Sequence

Sequence is a fun little RPG/Rhythm indie game that does quite a few things that I'd never really seen before. First of all, obviously, it combines the RPG and Rhythm game genres - your character has three slots of equipment, levels up, and learns spells, but the combat itself is done as a rhythm game - 3 panels of falling arrows (DDR style) control the enemies' attacks (you only ever fight one at a time), your mana generation, and your spells against the enemy. It's quite a fun system, and a very interesting hybrid of two rather divergent genres.

Of course, the game isn't without its flaws. I, personally, am not a fan of how they handle crafting - using experience points as your crafting material means that you have to lose stats in order to gain stats - and if you get unlucky in the crafting system (which gives you a higher chance of successfully crafting something the more experience you spend on it), you can end up losing more stats than you gain by equipping the item you just spent 2 levels making. Admittedly, this doesn't happen too often, but the luck-based and experience-sucking crafting system just don't sit all that well with me - I don't like depowering myself just to make progress in the game - or to give myself questionable stat boosts from newly made equipment

On top of the luck-based crafting system, you also have a severely luck-based item-collection system. All of the materials you need to make your items are random drops from the enemies, each of which can take 2-4 minutes to defeat. Getting the one specific item you want can be a major pain, especially if you need 6 of them for everything you want to make, they have, say, a 60% drop rate, and enemy that gives them is feeling stubborn about handing them over. It can make the game incredibly frustrating.

With all that said, though, despite its distasteful luck-based and experience-sucking game mechanics, the mechanics do come together to form a fun, cohesive (if occasionally frustrating) whole that works just fine as a game - especially a $5 one. One particular other feature I like about this game is the method of unlocking spells - you have to complete a minigame (well, really it's just the main combat but with only one panel, and certain conditions placed on your success) in order to unlock the spell, even once you've assembled the scroll that can teach you it. It's a fun diversion, and makes unlocking a new spell a more dramatic and fun affair than it would otherwise be. With that said, it does require experience to attempt to learn a spell (though there's a practice mode, as well) and I was playing on a difficulty where I didn't really have problems unlocking them. If the spell-unlocking minigames had been harder, then I might well have found them extremely frustrating rather than fun diversions. Also, I would personally ditch the xp cost for attempting to learn a spell and just let you try until you win.

And, of course, I should comment on the main combat itself - while the RPG elements of the game may not be handled the way I think they should, the combat itself is very entertaining. You jump freely between the mana generation, enemy attack, and your attack boards - you have to choose your spells to cast to damage your opponent, then jump over to your attack window and hit the arrows to make them actually cast, while stopping your opponent's attacks from hurting you, all while regenerating mana in your extra time by using that board. It certainly keeps you on your toes, and is altogether quite fun. One of my few complaints for the combat would be that it can go on too long, and losing by time out is quite frustrating - but you do gain experience even if you lose, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Additionally, random effects in each floor of the world keep combat fairly exciting as well.

All in all, I really enjoyed this game, especially considering the fact that it only set me back five dollars and that it gave me a little over 10 hours of solid fun. It's flawed, but then again, many fun games are - and its flaws don't spoil any of its core mechanics.

Notes:
-Don't make everything luck-based. It may be a decent way to extend your game, but there are other, less frustrating ways to do the same thing.
-Using experience points as currency is risky proposition, especially if there's a chance that they'll just be flushed down the drain with no reward. I don't like it.
-Blending RPG with another genre can be a surprisingly simple affair - just make combat into the second genre, and make the RPG mechanics work with the combat. It sounds like a cop-out, but it can actually work quite well.