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Someone had to fill Tetris' shoes

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: April 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

By far, the most common complaint I hear about Lumines is that it is a Tetris knockoff/clone/wannabe. And it is, sort of (and I'll be qualifying that statement in a few seconds). But if you like Tetris, isn't this a good thing?

The way I see it, every handheld system needs a good puzzle game. For whatever reason, Tetris is not currently available. Maybe because it is already available in so many other cheaper forms that they figured no one would be willing to pay $40 for it. Lumines has taken the skeleton of Tetris and built upon it to make a more complex puzzle game with awesome music and sound effects.

At first, Lumines seems kind of basic and simple. Each block consists of four bricks that are any combination of two colors. You have to place them to form blocks of the same color. What adds so much depth to Lumines is the timeline. A vertical line sweeps across the screen at differing speeds depending on the level, and clears the blocks you have formed as it goes by. After playing for a few minutes you realize that you can use the timeline to your advantage by adding more blocks and creating larger combos for bigger points. Once you get the hang of it, this game becomes just as addicting as Tetris.

I can't talk about Lumines without mentioning the music. If you have ever played the game 'Rez' for PS2, you should have an idea of what the music was like as the same guy did the music for both games. The music changes in each level and becomes interactive with the way you move your blocks. On all my other PSP games, I turned off the music to save battery. It would be a crime to do this with Lumines.

Bottom Line: If you enjoyed Tetris, because believe me I've played Tetris as much as anyone, you will not be disappointed with Lumines.

Fun, addicting game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: October 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a fun addicting game, great for on the go play which the PSP was made for. It isn't a "Killer App" so to speak, but it's a great challenge and one of the PSP's best games.

Simple, Yet Addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I first got my PSP I had a hard time deciding which game to buy. First I bought Twisted Metal and after about 3 weeks it had gotten boring so I bought Lumines. I had been reading in magazines and on the Internet about how great this game was so I just picked it up. At first it reminded me of Tetris but after playing it a few times I realized that it was something much greater. The gameplay is hard to describe in words. It's a puzzle game so what more can I say? The game looks great and it has a great soundtrack. I sometimes find myself popping this game in the PSP and end up playing for almost an hour nonstop. I've had it for almost 6 months now and I still play it more than any of my other PSP games (Even GTA: LCS). If you're looking to purchase a PSP but can't decide which game to buy, Lumines is a great place to start.

One of the Best PSP Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Lumines is a very innovative, fun, and addicting puzzle game. The music and sound effects are exciting and immersive. The visuals are stunning. Hours fly by while you're playing this game.

A Must-Have for the PSP

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Lumines is a great puzzle game in the tradition of Tetris. Not only is it really fun in single player, it's truly addictive in multiplayer as well!

First off, the game itself. It's just like tetris, where blocks fall and you arrange them. In this case, they are all squares, with two colors. You are trying to make the colors connect up into blocks. There is all sorts of different color changes, music changes and cool techniques you learn as you go. Don't just play it a few times. Keep playing up into the higher levels, and it becomes a truly amazing game.

Then you can take it multi-player, and the head to head gameplay is really fun. It's not just "two people building side by side towers" like most other game systems. You actually use the same board and slide the ownership of area back and forth based on how well you do. It is incredibly fun!

There are other challenges, with puzzles and time trials, but the basic game is really the core here. It's perfect for picking up for 15 minutes when you're waiting in line - or it can make an hour long train ride zip by in seconds. This is really the must-have game for your PSP!

Not a clone

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you belive that this is a clone of the previous Tetris games for the PS systems then you would be dead worng. This game uses clubes in a interesting way to form 2x2 cubes using a series of 4 variant combonations of two colours.

The pace is addictingly fast and simple to pick up. The learning curve took about 5 minutes and once you start there is no putting this one down. The PSP, north America, has only been out for a few days but this has already hit classic game status for it.

It is rated for all ages and comes with differnt style of play including multiplayer and Vs. modes. The graphics and music can get distracting but you can turn the volume down if you are on a "skin" that is not to your liking.

It also not an expensive game for PSP. Get your own -- you simply cannot rent this one.

Almost Perfect

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really feel Lumines deserves 4.5 out of 5, but since there is no such option for reviewing it, 4 is probably closer.

If you've read the reviews etc. you'll be aware of the hype surrounding Lumines. And yes, most of it is (for most people) true. It is pretty damn addictive when you first get into it. The colours, music.etc all add to the experience, although I personally found the music a bit repetitive and annoying (especially having to play earlier levels over and over again) so I turned the music down. Anyway, I won't waste space saying what has been said before. Instead I will raise a few issues not often considered.

Lumines is genius in its simplisticity: arguably 'deeper' or 'purer' than Tetris, it seems that there are so many strategies. Indeed, it probably rivals Chess in the sheer range of possibilities. Or so it seems. The fact is there is a set method to 'practically' beat the game (while it may seem great for getting high scores) is a bit of a downer (no I won't tell you how). Also the fact that your score is limited to 999,999 is annoying: it means champion players cannot get their names in the Guiness Book of Records like those guys who play for days on a Space Invaders or Galaxian machine. But all these are small niggles. The average player will probably not break the 100,000 until they have understood the games mechanics. One positive of the game is you're always discovering new techniques when you think you know everything. And even when you do understand it, there's the reflexive area (As opposed to the mental area). Playing under pressure is alot harder and you have little time to think.

A second criticism is the puzzle mode. I found some of the challenges a touch obscure. For instance the puzzle where you have to make a '4x4'. I didn't know whether it meant 4x4 of the same colour or what (impossible to make). Hence I had to refer to an online FAQ.

Finally, as with most launch PSP games there is no online mode which would have made the game much more playable. In addition, there could've been more modes apart from the normal game and puzzle as despite its addictiveness you do get sick of seeing blocks in your sleep. Anyway, 99% of the population should probably get this title for the PSP. Along with Hot Shots Golf (or Everybody's Golf), one of the most replayable.

Addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is a lot like Tetris, but instead of eliminating lines, you elimate blocks. In this game, you are playing for skins, new wear for your blocks, essentially. I found this game to be very addictive and hard to put down once I started.

A Great Game With One Great Flaw

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

(I apologize in advance if any of the details are wrong about this game. I just bought it two days ago but have been playing it at every free moment.)

It was instant intercourse between Lumines and me...

The essential ground rules of the game is simple: create a 2 x 2 square of a single color (there are only two). You manipulate a descending 2 x 2 square consisting of 4 mini-squares. You can rotate this square anyway you want. Now let me explain the brilliant aspects of this game that reshape the general puzzle game genre as we speak.

Bring back the 80's -- a "laser beam" crosses from left to right across the screen! This laser beam evaporates all the 2 x 2 squares, and the more of these 2 x 2 squares you have arranged, the more you score when the death laser comes to take it away. The strategy here isn't speed, as it is for Tetris or Puzzle Fighter. At times you will go slow to wait for the laser to pass; at times you will go fast to try to get as many 2 x 2 blocks arranged in time. This is one vast improvement Lumines has made from Tetris-style puzzle games. Quick wit is not everything. Players need to be subtle and careful with how they move.

The laser is merciless. As Lumine's intermittent style of play suggests, the message is "slopiness does not pay." If you hurry to stack a 2 x 2 square but the laser has passed that vertical column, there is a good chance that only half of your 2 x 2 square will be erased. This sucks when you absolutely need those other two squares to disappear. Otherwise, the columns will shift and you need to replace those two mini-squares just to get that 2 x 2 square again to erase it. That's a pain in the ass! However, this aspect might be used as part of your strategy, if you want only part of your squares to be removed in order to take the opportunity to build larger blocks with the other nearby mini-squares. (Apologetically, I'm being vague here, because I'm still unsure at this point how this strategy can be employed, or whether it is a real strategy at all.)

Another perplexing -- but genius -- contribution Lumines gives to the puzzle game genre is the deceptively simple shape of all the pieces. We are given descending 2 x 2 square with different arrangements of two colors, and this square can be rotated. For some psychological reason, this is much harder than Tetris's rotating of different shapes. For example, one orange mini-square will get in the way with three green mini-squares, and you're frustrated trying to figure out how to separate the colors cleanly to create one large pile of 2 x 2 squares, or just to keep that orange mini-square from ruining the 2 x 2 square you're trying to compile.

Furthermore, I need to say at this point how I love this game's idea of the 2 x 2 square, compared to the horizontal lines of Tetris (which doesn't offer much complexity). This game isn't so linear, literally. You have to think how many overlapping or connected 2 x 2 squares you have, and this can include vertically or horizontally stacked or overlapping 2 x 2 squares, or even diagonally overlapping 2 x 2 squares. Combine this with the fact that disintegrating squares, when disappeared, allows the top mini-squares to fall and shift the entire grid design, and you have a lot of complicated calculations to compute in your head. Luckily you are given the future and three 2 x 2 squares are shown in a window on the upper left part of the screen. Just don't use the pause button!

Now if you can brilliantly plan like a prodigy, possibly you can foresee all the arrangements and deployments necessary to eliminate all the squares from the screen. You get 10,000 points each time you do that. That's a very serious reward, which is both a reward and a disaster. I honestly think anyone who can do this (after some time into the game) was a genius at Rubic's cube first.

The greatest flaw of this game is that this 10,000 points is awarded at any time. I was competing with my friend via WiFi, and realized I got close to his high scores my second try. I thought I was a genius, until I realized that in the beginning I was fortunate enough to have three all-orange 2 x 2 squares. What does that mean? About 30,000 points in the first five seconds. Now if I had dropped this less than three seconds, straight down, I might have stacked these three 2 x 2 squares all at once for the laser to give me a whopping bonus. This may be great for some, but it ruins the integrity of the game.

I now have several high scores that are out of the ballpark on my score roster, but most of those high scores came from games that I began with one, two, and (only once so far) three pure blocks.

During rare occasions, this beautiful sight of a blank screen is not that hard to accomplish with a lot of luck. I suggest the makers of Lumines wait the first 30 seconds of every game before giving away 10,000 points for a blank screen. It only takes thirty seconds before more complicated 2 x 2 blocks descend, carrying its player into a sea of chaos that is almost impossible to undo to achieve a blank screen. And that's when the 10,000 points are justly bestowed.

The New Tetris

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have always been a big fan on puzzle games like this. I played the copy of tetris that came with my original GameBoy. Most kids today couldn't even imagine playing on a screen like the old B&W GameBoy. For me Tetris is the greatest game ever made. It is still not old after all these years, but Lumines is a very good substitue. One of the best things about this puzzle game is that is has such a large playing field. It's huge. The music is pretty cool, but not best in game music ever. That would probably be Katamary Damacy. Go out any buy this game now. You won't regret it.

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