LogFAQs > #970589628

67. Lumines (2004)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/9/AABKTfAAEDix.jpg

Not sure if I should even give this a writeup, since I only played for like an hour and a half and didn't beat it, but oh well. Lumines reminds me a lot of Tetris Effect (no surprise, since it's from the same dev), but it didn't connect with me nearly as much. The first problem is that I just don't like the gameplay as much. It's fun when it works, but it's so similar to Tetris that I can't stop trying to play it like Tetris (think Tetris but your goal is to make squares rather than lines, and some of the blocks have different shapes). I never really got over my instinct to try to make lines, though I did figure out some strategies as I went.

The thing that discouraged me from persisting is that as you go, the visuals and music change, which is a fun way of keeping the game fresh even as the gameplay stays the same. Makes for a cool audiovisual experience. Unfortunately, it's the same order every time, so I ended up getting tired of doing the same stages over and over (you start from the beginning every time). The 'stages' are much shorter in Tetris Effect, so I didn't get tired of them despite it having the same pattern. The furthest I got in this was level 10 or so? I can tell this is a pretty good game, and I'd probably enjoy it more doing one run per day or something, but that's just not how I play games, so I ended up giving up on it. At least it led to the dev making Tetris Effect.

Next game hint: the FPS that modernized the genre (2001) (I think I'll start adding years to the hints now since they're too hard without)