A good puzzle can be a solid distraction, but a great one can do wonders for your mental state. Whether it’s a free-to-play wordfinder soaking up stress on a morning commute or the endless hypnotic allure of the ultimate time killer Tetris, puzzlers remain highly popular because of their low-stakes investment and therapeutic quality. A series of little wins makes for a rewarding feeling, especially if the audiovisual package is as soothing as the brain teasers are satisfying.
The Lumines series has always excelled at the tightrope walk between being a complex puzzle game and a treat for the senses; it’s sort of like Tetris set in an underground rave. Originally developed as a launch title for the PlayStation Portable in 2004, it gained a strong following on handhelds and consoles for its eye-popping visuals and CD-quality audio — as beloved for its gameplay hook as its dance-heavy soundtrack.
Now, 13 years after the last all-new entry, the franchise returns with its most ambitious entry yet with Lumines Arise (out now). Developed by Enhance Games, whose CEO Tetsuya Mizuguchi originally created the series, the current vision of Lumines turns up its visual and sonic components to borderline hallucinogenic heights. It’s no longer just a bop, but a full-blown sensory overload that, at times, almost veers too far into its synesthesia in ways that detract from the core puzzle appeal.
A pulse-pounding mind trip
Like the studios’ previous puzzle game reinvention, 2018’s Tetris Effect, Lumines Arise takes what was once just a flat grid and adds layers of depth to its planes with a constant stream of GFX visualizations and ethereal imagery. While Tetris was never really about a strong aesthetic — its simplicity was key to its design — the arthouse overhaul worked to give the well-worn classic a fresh spin.
While it’s easy enough to be sucked into the hypnosis of the “Tetris syndrome” in any older entry, locked into the trance-like flow of gameplay, Effect’s trippy visuals and rhythmic ambient music added to the experience. It’s arguably the best version of Tetris there is.
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Lumines Arise takes the basic 2×2 block grid and adds a mind-boggling visual overhaul.
Enhance Games
By contrast, Lumines has always been more dynamic. The game is predicated on dropping 2×2 squares consisting of four individual blocks (which can each be one of two colors). By rotating and placing the blocks, the goal is to line up the smaller blocks to create a new square of unified color, which will be cleared when the rhythmically timed line wipes across the screen.
The timeline matches the cadence of the music, which varies from the kind of chill beats you’d hum along to in a retail store to oppressively energetic EDM that signifies a leap in pace and concentration. Syncing up with the bass becomes second nature eventually, and the shifts in the soundtrack are accompanied by a complete change in the on-screen visuals, with different colored blocks, unique trims, and level skins providing a mental reset as the next level begins.
In Arise, all of this is pushed to the furthest extent. Rather than a simple palette swap for blocks arriving with a change in tempo, the entire design of the game explodes into something unexpected and new. Basic blocks become spinning machine cogs or smoldering flames — sometimes even objects as confusingly hilarious as broccoli heads.
Some of the block formations can be tough to decipher when gameplay gets too frenetic.
Enhance Games
The changes don’t impact the dimensions of the bricks, so it shouldn’t affect the gameplay once players get their bearings, but there are times when the constant upheaval and forced reorientation of the designs demand a conscious effort to recognize the patterns that were already internalized. Different colored or textured blocks aren’t that hard to differentiate but mentally recognizing that a TV set and a cherry blossom are both the same core object can be tough, especially if you break focus.
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It’s exasperated by the constant stream of peripheral motion and objects fluttering about. Depending on the tempo or the shifting drop rate of the blocks, the screen pinches and pulls, moving in and out of a tight focus dynamically. When the player’s in a flow state, it feels like a natural extension of their concentration. The game is literally locking in for you. But when there is 3D iguanas headbanging to the beat, tongues unfurling into the foreground, it can easily become distracting.
It sounds cliché to say that Lumines Arise feels like taking a tab of acid, but to anyone who actually has, they’ll see that it’s genuinely about as close as you can get in video game form.
Many ways to play, but too few modes
Like Tetris Effect, the core mode of Arise is called Journey, which features 35 stages dispersed among nine worlds. Each level is carefully curated to flow seamlessly into the next, creating a series of highs and lows where slower paced stages with softer visuals let players catch their breath before the next big bass drop. There’s an impressive amount of craftsmanship behind the stages, their design, and the trajectory of the experience — and it’s what the developers intend people to replay multiple times.
Once the flow state kicks in, Lumines Arise is deeply immersive.
Enhance Games
For all its psychedelic ambitions, the heart of Arise is a simple score attack, revisiting its stages to perform better and better each time. It makes sense, given how much work went into the aesthetics of each area and building a very specific experience, but it also feels short. People think of puzzle games as endless (or nearly so), and after a day or so, all 35 levels can be soaked in and completed, with only the promise of a higher score as incentive to return.
There are also a limited number of challenges to undertake that require certain moves to complete, similar to Puzzle mode in older Lumines titles. A two-player competitive mode also makes for a heated match-up between friends locally and online. But overall, there’s a feeling that the bulk of your enjoyment with Arise is predicated on how much you connect with the basic loop of replaying the same (admittedly entrancing) 35 stages. It’s only $40, but without an ongoing hook, the game mostly served as a really great thing to play while stoned on a single Saturday.
Part of the issue might be alleviated by the various different ways there are to experiment playing Lumines Arise. The franchise was born to be run on handheld devices — where all puzzle games truly thrive — and for this, there’s a few options. PS5 users who happen to have a PlayStation Portal can stream the game on that device over Wi-Fi, which adds a replayability factor of mindlessly clearing rows without taking up the TV. Gamers who own a mobile PC like a Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally can also play Lumines on the go, as God intended.
The curated stages have a wonderful trajectory, but the experience is fleeting.
Enhance Games
But there’s a friction between the core Lumines experience, which excels on mobile, and the bigger aspirations that Arise has for its vision. With so much going on both in the periphery and within the gameplay space, it really does demand to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
One way to blow that out even further is to try the game in virtual reality using a PS VR2 headset. Despite taking a slight dip in the crispness of its graphics, the VR version of the game pushes the immersion even further into fever dream territory; it might just be the best way to play the game.
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But outside of the extremely expensive ancillary platforms that enhance Lumines Arise, the core game does deliver something special among puzzlers on its native devices. For lovers of blockbusting, rhythmic gameplay, it’s by far the most stimulating experience you’ll find — even if the novelty of having a raving light shower beamed into your eyeballs does wear thin. There’s still a satisfyingly therapeutic vibe underneath the audiovisual onslaught.
Lumines Arise is available now for PlayStation 5 and PC.
