Lumines: Electronic Symphony
A puzzle game for PlayStation Vita with rhythm-based block clearing.
Q Entertainment and Ubisoft brought Lumines: Electronic Symphony to the PlayStation Vita in 2012. The puzzle game was first revealed at Gamescom 2011 in Cologne, and a playable demo arrived at Tokyo Game Show 2011, where tracks from The Chemical Brothers and Kaskade were confirmed.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Q Entertainment; Rocket Studio
- Publisher
- Ubisoft
- Producer
- James Mielke
- Director
- Ding Dong
- Released
- February 15, 2012 (NA)
- February 22, 2012 (PAL)
- April 19, 2012 (JP)
- Series
- Lumines
- Genre
- Puzzle
- Platforms
- PlayStation Vita
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The core gameplay of Lumines: Electronic Symphony follows the same mechanics as earlier Lumines titles. Players rotate and move blocks onto the board, with blocks composed of 2x2 units in two colors. When blocks form a 2x2 square of the same color, a colored square is created. The Time Line sweeps across the board, eliminating colored squares and adding points to the score. If blocks reach the top of the board, the player loses. The game supports multiple control methods simultaneously, including the PlayStation Vita's front touch screen, back touchpad, buttons, triggers, and sticks. Six game modes are available: Voyage, Playlist, Duel, Stopwatch, Master, and World Block. Voyage is similar to Challenge Mode from previous titles, requiring continuous creation of colored squares to advance through stages, but difficulty fluctuates in waves rather than increasing steadily. Playlist lets players select and order previously unlocked skins. Duel is a local multiplayer mode. Stopwatch is a time attack mode with four difficulty levels: 30, 60, 180, and 300 seconds. Master requires players to create a set number of colored squares across five zones of increasing difficulty. World Block allows online cooperative play to erase a global block every 24 hours. Two new block types are introduced: the Chain block, which links adjacent colored blocks for erasure by the Time Line without awarding points for single blocks, and the Shuffle block, which randomizes colors within a cluster of blocks upon landing.
Development
Producer James Mielke originally pitched the game to Ubisoft as Daft Punk Lumines, aiming to distinguish the Vita version by associating it with a specific artist. Daft Punk had met Tetsuya Mizuguchi and were interested, but they were too busy with the soundtrack for Tron: Legacy and had to drop the project. Mielke and Mizuguchi collaborated on the game's direction, with Mizuguchi wanting a Lumines game featuring flowers and lights. The title Lumines: Electro Light Orchestra was nearly used but was abandoned after Q Entertainment's legal department raised concerns about conflict with Electric Light Orchestra. The name Lumines Electronic Symphony was chosen instead. The design firm BUILD, founded by former members of The Designers Republic and Psygnosis, created marketing materials including the logo, in-game font, and package design elements. Because most of the development team was working on Child of Eden, Rocket Studio was hired as an external programming team, along with an anonymous director later replaced by Ding Dong from Ubisoft. Ding Dong focused on making background visuals move in sync with blocks dropping onto the field. Incorporating the Vita's back touchpad was challenging due to the game's concentration demands; it was ultimately used to store the Avatar's power.
Reception
Lumines: Electronic Symphony was released in February 2012 alongside the PlayStation Vita launch. It received favorable reviews according to Metacritic. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb described it as the most fun he had with the franchise since its PSP debut in 2004. Kotaku Australia noted that the game returned to its electronic roots. Shacknews listed it among the most anticipated and impressive Vita launch titles, alongside Gravity Rush. Thierry Nguyen of 1Up.com wrote that it seemed a safe bet to become another snazzy synesthesia symphony. GamesRadar+ described the mechanics in depth, noting how the visuals grew more intense as the score increased. Wired gave it nine stars out of ten, praising the ability to sort favorite tunes into a specified order or loop a single song. EGMNow also gave it nine out of ten, calling it utterly fantastic with a stellar soundtrack that returns to the original Lumines' thematic roots, though noting fewer modes than earlier siblings. The A.V. Club gave it a B+, stating there was a disappointing paucity of extras beyond the main endurance mode and that the versus CPU option was removed. Digital Spy gave it four stars out of five, calling it one of the best Vita launch titles despite limited multiplayer options, with an excellent soundtrack.
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