Developers: Resonair
Publisher: Enhance Games
Release Date: 25/06/2018
Average Price: US $15 (Switch) or £13.49 (Switch) £9.99 (Steam)
Filesize: just over 830mb
Website: https://luminesremastered.com/
A classic puzzle game from the mid-2000s for the PlayStation Portable makes a return in an HD remaster for modern platforms.
Features:
40 music skins,
44 Avatars icons,
Lots of beats
A variety of modes
What made it a classic?
Game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi designed the game as an interactive walkman and a dream machine thanks to the headphone ports which made it possible to play with good sound from anywhere. Mizuguchi is pretty famous for previous audio heavy games including Space Channel 5 and Rez and decided to make it less daunting to casual players by making it a puzzle game. The game itself is definitely easy to play and understand and it's also hard to master, there are some unique game mechanics which made it stand out from many other puzzle franchises.
Graphics
Originally a PSP game, the visuals have been redone with native HD textures/sprites meaning you won't see jagged edges on your avatars, other than that it is mostly the same, visually elegant.
Sound
A key feature of this game, if you were expecting new tracks that are exclusive to remastered, prepare to be disappointed. On the flip side, this version has a higher quality bit-rate than the ones used in the previous versions and it's fantastic to listen today, especially for gamers trying this game out for the first time with a variety of excellent pieces of music, ranging from feudal Japan style, digital voices and even house beats.
One notable addition is trance vibration which allows any spare rumble supported controllers to feel the bass across your body. This mode is mostly useful for Nintendo Switch users as it can use up to 8 Joy con, 2 to play the game and 6 placed around your body including jumper pockets, trouser pockets (to USA readers this is pants). and under your feet. PS4 is limited to 4 PS4 Dualshock 4 controllers and while Xbox One is up to 8 (big) controllers. PC Steam users vary depending on how many rumble supported controllers you have.
Gameplay
The core mechanic is simple, create a 2x2 block to clear it, however, the twist is that a vertical timeline needs to sweep over these blocks to erase them for good. If a timeline sweeps a 2x2 it counts as 1 square, if it sweeps a harder 4x4 square it counts as 9 squares. If the timeline sweeps at least 4 square per lap, it gains a score multipler bonus, repeat this process during the next laps to get a x8, x12 and a x16 bonus.
This is tough for BGM skins that have a fast tempo but you can still clear blocks quickly in general but the opposite can be said for slow tempo BGM skins simply because, while it does give the player more time to clear 4 squares per lap, the timeline moves more slowly meaning that it will take a little bit longer to sweep through the completed squares. Every once in a while a chain block appears and depending on the colour, placing it next a block of the same colour will cause a chain connection of a single colour which will get erased by the timeline, a well placed chain block can change the momentum of the playfield significantly.
The game gets surprisingly tough at level 30 out of 100 where the blocks start to naturally fall a bit faster than usual, making it tough to plan moves ahead, this is a much bigger problem when there's a huge stack of blocks over the entire playfield.
Value
Besides the usual Challenge mode, there are other ways to play the game. Puzzle mode is a series of mini-levels where you have to make a shape within a certain time limit. The puzzle count was increased to 100 by featuring puzzles from Lumines 2 and later games.
Time attack mode where you clear as many blocks as you can within a certain amount of time. The playstyle involves minimal movement and rotations to not only save time but also clear more blocks. time categories include 60, 180 and 300 seconds, This mode used to have a 600 second category but it was removed in the Remastered release.
Vs CPU/Vs 2P modes involve clearing more squares than your opponent per timeline loop in a tug of war fashion, the more times you win each loop the winner gets a bigger playing field whilst the loser struggles with the smaller playing field. I have 2 complaints about this mode:
1) Both players don't even start off with the exact same block RNG sequence which can make a notable difference in the early game.
2) If you decide to quit part way through the vs CPU mode after completing a few stages, you have to start all the way back to the very beginning.
The second issue puts PC (and home consoles to a lesser extent) at a disadvantage if you want to have a break and save power on electricity whereas the Switch version can be done by putting to sleep and not use up any electricity (other than low on battery charge).
1) Both players don't even start off with the exact same block RNG sequence which can make a notable difference in the early game.
2) If you decide to quit part way through the vs CPU mode after completing a few stages, you have to start all the way back to the very beginning.
The second issue puts PC (and home consoles to a lesser extent) at a disadvantage if you want to have a break and save power on electricity whereas the Switch version can be done by putting to sleep and not use up any electricity (other than low on battery charge).
As a non-portable release, this mode features 2 players without needing a second console/second copy of the game, this is a huge plus over the original. The game is not planning to have online vs 2p mode other than online score leaderboards and I guess that is mainly because the background music and timeline are 2 majors factors that can cause a catastrophe if the game heavily desyncs due to a laggy online connection.
Mission mode never appeared in the original game but was featured in Lumines 2 makes another appearance to the Remastered game, it's essentially a visual training mode to teach players solutions during certain situations, it is a very important mode for new players to figure out how the flow of the game fully works.
Shuffle is an extra challenge mode where you play through the BGM skins in a random order which essentially makes no 2 playthroughs the same, this was added mainly because the original was pretty linear.
Overall:
A great puzzle game makes a decent remaster debut.
For a double dip purchase, you are getting the best quality audio this time along with gameplay content-wise that were introduced in later games.
The ideal platform to play it on is the Switch version for many reasons including a higher resolution in portable mode and HD rumble support for the fancy yet crazy trance vibration. It's practically the dream machine 2.0 simply because this version wouldn't exist without the Nintendo Switch's HD rumble and sales impact in the past 15 months.
LuYES
+ Highest quality audio as of this release.
+ Trance vibration.
+ Online leaderboards
+ Good variety of playstyles, each mode has a different set of both effective and ineffective strategies.
LuNO
- Not the easiest puzzle game to unlock everything which can put some lesser skilled gamers off.
- Some removed options such as the 600 second time attack mode and a reduction of avatars icon count from 48 to 44 (some are from later games) may anger diehard purists of the PSP original.
Overall: B+
Steam Review code provided by Enhance Games
No comments:
Post a Comment