Originating from the PSP as one of the standout titles during launch, Lumines was a name that became widespread among the gaming community for its original take on the rhythm and puzzle genres. Soon enough, the game was released as Lumines Live! on the Xbox Live Arcade service, sporting what made Lumines stand out, while taking advantage of what service had to offer. It’s Lumines in high definition, but a pricing structure that denies the very laws of logic makes this version not as appealing as you would think.
Lumines Live! plays like every other block dropping puzzle game you’ve come across, but this time there’s more of a focus on rhythm and timing than actual puzzle solving. Given a wide open area, various 2x2 blocks comprised of two colors drop down, making it your job to line them up to match similar colored groups of four into one solid block. These solid blocks can then be used to create even more groups, racking up combos. While all of this is happening, a timing bar of sorts sweeps across the screen at intervals, highlighting the completed groups on-screen. When finished, the completed blocks vanish, and points are made. Occasionally a block with a symbol embedded inside will appear that can remove similar adjacent colored blocks when swiped by the timing bar.
A variety of modes are available, but the core gameplay remains throughout, with the focus being Challenge Mode. Given a set order of visual skins, you’ll drop blocks like normal while building combos and points, until a certain level is hit, at which the game moves on to the next style in a continuous fashion. The timing bar will change the rate it sweeps across the screen depending on the current song, making strategy a consideration in racking up points. Unlocked throughout the game, Skin Edit Mode lets you rearrange and play the various skins in an order of your choosing. Time Attack sees how many blocks you can form within certain time limits, and then Puzzle and Mission have you completing assigned tasks to move on.
One of the bullet points for Lumines Live! is the fact that multiplayer can now be had over Xbox Live as well as locally. Multiplayer has you and an opponent sharing half of the game board, but when the timing bar makes a sweep, the person with the most blocks earns a small piece of the board back, allowing them more room to pile on the combos. Like Tug-of-War, this can go for some time until one is eventually exhausted and forced out of play. Unfortunately, the game can serve up some disgusting lag, giving both players a nice serving of unresponsive controls and frustration. This can also be played via single player in the Vs. CPU mode, which consists of a 10 level tournament, each more difficult than the last. Once the first level is completed, you’ll find in shock – whoops! You have to BUY this mode to play the rest! What just happened?
This is the downright questionable pricing structure mentioned in the first paragraph. Apparently, what you buy at 1200 Microsoft Points, roughly the equivalent of $15, isn’t in fact the full game! To add insult to injury, both the Puzzle and Mission modes only offer five levels each – want more? Then you’re going to have to cough up the 300 points, about $4, for the "full version" of Vs. CPU mode along with an additional 300 points for a whopping 100 new levels in both Puzzle and Mission modes. For 600 points, or about $7.50, you can purchase the Advance Pack containing 20 new skins for Challenge Mode. Put into consideration, it almost feels like you’ve just purchased what seems to be a glorified demo, raising a few questions. Was this a design choice to give the user the power of choice, whether or not they even care about these modes, or did they instead opt to gouge you with various forms of microtransactions by reaping from Lumines’ popularity? Either way you look at it, it’s a jumble of bad ideas chopped up into separate bits.
Lumines Live! remains a visual and audio treat, much like its PSP predecessor, providing a new take on the block dropping puzzle games that you once thought you knew. Skins can vary in quality, mostly weighed on personal taste, but in the Base Pack alone there is an abundance of recycling of tunes and graphics, even though they all look very nice when shown in high definition, and complimented by a 5.1 sound system. Lumines vets will probably get more out of this title than newcomers solely for the multiplayer; the weekly leaderboards offer a reason to strive to be at the top. Both sides can agree that the additional chunks of gameplay requiring purchase are a bit of a slap to the face. If you decide to take the plunge, you might just find yourself hooked, fiending for more of what’s offered.
