Game:

Lumines: Puzzle Fusion (2004)

Duration: 4:06

1,776 views

8

Boy, you said it, crazy computerized voice! That's a real mouthful of a title for the next set. I'm actually not sure if it being a longer name makes it easier or harder to figure out what the name will be if you're going by sound alone.

And, of course, if I don't pay attention to the more gameplay-pertinent indicators, there's no chance I'll ever notice the credits marked on the bottom of certain skins like this one. Oh, and credits like this can only mean we're in store for another vocals-heavy jam session, so buckle up and get ready to roll on out on this one!

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Challenge Mode
Skin 09: I Hear the Music in My Soul

This is another skin that I'll call an introductory intermediary that will set the tone for what you can expect in future play as we wander along the sound and sight-laden path of Challenge Mode. It's a fair more overt and up-front about what's going on here that wasn't the same as those that came before: it's the clear line's tempo. More specifically, it's noticeably slower than what we're used to, which has quite a number of implications for gameplay.

In an action puzzle game, generally one would be inclined to think "Slower is better for me, right? It'll give me generously more time to consider each move!" ...but this would be an all-too-easy mindset to fall into that can and will lead you astray if you're just a little too over-eager about what you think is "abusing" it as it slowly becomes apparent that you're the victim of the change in your piece-placing rhythm.

See, the only thing this means from a purely gameplay-driven perspective is that the rate at which your pieces clear is decreasing...which does nothing to help out with the number of drops you'll be expected to make in the meantime. That is, you'll suddenly find the field filling up faster for your troubles, which is indeed big trouble compared to what you've been doing up to this juncture.

Don't worry too much, though, because it's also a golden opportunity to push the combo multipliers through the roof, since you can keep building on a group of clearing tiles without that pesky clear sweep cutting your fun short. That said, you'll still want to be extra-mindful of its slower and steadier progression across the play field, since it's still just as capable of cutting your mid-clear formations a new one if you should happen to be just a little late to expand it.

This is something of a significant transition for me, because... well, this style of play isn't quite as second-nature to me as it could be, although spending time in this section of the game definitely removes my inhibitions and reluctance to go "all in" on a clearing spree. You might have noticed that most of my plays tend to err on the side of conservatism, whereas a more aggressive style of play would have managed to net a more impressive formation.

If you consider the fact that most of my action puzzle experience is towards games that are less active than they are "reactive," more heavily rewarding causing pieces to fall into other pieces to create subsequent clears rather than setting off as many tile matches at one time. Of course, in Lumines, a clear is a clear, and it's only that they occur in the same passing of the clear line that they become increasingly valuable. Don't get me wrong, a chain reaction can be immensely useful, but not for the sake of stringing together simple clears... a good chain reaction is one that makes a bunch of pieces touch simultaneously to create a larger clear than would be possible with any manual piece placement.

I'm still wont to show more caution (perhaps than would be advisable), however, because I'm still prone to a butterfingers effect of twisting a piece the wrong way at those precious final moments before touchdown, and it's not always great for the overall stack's health if you put down a formation that will clear accidentally with the already-lit tiles when what you really wanted was to influence the way the pieces on top of those in the middle of clearing will fall to reach the otherwise more difficult to influence underlying formations.

To put it more bluntly, I'm prone make mistakes and I spend a noticeable amount of time trying against what might be conventional wisdom and immediately apparent visual cues to fix them. This, of course, leads to some tunnel vision of missing the more pressing concerns, and my tendency to make mistakes will compound those problems with the ones I fail to fix further below and THAT is how I will eventually lose the game entirely.

It's not doomsaying or even a spoiler alert for how this whole series will progress, either...it's more an analysis of how I play and where this creates problems and eventually proves the theoretically endless to be somewhat more finite than one would hope. Still, it's extremely gratifying while the ride lasts, and it's more than enough to get me back for more.

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