Lumines Arise‘s Hypnotic Block Dropping Is So Good That It Transcends Genre
Anyone who’s played Tetris Effect can attest to that game’s uncanny ability to somehow make Tetris even better, an audiovisual rollercoaster that transformed falling blocks into a hopeful statement on human togetherness. And now, we have the next collaboration between Monstars and Enhance, Lumines Arise, a new take on this existing puzzle series that delivers a sensory experience like no other: even as someone who came in without a lot of interest in Lumines or the kind of music featured in the game’s soundtrack, I found myself completely and totally entranced after spending about an hour and a half with the upcoming game.
For those who’ve never played Lumines (which again, was me until recently), this is a block-dropping game. However, unlike Tetris, the goal isn’t simply to line up rows, but to match squares based on their color. As for the blocks you’ll be dropping, they come in one of two colors, and they will always be arranged in a 2×2 square, with different colored block configurations. When you drop one of these 2×2 squares and it comes in contact with blocks below, it can split into two 1×2 rectangles if it contacts a non-flat surface—this is where a lot of the nuanced, big-brained block placing occurs.
As for the specifics of matching blocks by the same color, you need to create a continuous 2×2 square of the same color to clear it. Once you have a matching square, you want to stack as many additional rectangles of the same color on this shape as you can before a horizontally moving line (the Time Line) touches them and clears these matching blocks. There are some other rules and mechanics, too, like a Burst mode—that you can activate after building up meter—which allows you to rack up a big combo without having to worry about the Time Line for a while.
While all of those rules sound complicated, it all ends up feeling fairly intuitive once you jump in and play—after a brief tutorial, I was in there rotating and dropping blocks while (mostly) understanding what was going on. The thing is, though, arguably even more so than Tetris, I could almost immediately see that the game has a Rubik’s Cube-like complexity that probably makes it so that if you want to be any good, you need to internalize somewhat complicated block-matching strategies.
Of course, Tetris is intricate in its own ways, but the slightly more involved starting place of Lumines has always scared me off a bit from the series. As someone whose experience with block-dropping games consists of very casual Tetris, alongside occasionally getting stomped by friends who are very good at Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, I had more or less accepted that this genre of game is one I would respect, but mostly keep at a distance, like simulation racing games or chess.
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