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Title: Lumines Arise combines that addictive puzzling flow with a killer
soundtrack

Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 00:00:38 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lumines-arise...

After a symphony, online multiplayer and a remaster, the well-regarded (and
often handheld) puzzler Lumines is getting EnhanceΓÇÖs full synesthetic,
Tetris-flowing, treatment. Lumines Arise is almost here.

If you havenΓÇÖt played the game before, LuminesΓÇÖ premise centers on
rotating and dropping four-square blocks made of one or two colors, building
up larger squares of a single color. The gameΓÇÖs timeline sweeps across the
playfield ΓÇô to the beat of the soundtrack ΓÇô erasing completed squares in
its path, while also giving you the brief opportunity to quickly drop more
squares, add multiplier combos and score even more points.

Lumines Arise adds a new mechanic to the addictive yet simple puzzle. 'Burst'
is a refillable bar that you can trigger with L2/R2, which locks a square on
the playing field, allowing you to pile on subsequent blocks. You can
initiate Burst once the counter has rolled above 50, although it maxes out at
100. As you might expect for a synesthesia-tickling game like Arise, Burst
mode has its own low-key musical accompaniment.

Lumines has never looked better. But thatΓÇÖs not just due to 2025 hardware
power, but also design choices for LuminesΓÇÖ skins ΓÇô the unhinged
wallpaper design and block themes that bubble up as you advance through
puzzle stages. TheyΓÇÖre delightfully mad and, at times, distracting. (As you
play, the view of your Lumines blocks will occasionally ΓÇÿzoomΓÇÖ closer ΓÇô
this is intentional. Game Director Takashi Ishihara said this was to both add
some dynamism to what are typically static blocks, but also to pull the
playersΓÇÖ attention back to the game at hand. Lumines Arise wants you to
focus on the now, not the score, your Burst meter, or your customizable
avatar.)

My favorite part of the demo was the final stage, which featured two
chameleons simply raving along to the dance music. The soundtrack is,
naturally, a banger, too. Lumines Arise features new music from Hydelic, also
responsible for the award-winning soundtrack of Tetris Effect: Connected.
(The band has already launched one track, "Only Human," on Bandcamp ΓÇô
itΓÇÖs coming to other streaming services, too.)

On another stage, two skeletal hands, seemingly strung up like puppets,
twitch and wriggle as you shift and rotate your blocks. If anything, I think
Enhance missed a trick not mapping the finger movements to a DualSense
controller. I said that in front of Ishihara because I have zero sense of
decorum ΓÇö apparently, he'd had the same idea. I now consider myself a game
designer.

I got to briefly see Lumines Arise running on a Steam Deck, too. The time of
the handheld console and PC is now, so it's nice to see a typically made-for-
consoles game ready for this new gaming PC form factor.

Ishihara teased that thereΓÇÖs more to reveal ahead of AriseΓÇÖs launch. The
game will launch on both PS5 and Steam, and it will also feature VR
compatibility on both platforms. While Enhance wasnΓÇÖt yet willing to reveal
the details, there will also be some form of multiplayer, but it seems like
itΓÇÖll be in a different form compared to the more adversarial nature of
Tetris EffectΓÇÖs multiplayer modes.

Additionally, Ishihara wanted to highlight that the avatars, which dance and
emote in sync with your in-game actions, now feature legs. That is important,
apparently. Enhance is promising more answers in due time. Lumines Arise is
set to launch in fall 2025.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lumines-arise...
ishihara-000038767.html?src=rss

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