Misses a Few Beats
Sequence is billed as the first rhythm-game RPG, which is, while technically accurate, a title that'll probably lead to more disappointment than anything else. It really is an RPG in only the thinnest sense. It has a story, but its inventory management/equipment aspect feels mostly tacked on and it probably would have been a better game without them.
The setup goes like this. You're "Ky" (is that what kids named Kyle go by these days?) an MIT student mysteriously kidnapped from his daily life and placed in a mysterious tower, complete with monster attacks. There's only one person there to help you, Naia, who guides you through the intercom. She explains this is all some sort of testing ground, and that you're fighting for your life, though she won't explain much more than that. Needless to say, things aren't even as simple as she thinks they are.
The best place to start in explaining Sequence is explaining its 'combat' mechanics, which are definitely its greatest strength and probably the concept that justified making a game in the first place. Yes, notes (actually more like beats in most cases) stream down the screen and you're expected to hit them at the right moment (they keyboard works fine) but instead of a single stream of notes for your instrument of choice, there are three streams you can switch between on the fly, magic, mana, and defense. If you don't hit the notes on the defense stream, you'll lose health. If you don't hit the notes on the mana stream, you won't get mana back to cast more spells, and when you cast one of your spells, missing any of the keys will lead to the spell's cost being wasted. Switching is seamless, and properly timing a swap from your spell to defense to get through a rough patch without losing any health while hurting your enemy can be a lot of fun.
Obviously, most rhythm games have gotten by on licensed music for the past ten years. I'm not sure that this would have been a good route for Sequence to go down if they'd been able, but instead they've opted for 20-something original tracks made by a couple of electronica DJs. They're decent stuff, and there aren't many duds, but it isn't so good that I'd go out of my way to buy a CD. It's definitely good enough for what the game requires.
The biggest problem with Sequence is that it doesn't distribute these tracks well. Each level consists of three 'monsters' and a 'Guardian' boss. In general most of the monsters will be repeat tracks while the bosses are a new one. If this doesn't sound repetitious enough on its own, the mechanic isn't simply that you need to beat the three monsters, but you need to collect items from them in order to craft your weapons, armor, accessories and most importantly, new spells and the key to the boss.
To assemble all the recipes you receive in each level, you would need to play each monster upwards of five times. That's five times not just hearing the same track, but proving you can beat it. And if that wasn't bad enough, the components only drop on a percentage based system. It can be a really disheartening experience to say to yourself, "I can make the key and move on after I get the most common drop off this guy", then you ace it and it just so happens that due to bad luck you don't get the item and have to play it all over again. In general, your best bet is to ignore every recipe that isn't a spell or a key, as monsters will drop upgrades on their own eventually. Even that approach doesn't truly alleviate the problem.
The other main weakness of the game is its story. By and large, the writing quality is equivalent to a Saturday morning cartoon, full of sass and snark that's occasionally clever but lacks much real wit. The other thing it lacks is content. Considering that the only story progression in the game occurs after each boss (each of whom is a marginally un-amusing caricature), it's really amazing how long they manage to go on without explaining anything.
It's hard to criticize a game I paid single digits for too harshly, but I would have had more fun with Sequence if they had given me less for my buck. If they had presented a more streamlined experience that had a shorter story and required less replaying of tracks, this might be a four star review. By implementing so many stalling tactics to stretch things out, however, Iridium Studios has produced a game that's only enjoyable in small bites.
