Game:

Lumines: Puzzle Fusion (2004)

Duration: 3:55

515 views

2

I think one of the biggest weaknesses in Lumines is the way I tend not to notice the clear bar semi-rhythmically crossing the play field, and from time to time that will really slip you up. As it passes over completed formations of tiles, it wipes them out of existence, but if you should complete the square as the clear line crosses over it, only as much of it that has yet to be passed over will be removed. Once removed, there's no longer a clear condition, and thus the remainder of the formation in question will revert to being regular ol' inert puzzle pieces.

It'd be a bit of a misnomer if you chose to call Lumines a "rhythm" game or any particular combination of modifiers including that one. I mean, don't get me wrong, as a musically-inclined and generative game, Lumines has tons of rhythm, but it barely requires any rhythm from you. But it helps, for sure. If you can manage to keep your movements to a natural pace between clear sweeps, you'll have nothing to worry about.

I... happen to be a little hit-and-miss when it comes to this, and it rather depends how particularly damaging my tendency to remain ignorant of this somewhat more vital piece of peripheral information presentation as it pertains to my practical puzzle piece proliferation, pileup, and pruning.

---

Challenge Mode
Skin 04: Slipping

Remember when I told you to be careful about letting yourself get carried away about lining up your adjacent formations of tiles? Well, my performance on this skin ought to give you a slight inkling as to just how much trouble you can get into if you're distracted from your original goal or happen to lose sight of the ultimate objective of keeping your puzzle matrix from overfilling and bringing the whole thing to a close unnecessarily early.

For one thing, it's pretty difficult to juggle the two tasks, and one of them is clearly far more important to your game field's continued existence. You also can't really know when you'll get another one, and you can't really be sure it'll be in the color of your preference. On the other hand, if you choose to build around one you've already received, it's pretty easy to accidentally block off the easy-access opportunity to clear it away, since you'll constantly be building your serpentine formations of pieces that deliberately do NOT clear one another.

Anyway, that's enough talking shop, particularly as it doesn't even really pertain (too much) to this video itself, but it's still something to be aware of as you're playing, particularly at higher levels.

Other Statistics