Lumines Arise

The Lumines puzzle series first debuted on the Sony PSP 20 years ago, and behind the game was Japanese game creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. The game is actually a result of his then Q Entertainment game studio not being able to obtain the Tetris licence - so he created his own "Tetris clone".

Tetsuya Mizuguchi has previously been behind the masterpiece Rez, but also games such as Space Channel 5, Tetris Effect: Connected (he apparently later gained access to the Tetris licence) and, in the early days, Sega Rally when he was employed at Sega AM Research & Development No. 3, also known as Hitmaker. He now heads the Enhance studio, which is behind Lumines Arise.

Lumines has lived a somewhat anonymous existence compared to perhaps Rez, which can be considered the creative highlight of Mizuguchi's career. Now Lumines is being revitalised with Lumines Arise, a continuation of the work that Tetsuya Mizuguchi did with the first two games in the series.

But what exactly is Lumines? As mentioned, it is the result of a refusal to acquire the Tetris licence and as a concept it is not exactly groundbreaking. Still, it's a very different experience, with its "Tetris on acid" gameplay, spiced up with a totality of style, music, movements and visuals, making for a very special experience.

Describing the gameplay in Lumines can be a little tricky, but I'll give it a try anyway. Start by thinking Tetris. From the top of the screen, some blocks consisting of four squares (or other shapes and figures) fall in a 2x2 formation. Each of these 2x2 blocks can be two different colours, two different shapes or two different symbols and the goal is to match the colours/shapes/symbols of the dropped blocks at the bottom of the screen to make squares of the same colour.

When four (or more) similar blocks touch each other to form a square, they are merged into one large square, waiting to be zapped by a beam of light travelling from left to right of the screen. While these matching squares are waiting to be zapped, you can build new squares next to or on top of them so that they become connected to the waiting squares, which then grow larger, allowing you to achieve big combos when the light beam hits your matching boxes. Sound confusing? It's actually not, and once you get started, it's about as simple to play as Tetris. I recommend watching the rather excellent gameplay explainer video just below.

New in Lumines Arise is something called Burst. You have a Burst meter at the top of the screen and when it's above 50%, you can activate it - the closer to 100% this meter is, the more powerful the Burst you unleash. A Burst sends the game into a kind of inactive slow motion state, where the light beam does not zap the squares you build for a short period of time, which means that you have a short time (typically between 5-10 seconds) to build as many squares as possible before the game goes back to normal and thus triggers large combos when these many squares are removed at once by the light beam. Burst can be compared to a super-attack in a shoot 'em up for example, which almost clears the entire screen - a well-coordinated Burst can do the same here.

As in most games from Enhance and Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the visual and audio sides are closely linked and both are very dynamic. When you rotate or move the blocks, a small sound comes out, and when the waiting blocks are zapped, they create a small blunt sound that changes the soundscape in that level and the music builds up as you remove boxes and make combos.

Each level has its own skin consisting of different boxes/shapes/symbols, there are lots of visual effects and in the background there are dancing human silhouettes, smoke, lights, all sorts of minimalistic objects and the track occasionally tilts to the sides and many other things. It can be a bit too much sometimes, but in the game's menus you can adjust these things a bit if you want to.

I love it though and I particularly love one level where there are two big iguanas on either side and they pulse, headbang, flick their tails and almost dance and wiggle to the hard pumping techno music. It's excellent and the combination of these two iguanas, the cool level and lots of movement in the background results in a very unique audiovisual experience. Lumines Arise is one of those games where the screenshots in no way do the game justice.

The music, as you can see, is a central part of the game here. In the past, the music in previous Lumines releases has perhaps been a little too Japanese and a little too poppy to really grab me - but it's different with Lumines Arise. The soundtrack consists of more than 35 tracks of quite different types, but the quality is really high. The tracks range from calm soundscapes to slightly poppy tracks to heavy and dark electronic tracks - and the latter category is really where the soundtrack has its strength. Unfortunately, there are also a few tracks that are simply too mysterious, which is a shame, because these tracks are something you just have to get through. It kind of ruins the flow of the game when you go from one exciting track and soundscape to the next. Fortunately, you can create your own playlists and songs you like best and these playlists can of course be played through, but can also just be played in "Theatre Mode", so they function as a kind of music video on the screen.

The soundtrack is provided by producer duo Hydelic, who previously produced the BAFTA nominated track for Area X in Rez (if you've played Rez, you'll totally remember that track!) and they also provided the award-winning soundtrack for Tetris Effect: Connected. Aside from a handful of misses, they've probably delivered one of the strongest game soundtracks of the year here.

There's plenty of content in Lumines Arise and at the heart of it all is Journey. Here you travel through nine Journeys, each consisting of between four and five tracks that you unlock as you progress through them. Once everything is unlocked, you also gain access to Survival Mode, where you can travel through all the tracks in one continuous journey, taking you through strange worlds of sound and visual experiences. In addition to Journey, there are also a whopping 60 training tracks to practice your puzzle skills, though they're not particularly exciting as you have to achieve more or less the same thing in most of them, just with different combinations of bricks.

What's more interesting are the Challenges. There are 26 challenges in total, which are different challenges where different rules and/or new mechanics are built into the game. For example, there is a challenge called Hatch, where you have to remove blocks around an egg to hatch the pigeon inside the egg, there is Burst Rush where you make 300 Burst Points before time runs out or Growth where the blocks not only fall in 2x2 formation, but also in 4x2, 6x2 or other odd shapes - just like in Tetris. These Challenges bend and change the rules and assumptions from the normal courses and they work really well.

You can also play in multiplayer against other players and at the heart of this is Burst Battle, where you play side by side and when you perform a Burst, you send blocks onto the other player's track. Burst Battle is quite entertaining, as are the leaderboard-based Time Trials, but otherwise the multiplayer didn't seem particularly deep or rich. It's nice that it's there, but it's not where you'll spend most of your time.

Lumines Arise supports the PSVR2 headset, but it is not required in any way to play. It's really a small add-on, which is quite nice and it looks good when the many visual effects pop into your head, but this mode adds nothing new to the gameplay. So it's a little gimmick that's fun to try once or twice, but that's about it.

The Japanese love a good avatar. Everywhere you go in the game, you have your Loomii, which is a funny little character with a big semi-transparent head. There are no less than 784 different items to customise your Loomii, and the Loomii nameplate, with. These include new heads for Loomii, placing thoughts inside the semi-transparent head, choosing what symbol Loomii should have on its chest, what colour Loomii should be, what facial expression it should have and what animations it should make. All of these items are unlocked during the game or can be drawn via Loomii-pon, where you use in-game currency to draw new random items in a kind of gacha machine. Yes, the Japanese really love a good avatar.

For someone like me, who has played all previous Lumines games, Lumines Arise seems like a natural evolution of the formula. The core is still Lumines, but Enhance has placed the blocks slightly differently and you still need the little grey ones to see the different block combinations and the ability to see several moves ahead. At the same time, the game delivers a solid visual and audio punch that you won't find in many other games.

Lumines Arise is a hit or miss game. I love games that dare to do something different than what we see from most other places. If you're a hardcore puzzle fan and want to sit quietly and immerse yourself in complex puzzles, Lumines Arise might not be the game for you - there's simply too much noise here. However, as mentioned at the beginning, there is the option to turn it all down a bit, so I think most puzzle gamers will actually get something out of Lumines Arise.

So if you're looking for a puzzle game that does things differently by mixing deep puzzle gameplay with a hard-pumping soundtrack and wild visual effects, Lumines Arise is a really good direction to look in. I love the combination.