Buy Sequence

I've been buying a lot of bundles recently, I picked up ~20 in July, and Sequence has been one of my favorite pulls thus far.

*NOTE: This review will be fairly biased, as I enjoy dj-ing/mixing electronic dance music.

If you like rhythm games like Tap Tap Revolution, music - in particular the electronic dance music genre, grinding, and crafting, then you will really enjoy this game. Ronald Jenkees does a lot of the music for the game, and if you like his style then you will love the music found here.

The aesthetics of the game are nice - the artstyle for the characters and backgrounds are well-detailed. The music is very, very good, however, if you do not like the electronic genre, then you may get tired of hearing the music, and this is critical because it is the core of the gameplay and (so far) the variety is not too expansive. You will also grind quite a bit, so you will be hearing the same tracks repeatedly.

The story is decent, nothing too fancy. The voice acting is not bad, and the comedic banter between the main characters is funny at times. There is also some teasing of common RPG elements, which I always find very nice when not overdone.

The controls are easy to familiarize yourself with - you use the WASD keyes and/or the arrow keys in combination with the numbers (spell hotkeys) and Q and E. The tutorial is skip-able but extremely important for understanding the mechanics of the game. The learning curve is moderate to difficult - especially if you are not used to playing rhythm games. I am pretty good at beatmatching by ear, so I tried the 2nd hardest difficulty and had to tone it down a level - my finger dexterity on the keys are still rusty; however, I plan to do a playthrough on the hardest difficulty once I beat the game.

Gameplay is very, very fun if you are interested in the rhythm genre. You have three windows, Defence, Spells, and Mana. Arrow kills will fall in the Defence and Mana windows, and you can swap your active window with the Q and E skills (left and right respectively). If you fail to press an arrow key in the Defence window, you lose health depending on the type of arrow (basic white color = -1 HP, and so forth). If you fail to press an arrow key in the Mana window, there is no effect.

Arrows will only fall in the Spells window when you activate one of your spells with the number hotkeys, however, you must also have enough mana to cast the spell. Failing to press even a single arrow key in the Spells window will cause you to fail in casting it and you will not be refunded your mana. Spells are the way you damage your opponent, and you can also heal yourself. I believe you can only have 4 active spells at a time (you start with 2 slots and unlock more as you progress through the tower).

Between battles, you can craft and equip different items. There are 7 floors in the tower you wake up in, and you are given new crafting recipes as you reach new floors. One item will always give a permanent bonus (ex: +1 to offence), and others can be new spells, armor, or weapons. You can also scrap your items for experience points. When you craft, you have to pay exp. to increase the chance of success (you can even pay lose levels if you want to pay that much exp); if you fail, you are not refunded the exp.

Levelling up is done automatically, you do not have to allocate skill points.

As you progress through the game, monsters will have a unique "guardian ability" for each floor - for example, on the 2nd floor enemies (once per battle) can activate an ability that makes the falling arrow keys fade to invisibility as they reach the lower quarter of your window. Listening to the beat of the music really, really helps because the keystrokes tend to match the beat very well. With enough practice, you can even swap windows freely and continue pressing arrow keys to the beat. There is a craftable item for each floor that allows you to ignore guardian effects (except when you fight the bosses).

Boss battles are fun and the character's are pretty funny. Each boss will use their guardian effect more frequently, and you cannot negate it with the inhibition item.

If you are interested in rhythm games, definitely pick up this fantastic game.

Highly recommend!

I have to admit, this game surprised me. I got this game from a bundle and decided to install it to try it out. I end up really liking it and played it until the very end. It's a rhythm based game, you have to change between 3 panels with Q and E, you use the arrows to hit the notes.

When I saw the tutorial I thought the game would be insanely confusing and hard to play, but it's quite nicely done, as you see all 3 panels at once at any time, so you see what is coming.

The art is really cool, the music is awesome and the story is even more awesome! I wanted to play until the end to know what happens... It's full of surprises, it's hiralious and you get hooked right into the story.

The spells aren't limited to only damage, you have shielding, direct damage, DOT, healing, boosts... Alot of different spells to use. You have to kill the monsters and ascend floors until you reach the top. All monsters have specific drops which you have a certain percentage of getting everytime you kill them (with music of course). You also have to craft/find your gear and you can learn new spells by using scrolls and completing the songs with high accuracy or note combos.

Theres not many bad things to say about the game... My only real issue with the game is the hitboxes... Sometimes it looks like you miss but it actually works and sometimes you think you succesfully hit the note but you didin't. Luckily this rarely happens so it didin't affect me too much. Maybe i'm just bad at the game though, I don't know!

This game is definately worth looking into, especially since it is only 4.99$. I'd say anybody that likes good stories or rhythm/music-based games should really try it out!

Art: 9/10 (I am being a little too much critical here, it is above great!)
Code: 10/10 (can not see flaws, very agile and stable! +there is calibration feature to fix A/V off-sync!)
Enjoyability: 9/10 +consists great humour! (especially check item descriptions!)
Beatmaps: 7/10 (sometimes weaker beats result in two keypress, when the strong one is one key press)
Toughtness if necessary: 10/10 (there are four difficulty settings: easy, medium, hard, spasmodic)


9/10

PROTIPS: #1: Use ASDF instead of arrows and numeric keypad 4,6 to rotate and 1,2,3,7,8,9 for spells. Really comfortable! #2: Medium is too easy. #3: Spasmodic difficulty most likely will require playing against easier enemies repetitively in order to level up and beat stronger enemies or to use recipes, because that will help a lot; makes game a little more like RPG because of the repetitions, but that is enjoyable, really. If that is not for you, take hard or normal. When I started with normal and went to 4th floor, I felt it was too easy for me and I went for spasmodic difficulty. I found it really challenging and that is what I really hoped for.

At first glance, this game is a unique rhythm and battle game. I would enjoy this IMMENSELY more if there were multiplayer. Fighting against stale AI is pretty dull, but I like it for what it is.

The dialog is full of excruciatingly bad deliveries of unwitty jokes and poor "insightful" satirical sarcasm that belittles people's intelligence in an almost superfluously verbose manner (as if they are talking to a child). I don't need the explanations of these poor attempts at "correcting" whoever they are trying to correct and I am sure most people didn't eg., when they say the word "Mana" and say it is pronounced "Mah-na", It came off so pretentious and belittling. It would just be so much better if they didn't have this unnecessary dialog for the tutorial, people want to get straight to the gameplay and see if they like it before wasting an hour of dialog! I know how "Mana" is pronounced, I am sure most avid gamers are familiar with it and even MTG players. BUT the MAIN character, I guess because of the personality he was given? He speaks FOR me. He called Naia annoying, dear god is she annoying! The voice actor who did her, I don't know if it was a girlfriend of one of the developers or something, but she has that valley girl voice that makes me want to rip my hair out every time I hear her vocal fry. She stutters here and there and fails to convey her credibility as a "guardian" in the game. Despite her lines and voice acting being terrible, the main character proves a redeeming glimmer of hope of tolerance.

Being there were some sound issues already, I expect way more and some of the sfx are not mixed into the overall game volume very well.

The music, thus far, is pretty bland. It would be better if they were all original tracks catered to the players and developers.

I recommend the game if you can catch it on sale or in a bundle or if you have a 10-16 year old sis/bro, otherwise I'd say to go find a different rhythm game. If multiplayer comes to be in this concept, then it's on!

Amazing. Great visuals. Stunning music. Solid gameplay. Looking forward to what this studio conjures up next.

Unique, addictive and challenging! What more do you want? The music is also really catchy. Get it!

This game is the best game I have ever played, but I say that about alot of games. It was reallly hard at first if you have ever played a rythem game but after floor one i got the hang of it. 9\10 would recomend.

Very Addicting game. Awesome soundtrack by many DJs. This rhythm game is like DDR for your fingers and the story is really intringuing.

A lot of love was put into this title, and I feel like it deserves due notice. My experience was on medium difficulty of someone who is not musically inclined, though I am a fan of rhythm games.

The RPG aspect of the title is somewhat limited. There's three equipment slots, but overall there's a clear progression of "this item is pretty much completely better than this other one," blandly increasing stats, though they -- like all the other items in the game -- may have punny item descriptions or names. The accessories slot, the third item slot, is interesting though -- if you ever find yourself needing certain items to progress, two later-game items let you increase your item drop rate at the cost of decreasing your stats, essentially. Or you can have a more unique attribute like doubling critical hit chance or decreasing spell cooldown. Leveling up is an across-the-board boost to your stats, but one interesting mechanic is in crafting -- you have to trade exp for chance to craft, exp is a currency. The level cap is 34, but you can beat the game in your mid-20s. I beat it at level 28 with relative ease compared to the grinding (more on that later).

Spells are acquired to directly combat enemies. They are all balanced differently (mana cost, damage, length of time to cast the spell, spell cooldown, difficulty of the arrow sequence) so there's plenty of choices in gameplay style. You can have a maximum of 6 spell slots to unload direct damage, damage over time, healing, and life-draining spells. There are also two buffing spells that boost the damage of the next spell, and a barrier spell to decrease the number of arrows thrown your way on the defence field. You can ALSO play the game significantly more aggresively by using the Convert spells to trade a bit of health for a load of mana, allowing you to ignore the defence and mana fields if you want to try your skill at hammering out life drain and heal spells in between Converts.

The rhythm aspect is definitely its strenth. The higher BPM, the more chaotic. Managing all three fields is ideal for defeating enemies within the time limit of the song and for the most fun in general, as you bounce seemlessly between defending, attacking, and recharging. On medium difficulty, it seems like the game is SIGNIFICANTLY more merciful: players do NOT have to have perfect coordination -- just have an arrow in the space of the outlines and you'll hit it. There's not "perfect" or "ok" score like in DDR to tell you how precise you were(n't). Perhaps this is changed in the higher difficulties, especially since the game mentions that players who are more musically inclined should play them.

One of the weaknesses of the game is definitely fatigue and pacing. For a rhythm game, there are NOT a lot of songs -- about 25 in total, including background music that isn't used in combat, when there are 7 floors of 3-4 enemies each with a boss on each floor. Before getting items to increase drop rate, you may spend 5+ fights on each enemy to acquire their drops. Even with decreasing the number of encounters, you will hear the same songs over and over again on different floors, though spaced out decently well so it's not completely repetitive. If you don't like the two artists who contribute 99% of the music or the combat system itself, then you will not enjoy this game for very long (I highly recommend checking out bits of the soundtrack; not every song is like Piano Jam or On Cue, they tend to be more like Super Fun or Derty).

The story starts off fairly cliche and parodying, but it develops over the course of the game. Voice acting is good regardless of content; as an indie game, it's interesting that the programmer/writer also voices the main character fairly well. I highly recommend sticking to it (assuming, of course, a seemingly weak story is the main sticking point to enjoying the game). The final boss throws a curveball into the setting if you didn't pick up the foreshadowing before, and there is a hidden ending. And, of course, perhaps you will enjoy the story throughout because of its humor; others have praised it, but I was ambivalent.

Overall, there's at least ten hours of gameplay, likely more for a 100% completion. It has a nice amount of replayability since the game allows you to change difficulty up to the third floor (wherein you should be able to decide the right difficulty for you), an incredibly low price, decent RPG mechanics, fairly unique rhythm mechanics, and servicable art (it's a rhythm game with THREE FIELDS, you have neither room nor need to show much more). A niche title as a rhythm game alone, but one of the best for those who want a rhythm game with progression. Buy it, especially if it's on sale for $2 like it was the Christmas I bought it!

simply wonderful!

good story full with mystery. even though it is a ehythm game that required timing and flow it has smart RPG elements and unique game play. smart way to use leveling system. good gameplay. wonderful graphics and music (they just fit togather).

what else do you want?

A different sort of rhythm game, Sequence manages to incorporate some RPG elements into the gameplay. Sequence is a pretty fun game with solid soundtracks. The player has to battle enemies to get drops to build more equipment that provides bonuses, build new spells, or build a key to the next level. When battling enemies, there are three columns that the player must pay attention to; defense, attack, and mana. You take damage every time you let a stroke through defense, you attack by using a spell and hitting everything in the sequence in the attack column, and you get mana to cast more spells by hitting strokes in the mana column. A combination of solid music, unique gameplay, and a fun experience at a low price makes this game a recommend.

I....I'm not even remotely sure how to classify this game, other than "enjoyable".

Deconstructionist Rhythm RPG?

So far I've only played a few rounds, but I must say that I can already tell I will be playing this game to completion. I started off on medium and switched it to hard, at first I was a little bit surprised with the dramatic increase in dificulty, but it didn't take too long to catch on. I've played a ton of music rhythm games and generally play on expert. It should only take me a little time to get to that level on this game. As it does say in the tutorial you probably want to actually pay attention to the music since the timing is not very forgiving. Overall it seems fun and adds another level of urgency to a music rhythm game since you can switch from defensive/mana regen/spell casting with three seperate rhythm streams. Yeah, I'm glad as heck I picked this up from indiegala.

It's like Skyrim for Guitar Hero

Wonderful game.

Hope this will help other gamers and rythm ethusiasts, have fun! ^.^

Sequence is a rythm game with an actual story (not a bad one in my opinion), but won't spoil it :P it has combat mechanics which really few games have done it well if any. you have 3 "panels/tabs" in which you run the rythms, the atack one, defese one and mana gathering one, it's basics are well explained in it's well made tutorial.

Cons:
- if you want to 100% can be a tinsy but grindy to get materials for crafting ( YES IT HAS CRAFTING);
- for a rythm game it doesn't have that many songs;

Pros:
- an actual decent story with twist;
- good, funny dialogue with great voice acting;
- challenging yet fun gameplay;
- nice variety of skills;
- has crafting and items with boosts and what not's;
- cartoony/anime graphics but well made in my opinion;
- trains observatory and reflex skills;
- story wise doesn't have replayability but it's fun to replay it from time to time;
- story easter egg, FIND IT;
- not hard to 100%;
- you can pause during battles whenever you want;

11/10

Cools story.
Cool gameplay.
Challenging gameplay, but you can finish the game without getting fustrated.

Without a doubt one of the most rewarding rythm-based games I've ever played. The gameplay, the music, the script, the feel, all of it fits together wonderfully and even several years down the line I still credit this as one of my top 10 games.

10/10 would DDR again.

ddr yo

A really awesome game that knows what it is trying to be and maximizes its potential.

What I like:
-Awesome soundtrack. I expected to tire of the music after playing a mission a few times, but it does a good job of remaining likeable throughout.
-Great visual and audible feedback when hitting and missing notes.
-I love the storyline and the voicework. Just amateur enough to seem like a project done by your friends, just professional enough to not be too distracting.
-The three way split really adds to the DDR formula and makes it a strategic challenge instead of a reflex workout.
-Scope of the game is just right. Not too big, not too small.

What I didn't like:
-Sometimes it becomes a grind when you need just one item to advance and you can't quite get it.

Not really about the game, but I love the trailers. If you don't know about hitpoints... this probably isn't the game for you.