Lumines stands tall as a fantastic puzzle game and also as one of the best PSP games on the market.
The game play in Lumines is exactly what you would expect from a classic style puzzle game, simple yet addictive and with massive room for learning new tricks. On the screen you are given a 16x10 grid and square blocks made up of 4 smaller blocks are dropped in one at a time. There are two different coloured squares and by combining 4 squares of the same colour you can eliminate that block, it all sounds more complicated than it actually is. By combining these blocks into overlapping sets of blocks you can create combos. Of course, the goal is to simply last as long as possible while the level of dificulty goes up by increasing the speed at which squares fall. This is all standard practice for puzzle games, but what makes Lumines stand out is the fusion of gameplay, graphics and sound.
In the challenge mode you play to survive, and each time you pass 4 levels the background colour, text and music all changes. These are called skins and your basic goal should be to unlock them all. The different style of each skin is interesting, as everything changes as you progress from one to the next and you will easily end up with a favourite. What is also refreshing in Lumines is how your every move makes a sound that goes along perfectly with the music so that while you are playing you, in a way, make your own kind of music.This is Lumines's unique selling point over any other puzzle game.
As well as the main challenge mode you also have time attacks, which take place over 4 different lengths of time. These are often alot shorter in length and will cater to on the go players. There is also a puzzle mode which challenges you to make certain shapes of one colour, this is often extremely tough towards the end as you have to make shapes which may have places where blocks are deleted. Along with this there is also a multiplayer mode where you compete for a larger portion of the screen, the first person to run out of room is the loser. Simple yet effective.
All in all this adds up to a substantial play time, and with the PSP running low on quality titles it may be one that you play over and over for a long time to come. Lumines could have easily benefitted from online play, but with so many skins to collect this isn't too important in the long run. Lumines basically results in something that will stop your PSP getting rusty and something which will keep you entertained whenever and wherever you may be.