Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer(s): Harmonix Music Systems
Release Date(s): November 19, 2001 (North America), June 28, 2002 (Europe)
Gameplay: Portraying a virtual avatar called a “FreQ”, you travel down an octagonal tunnel, with each wall containing a musical track.
As you hit the buttons corresponding to the notes placed on the track, the “sonic energy” from within is released. If you play two measures of the track without any errors, the track is “captured” and the music plays automatically until the next pre-determined section of the song.
Some tracks are bonus tracks that only open up when all of the notes are played. There are two power-ups available that allow immediate capturing of a track (Autocapture) or doubling the number of points you can get (Multiplier). If you continually miss notes, your energy meter reduces until the game is over.
In “Game” mode, at first, you start with a limited number of songs on “Easy”, but as you progress, the amount of songs increases (and the difficulty, obviously). There are a total of 25 songs in this game.
“Remix” mode lets you remix any of the songs with no limitations. The remix could include different melodies or beat lines, change in tempo, etc.
Overall, the gameplay is solid, addictive, and easy to learn, but hard to master – especially on the higher difficulties. 9/10
Graphics: The graphics are crisp and colorful, suiting the game’s tone very well. 8/10
Music and Sounds: How you’ll feel about the songs included here may depend on your tolerance for techno or early 2000’s music in general.
The songs you can play are from different artists, such as The Crystal Method, No Doubt, and Freezepop. Don’t have anything to say about the SFX other than they fit. 8.5/10
Controls: The controls are simple and responsive. You can hit the notes by using either three of the shoulder buttons (L1, R1, and R2, respectively) or three of the face buttons (the square, triangle, and circle buttons, respectively), and the D-pad switches you to another instrument. 9/10
Replay Value: The remix mode also adds to the replayability, plus there’s also a local multiplayer mode. 7.5/10
Final Thoughts: Frequency is an excellent debut title from Harmonix, as well as its sequel, Amplitude.
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy or Skip?: Buy.