I am easily distracted by the combination of lights and sound. Dancing around each other and ingraining the two separate senses into a solitary experience. Lumines returns as the famed, majestic spectacle ripe for my picking. Unfortunately, instead of releasing my brain and allowing it to become tranced by the work of passionate creators. Hot off the heels of their previous titles, developers Monstars and publisher Enhance come together to deliver a demo of Lumines Arise.
Within this demo I had access to the Journey mode which gave me a taste of what is to come. Monsters once again perform their magical experience backed by the music of Hydelic to pull me into the world of Lumines once again. Much like the other modes, I simply didn’t want this to end.
A Mix of Light, Sound, and Feel
If you know Lumines, you know how this goes. It is a simple yet challenging puzzler where you create squares of four or more blocks of the same color or style. You can continue to add to this block and as long as it forms a square or rectangle, you get points. A bar from the left side of the grid moves to the right, erasing all the full squares and delivering points. How fast everything moves and the style of blocks that you see are all dependent on the music that is playing and the stage that surrounds the grid. There are some additional mechanics such as Burst which assists creating screen-clearing combos to help inflate your score higher and higher. There are also great accessibility features to help create a more relaxed and paced experience.
Past iterations of the game made me fall in love with the series which originated on the PSP and was thankfully brought into the modern day with a remaster. It pierced the puzzle game community, giving fans something new and interesting to play and become enamored with. Monsters did what I thought could never be done and make it better.
Over and Over Again
I have played this demo over and over again, countless times, paying attention to every song, beat, and sound effect as I flung my blocks across the grid to get it in position just before the bar came to erase it. It would only be a few moments before I realized that the controller itself started to immerse me even further. Vibrations, small and rapid would build up with the music creating a constant stream of trembling within my palms. It was only when the demo ended did I feel the experience wane like the ocean drawing back the current. I wanted more.
Experience the Magic Yourself
Despite my romanization of my experience, one must experience themselves. Rest in a darkened room, headphones on, and focus on just the screen. Luckily, you can experience this yourself right now. Only available from August 26th through September 3rd, you can get your hands on this experience on the PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam.
If you want to learn more make sure you stick around Seasoned Gaming for additional reviews, previews, opinions, and more. Thank you to Enhance for the early access to the Lumines Arise demo.
