Japan Gaming Guide

We’re taking a look at an older Switch game today, in this Lumines Remastered review. Lumines is a puzzle game from the brilliant mind of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez, Space Channel 5 and the more recent Tetris Effect.

The original version debuted back in 2004. Since then it has been released on every platform under the sun. This new release features improved visuals and support for higher resolution screens, making the game look better than ever. We’re looking at the Switch version, but Lumines Remastered is also available for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

The game, like the best puzzlers, is simple in concept but hard to master. Blocks of four squares fall from the top of the screen to the bottom. Squares come in two colours, and if you can create areas of four small squares made up of a single colour, they dissapear.

Getting into it takes a little more time than Tetris or Puyo Puyo, but after a few goes you’ll be figuring out patterns and building your skill so you can cope with the game at faster and faster speeds. That’s the key to making it to the end of the challenge mode, the main single player game.

There’s plenty else on offer, with other game modes and rewards offered for completing its various stages. Rewards take the form of avatars and skins. Skins combine a music track with a graphical style. You’ll come to recognize these and love or hate them as you encounter them in the challenge mode. The changes in speed and tone that each introduce take time to deal with.

The challenge mode is the standard game, which has you trying to survive 100 increasingly tough levels. The pace increases as you progress, putting you under more and more pressure to build patterns before the play area fills up.

Away from the challenge mode there is a puzzle mode, which sets you different tasks, such as building a particular shape. The vs CPU mode see you trying to expand your territory, with an ever shifting line dividing the play area between you and your opponent. There’s also the skins mode, where you can set up playlists from the tracks you’ve unlocked.

This is a game where your memories of playing it will be forever tied up with its tunes. From the opening “mondo grosso” track to the relief when the game slows down two thirds of the way through, to the gradual ramping up of pressure until the end of the challenge mode, the game and its music are inseparable.

Mizuguchi san is known for his interest in synesthesia, making the sounds and visuals work in tandem to pull the player in, creating an almost trance like state when playing the game. Get sucked into Lumines and you’ll begin to understand just what that means.

The biggest downside is it takes a long time to play. Once you get good at the challenge mode it can take upwards of an hour for a single game.

That makes it perfect for switch however, as the system’s portability makes it easy to start and stop games in mid-play. While it looks great on the big screen it is also a perfect game to play on the go.

Overall, this is a brilliant puzzler, sure to pull you in and stretch your brain in all sorts of weird and wonderful directions. We’d recommend it to all puzzler fans and gamers in general.

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