By Adam Smith on October 21st, 2011 at 11:01 am.
It’s been available on Microsoft’s 360th console for a while now, but rhythm-RPG mashup Sequence is now available on Steam. I’m tempted to call it Puzzle Quest but with rhythm game mechanics in place of match-3 mechanics and nothing I’ve seen suggests I’d be incorrect to do so. There’s a narrative, character customisation, magic and, underpinning it all, the hammering of cursor keys in time to music, which is how all fights would be resolved if I was the God of War. There’s a trailer for the Steam release below, which contains timely and pithy comments about Metacritic. I hope to take a proper look myself when I clamber from beneath the current pile of games entombing me.
Sequence costs a pittance of £3.99, currently reduced by 10% in this, its launch week.
21/10/2011 at 11:04 siegarettes says:
The wit from these guys is unbearable. Nothing compared to good old RPS of course.
In other news, I’ve had my eye on this since the quoted Eurogamer review. I’m pretty horrid at rhythm games however, so I’m afraid that might dampen my enjoyment of the game if I purchase it.
21/10/2011 at 23:02 WombatDeath says:
My enjoyment has been dampened by the fact that there is no volume control, and the default is ear-splitting.
21/10/2011 at 11:05 Inigo says:
Reminds me of Tendrils.
21/10/2011 at 11:07 siegarettes says:
Quite an interesting comparison, though I have to say that website is something I expect from the mid 90s.
21/10/2011 at 11:10 Adam Smith says:
The Stone Roses are together. I’m not sure this isn’t the mid 90s.
Tendrils is new to me – shall have to check that out as well.
21/10/2011 at 11:23 siegarettes says:
Well, Mr. Smith,
Last time I checked, there were no free AOL CDs flooding my nearby Blockbuster. Then again, there probably never were any America Online CDs in Europe to begin with…
21/10/2011 at 11:23 Jules2k says:
Anyone else here who fell totally in love with that trailer? I <3 this subtle humor with it's subtle but then againt non-existant criticism. Definitly picking this one up!
21/10/2011 at 11:37 B0GiE-uk- says:
And changing the subject:
Hey RPS you are slow today get with the news:
COD MW3 is ruined for PC gamers.. No ranked dedicated servers, no max fps, ranking on shitty IW net, 18 player max servers.
http://community.callofduty.com/thread/4682
21/10/2011 at 11:40 cwoac says:
Be (mildly) warned : currently its broken. The devs uploaded a not-fully-tested patch which is breaking things about 15m in to the game. They have uploaded a fixed version and are waiting on steam to (wake up and) post it. They have also muttered about free dlc as an apology (The dev was fairly profusely apologetic on the forum).
What I’ve seen so far does look fairly good though.
21/10/2011 at 11:40 Branthog says:
Don’t worry, the game doesn’t work, yet. If you are playing the game via Steam, then you are playing with an outdated or corrupted version of the code which will crash during the tutorial and have other hang/crash problems in the default window-mode.
The devs already announced in the Steam forum that they plan to have it fixed by morning and that they want to issue some sort of DLC or something down the road as a thank you to purchasers who encountered problems with it. It was all generally a very self-effacing (more than necessary, really) gesture by the devs.
I definitely am looking forward to passing some time with it. The banter in the tutorial (up to the point where it crashes) is pretty damn amusing.
21/10/2011 at 11:41 Burning Man says:
This man is like Fork Parker. The world needs more Fork Parker.
The only problem I have with Fork Parker-esque marketing is that while it’s extremely engaging and entertaining, it doesn’t focus on marketing the game itself, which is what it should be doing. Instead, it just allows the game to sell itself. When it really should be focusing on grabbing the attention of anyone with a pair of eyeballs.
21/10/2011 at 12:54 johnpeat says:
I’ve already praised this highly in the forums – it really is sharp-as-a-tack in the writing department and hugely original in the game department – for the money, it’s a steal.
XNA was always going to be a problem – XNA games work poorly on PC, always have, always will – gord knows why this is when it’s MS who are doing all the guts of the thing – you’d think they’d have a vested interest and all that.
My only complain with the 360 version is that the system for casting complex spells is a bit mean – if you make a mistake you lose all your mana and that can tip a fight massively and deters you from trying the harder difficulties a bit.
21/10/2011 at 14:02 d00d3n says:
Something to consider:
The game is free if you PM the guy who made in a thread on neogaf.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=449033
21/10/2011 at 14:27 Verio says:
I didn’t know who Ron Jenkees was until yesterday.
For those who still dont (he did the soundtrack apparently?)
Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O2aH4XLbto
http://www.ronaldjenkees.com/
(Also listen to Guitar Sound. Oh hey My Childhood, its you!)
21/10/2011 at 15:41 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Ooh.. thanks!
23/10/2011 at 23:47 Hatsworth says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9PaJGyAmdE
21/10/2011 at 15:46 TheGameSquid says:
I mourn the day “CONTAINS RPG ELEMENTS” became synonymous with “CONTAINS STATS AND ELEMENTS OF GRINDING”.
21/10/2011 at 17:51 Wulf says:
Bahahahaha. Did they just take a shot at Origin’s virtual scarcity? (Since Origin does run out of stock of virtual goods, as has been discussed before.)
But yes, they’re selling me on their humour.
21/10/2011 at 22:45 Godsmith says:
Thanks for the tip, this is awesome. I have the Steam version, and it works fine, no hangings or glitches so far.
22/10/2011 at 04:25 fahsionpp says:
Welcome to ===
http://url7.me/c6i4
http://url7.me/c6i4
http://url7.me/c6i4
23/10/2011 at 01:11 Devenger says:
This is wonderful. Well worth the price of admission. The ‘gems’ align perfectly with the music, the spells and field-switching make the game a proper battle of wits, and the items and spell options give you lots of room to define your own play style. Mine is very much ‘high-speed evisceration, defend only when not attacking, attack until the game demands you let a spell recharge.’ It’s working… for now. A friend of mine is doing just as well with a healing and Damage-over-Time based build. There’s nothing stopping you switching your set-up mid-game, too.
The voice acting is good (not just good for an indie game – actually good), and the dialogue is sharp. Few games can tread the line between serious and comical and make it work. This does a fine job of that.
Oh, and bonus points for perfect 360 controller integration (yes, that’s not so hard for an XNA game, but it’s still pleasant). You can plug in controllers while the game is running (even mid-battle), and it doesn’t lock off the keyboard, so you can feasibly use a hybrid control scheme.
23/10/2011 at 15:56 fleshgolem says:
I’ve played quite a bit of Stepmania on keyboard during the last months and with that perspective my first impressions are:
The hard charts are piss-easy and will bore you to death if you are somewhat experienced with rhythm games
The spasmodic charts on the other hand seem to be fun, but I find them to be unreadable due to the lack of speed modifiers and arrow colouring.
So while I really want to play this game, I am somewhat stuck now
23/10/2011 at 23:50 Hatsworth says:
I was afraid of that. Given how great Stepmania \ OpenITG is, and the wealth of great free charts, mods etc. they can’t really compete I guess.
25/10/2011 at 13:10 Nixitur says:
Well, you need to remember that the game is linear and gets harder and harder. At floor 3 or 4, Hard really starts to get hard. Also, while the individual charts may seem easy, you need to keep in mind that you have to deal with three charts at once.
I have no doubts that many people can breeze through floor 1 and 2 on Hard, but after that not so much. Of course, there will still be people who are still bored on the final battle, but I guess that can’t be helped.
26/10/2011 at 02:26 Hatsworth says:
The dev is very active on the steam forums, patching the game constantly. Speed modifiers will be added.
I bought it because of this, haven’t played it yet though.