It may not have as well known a name as Tetris, but if you mention Lumines around a crowd of gamers, you’ll probably get a head nod from all of them. It’s just one of those puzzle games that doesn’t need to have anything done to it. Just release it periodically, and it’ll get the attention from its fans and new ones alike. That said, we’re glad Enhance is going the extra mile with Lumines Arise, and we left our demo appointment at SGF as mesmerized as we thought we’d be.
If you haven’t played Lumines, all you have to do is form like-colored squares on the plane before the timeline cursor rolls past it. It’s one of those games that’s easy to get and hard to master, especially once you start dealing with the speed of each drops in combination with the beat of the music.
Two things make Lumines Arise different from any Lumines experience . If you’ve played Tetris Effect, you know where we’re going here. Enhance did to Lumines what they did with Tetris Effect. There is one gameplay nuance in Lumines Arise, but its trance of a presentation can’t be understated. Neon backgrounds and a house soundtrack really put you in a different mode. You get immersed by the blocks to a point where you don’t even feel like you’re controlling them. It’s a tough feeling to explain, and it’s really an experience to just have yourself. Even if you’ve never played a puzzle game or you aren’t privy to them, I think spending at least five minutes with a game like Tetris Effect or Lumines Arise can end up feeling like a therapeutic and sometimes even stressful experience. There’s really nothing like it.
The overall presentation actually made it quite difficult to see the new gameplay feature in action. With the new “Burst” meter, you can lock a square to your grid for a few passes to the timeline. Doing this allows you to really build that square for a huge combo, or just focus somewhere else on the screen. I was told about this feature as soon as I started the demo, but I largely ignored it. Eventually, I started to use it when I felt like I was at a pinch and just as often as I found it useful, I found it detrimental. Just about anything can mess you up in Lumines, and when you consider the constantly changing backgrounds and the visual style to the blocks from level to level (not even counting how the music is bound to make you feel) along with how they animate, it’s really easy for your mind to play tricks on you.
I played through about three or four stages in around 20 minutes, and when I was done, I needed a moment to myself. I was overwhelmed in all the best ways possible.
A Lumines release is always an event, but Lumines Arise will definitely be something special. Look out for it this fall on PlayStation 5 and PC. Both of which will have VR support.
It may not have as well known a name as Tetris, but if you mention Lumines around a crowd of gamers, you’ll probably get a head nod from all of them. It’s just one of those puzzle games that doesn’t…
It may not have as well known a name as Tetris, but if you mention Lumines around a crowd of gamers, you’ll probably get a head nod from all of them. It’s just one of those puzzle games that doesn’t need to have anything done to it. Just release it periodically, and it’ll get the attention from its fans and new ones alike. That said, we’re glad Enhance is going the extra mile with Lumines Arise, and we left our demo appointment at SGF as mesmerized as we thought we’d be.
If you haven’t played Lumines, all you have to do is form like-colored squares on the plane before the timeline cursor rolls past it. It’s one of those games that’s easy to get and hard to master, especially once you start dealing with the speed of each drops in combination with the beat of the music.
Two things make Lumines Arise different from any Lumines experience . If you’ve played Tetris Effect, you know where we’re going here. Enhance did to Lumines what they did with Tetris Effect. There is one gameplay nuance in Lumines Arise, but its trance of a presentation can’t be understated. Neon backgrounds and a house soundtrack really put you in a different mode. You get immersed by the blocks to a point where you don’t even feel like you’re controlling them. It’s a tough feeling to explain, and it’s really an experience to just have yourself. Even if you’ve never played a puzzle game or you aren’t privy to them, I think spending at least five minutes with a game like Tetris Effect or Lumines Arise can end up feeling like a therapeutic and sometimes even stressful experience. There’s really nothing like it.
The overall presentation actually made it quite difficult to see the new gameplay feature in action. With the new “Burst” meter, you can lock a square to your grid for a few passes to the timeline. Doing this allows you to really build that square for a huge combo, or just focus somewhere else on the screen. I was told about this feature as soon as I started the demo, but I largely ignored it. Eventually, I started to use it when I felt like I was at a pinch and just as often as I found it useful, I found it detrimental. Just about anything can mess you up in Lumines, and when you consider the constantly changing backgrounds and the visual style to the blocks from level to level (not even counting how the music is bound to make you feel) along with how they animate, it’s really easy for your mind to play tricks on you.
I played through about three or four stages in around 20 minutes, and when I was done, I needed a moment to myself. I was overwhelmed in all the best ways possible.
A Lumines release is always an event, but Lumines Arise will definitely be something special. Look out for it this fall on PlayStation 5 and PC. Both of which will have VR support.
by Danreb Victorio
