If You Enjoyed Tetris Effect, You Need to Play This Reimagined PSP Game

One of the most defining puzzle games of the past decade was Tetris Effect. Japanese developer Enhance took the core Tetris formula, one of the most familiar and easy to pick and play in the world, and made it a psychedelic audiovisual experience featuring amazing music from Hydelic and trippy level themes. It’s amazing on a flatscreen TV or in VR, but I always wondered if it was the kind of experience that was only possible with Tetris. I was happy to be proven wrong when I played Lumines Arise at Summer Game Fest Play Days.

For those unfamiliar with Lumines, it’s a puzzle game series that began on PSP in 2004. It’s a block-dropping game like Tetris, but is centered around matching parts of multi-colored squares to create 4×4 or bigger blocks. Every few seconds, something called the “Timeline” makes its way across the screen and clears any of those created blocks. It’s simple, but you can create some truly massive blocks or big score-delivering combos if you know how to place each square and some deeper gameplay techniques like cascading. If you loved Lumines before, you’ll be happy to know it receives the full Tetris Effect treatment with Arise.

With Lumines Arise, Enhance once again reimagines the audiovisual experience around an incredibly solid puzzle game formula. The one new mechanic is called Burst. Players build up Burst over time and can then activate it. Doing so creates a specific big block of a certain color that players are given time to expand. When Burst ends, all of those blocks are cleared and you’ll feel much better positioned to continue connecting blocks and creating combos.

I saw this new feature in action across three different stages in the demo I played at Summer Game Fest Play Days. One simply featured bright blocks, as I saw a man walking in the background. The next had been attaching machinery with spider-like webs. The final saw chameleons flank each side of the stage, and they bopped along to the song or any massive combos I made. The chameleon one in particular really stuck out in the way Tetris Effect’s best levels did, so I have the confidence that some real gems will be scattered about Lumines Arise’s thirty different stages.

A developer from Enhance told me that he believes Lumines is harder to learn than Tetris, but easier to master. I definitely felt that during my time with Lumines Arise. I really struggled through my initial playthrough of three levels. I not only had to relearn what I knew about Lumines, but also accommodate an overwhelming visual presentation as well. With a wider board and emphasis on block-falling combos, there’s definitely a lot more going on in a game of Lumines Arise than Tetris Effect.

While I struggled at first, once I got back into the groove of Lumines‘ gameplay, I could take a step back and take in the beautiful presentation of it all more. Once I settled in like that, Lumines Arise really started to sing, both metaphorically and literally. While it might not feel as instantly iconic as Tetris Effect in, I have no doubt I will soon lose countless hours to Lumines Arise. From Tetris Effect to Humanity, Enhance has cemented itself as not only one of the best puzzle game developers out there, but one of the best creators of audiovisual experiences as well. The track record seems set to continue with this new game.

Lumines Arise is slated to be released on PC and PS5, with VR support, sometime later this year. A demo is also going to come out sometime this summer.