Lumines Arise

I was a day-one PSP owner, which means I have been a member of the cult of Lumines since 2005. Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s brilliant, yet simple puzzle game did for Sony’s handheld what Tetris did for the Game Boy in 1989, kicking it off with a puzzle game that was easy to understand and nearly impossible to put down.

Mizuguchi finally got his hands on Tetris for the 2018 release of Tetris Effect, adding revelatory audio and visual effects to the timeless puzzle game to create a classic that I have frequently revisited over the years. Lumines Arise is, ostensibly, Tetris Effect, but with Lumines puzzles. Lumines, however, is actually the progenitor of Tetris Effect’s secret weapon – constant shifting between styles and music. Lumines has been doing this since day one, which is what makes Lumines Arise such a treat.