Lumines: Electronic Symphony

Introduction

Sometimes it's the simplest games that give us the greatest pleasures. Lumines appeared with the launch of the original PSP, and its Tetris-style gameplay coupled with an excellent soundtrack led to it being one of the biggest hits in the entire life of the system. Now that Sony has released the PS Vita, it's only fitting that a new Lumines should premiere along with it.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

Like its predecessor, Lumines: Electronic Symphony is simplicity itself. The basic gameplay hasn't changed at all. The goal is to match up four or more groups of the same color, with only two colors to choose from. A block of four randomized colors appears at the top of the screen, and like in Tetris, you adjust the placement and location of the blocks to try and get the biggest collection you can. The catch is that the blocks don't disappear the moment you match them up. There's a timeline that sweeps from left to right across the screen at intervals (which changes from level to level), clearing color matches as it passes. If you're not careful, you might find yourself stuck with too many blocks before the timeline hits them, or even worse, the timeline will clear blocks as you're planning to add more on top.

Just like before, this is totally addicting. The timeline element adds a certain amount of strategy to the game that sets it apart from similar titles. Electronic Symphony adds a few little tweaks that add depth. There are two special type of blocks, chain blocks and shuffle blocks. The chain blocks eliminate every block of a single color touching it, while a shuffle block rearranges all the blocks in the group that the shuffle block touches. The chain block is more orderly, but there's something deliriously wonderful about packing together as many blocks as possible, then throwing in a shuffle and seeing what clears out. Also, your avatar can now be pressed at certain times to activate a special ability, such as getting a group of blocks of the same color, or slowing down the timeline, or producing a certain type of block, and so on.

Rather, that's what the avatars do in Voyage mode, the main gaming mode and the one you'll spend the most time on. However, there's also Duel Mode, which allows you to play against an opponent via ad-hoc connections. In this mode, the screen is split in two, and as the points rack up, the losing opponent has less and less space to make moves. In this mode, your avatar doesn't give you a boost, but instead frustrates your opponent. It's immensely satisfying to see your opponent set things up for a big score, only to scramble their blocks at the last minute.

Another cool new feature is the World Block. The World Block is a giant cube made up of two million blocks. Every person who plays online contributes to the demolishing of the World Block. Every block you clear removes one of the two million in the World Block. This resets every day, but if you're able to help clear the World Block completely, you'll get some good bonuses like new avatars.