is not locked re4 style behind your character, there's a lot of jumping, etc

a veteran with both experience with multiple games and the gaming chops to push the systems to their limits will probably (and correctly) argue that DMC5 or bayo or PS2 shinobi or whatever are much tighter games than hi-fi rush, what drew me in was the rhythm gimmick and the overall presentation and personality sealed the deal.
if you miss out on this one it's not like there aren't 2 decades worth of stellar examples of the genre