I was never that into Tetris. Don't get me wrong, it's a stone cold classic and there's plenty to be said for its purist puzzle game mechanics. Basic Tetris was never flashy, it's nothing shocking at this point, but it completely set the standards for any falling block puzzle game to follow it. That said, I was always more of a Puyo, Puzzle Drop, and Columns guy. Their more combo focused gameplay appealed far more to my unfocused and impatient nature, plus, who doesn't love seeing combo notifications flying all over the screen?
Lumines definitely compares more easily to the latter games than Tetris, but its doomed to comparison just by how oversaturated the market of falling block style puzzle games was by Tetris and assorted spinoffs, which is totally unfair to Lumines. Lumines will never be as technically refined as Tetris, but its style and presentation combined with a genius combo system take it above and beyond the competition, and without a doubt it falls as my favorite pure mechanical puzzle game of all time.
That presentation is unlike anything else. It's a hypnotic trip through psychedelic trance and house beats with jarring audio clips blasting on each combo, quickly changing into the next track and theme as soon as clearing enough blocks to progress. It's an experience on headphones I can really only compare to standing in an obnoxiously loud arcade with 4 or 5 machines blaring over everything else. It's an atmosphere you get caught it, and there's plenty to be said for Lumines as a psychedelic experience of sound and color over strictly a falling block puzzle, and that alone probably turns off purists, but the actual mechanics of the game are just as brilliant.
I could ramble on about the mechanics of Lumines, but it's a falling block puzzle, you essentially know what to expect, although this time focused on matching squares. However, the most important innovation of Lumines is the fact that matched blocks do not immediately clear, instead a line moves from one end of the screen to the other, clearing blocks as it moves from left to right. This may sound like a minor change, but this enables the player to drop blocks outrunning the clear line, creating combos very naturally, making the experience more reactive than long term plans, massively increasing the pace of the game.
Now, I should clarify, the only way to play this game are two modes, the Basic and Endless Challenges. There are other game types but they're strictly gimmicks and not very fleshed out, especially the puzzle and 2 player modes which are as janky and unbalanced as can be. This is pretty much strictly a single player game in most concerns, and almost all of my 200 hours of the remastered rerelease of this game are in the challenge types.
All that said, the performance drops frames on high enough combos, the Endless Challenge's speed after level 300 is bullshit, the audio quality is offensively poor at times, and occasionally a falling block is cleared while passing by at the right moment on top of the clear line. None of these are gamebreaking faults, but they're definitely worth noting in some way, because they definitely affect the experience. The Lumines Remastered rerelease definitely helps it, but it's still not perfect. Sadly, there is yet to be a perfect release of this game, but still, wholeheartedly recommend this one to anyone and everyone interested in video games. Fair warning, you might lose all your time.
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Playing the remastered version on Switch as my first Lumines game and having a great time. I do wish I could just resume where I lost on in the main mode at the cost of not having a high score saved or something. I just find by the time I'm in the 40s, the game gets too fast and unlike something like Tetris, a single wrong placement can really fuck you in this game. I feel like I'll never get good enough to actually make it to level 100 in a single run.
I've watched a lot of videos and have definitely improved a lot from when I started, I just mostly struggle with the later skins where the blocks drop faster and the sweeper moves slower. I just get overwhelmed eventually and then put a few blocks in bad places, which rattles my confidence until my demise lol.
I tried Electronic Symphony and am a little shocked they didn't add a similar checkpoint system to this remaster. You can actually see all the skins with low-medium skill and even if you lose a long run, you gain experience so it doesn't feel like wasted time. It makes runs much more user friendly, considering I've put 20 hours into this and still can't get past level 45 with nothing to show for it.
I've done lots of the puzzles and missions but you play those in shorter bursts under more relaxed conditions. I just don't think I have the dexterity this game demands to get to level 100. I do still enjoy it, though! I'll keep doing the missions and puzzles and maybe someday I'll git gud enough to pull it off lol.
Far from a 3.8 for me, but I'm surprised by how much this has stuck as the first arcadey puzzle game that I've really gotten into. There's a level of forgiveness here that isn't present with something like Tetris (as much as I hate to perpetuating that comparison) which makes it a hell of a lot more accessible. It's been really tricky trying to get into anything else in the PSP library now that I've played this. I'm gonna miss it once I finally get past the last two skins in challenge mode and never play it again
I tried Electronic Symphony and am a little shocked they didn't add a similar checkpoint system to this remaster. You can actually see all the skins with low-medium skill and even if you lose a long run, you gain experience so it doesn't feel like wasted time. It makes runs much more user friendly, considering I've put 20 hours into this and still can't get past level 45 with nothing to show for it.
I've done lots of the puzzles and missions but you play those in shorter bursts under more relaxed conditions. I just don't think I have the dexterity this game demands to get to level 100. I do still enjoy it, though! I'll keep doing the missions and puzzles and maybe someday I'll git gud enough to pull it off lol.
It's been really tricky trying to get into anything else in the PSP library now that I've played this. I'm gonna miss it once I finally get past the last two skins in challenge mode and never play it again
That song is bliss. Starting over never sounded so good.
Game is solid. Gonna be in my rotation for a long time I think