Just the endless recycling of fashion trends from 20-odd years ago, the PSP is having something of a spiritual resurgence in 2025. We always knew that Sony’s handheld was incredibly influential – fundamentally, its feature set was folded into every mobile phone on the planet – but a console can’t exist without iconic software to go with it.
We’ve recently seen Sony’s one-eyed Patapon return to screens (and their spiritual successors, the Ratatan), and now it’s the turn of blocks that drop. Lumines was one of the most important block-dropping games of its time, standing as a Sony exclusive take on a Tetris-style experience, and now, Enhance are returning to the series with Lumines Arise, fresh from their masterful sojourn into spinning different-shaped blocks for Tetris Effect.
Lumines is a block-dropping game where timing and the passage of time are key to achieving a high score. The Timeline passes across the screen over and over again, and each time it does, it wipes, or collects all of the 2×2 blocks you’ve created by spinning and dropping the falling blocks into place. Doing this over and over again,will increase your combo, while also keeping you alive as the blocks start to stack up, and it becomes increasingly tricky to manoeuvre.
You can make those blocks bigger and bigger, combining 2×2 shape together, creating 3×3 blocks for an even bigger score, or chaining scores together by having them drop into place just as you clear other blocks. It’s beautifully simplistic, riffing on Tetris’ original block-dropping gameplay, and making it into something more modern and visually exciting.
So far, that’s all as true for the original Lumines as it is for Arise, but the team at Enhance have built on their work on Tetris Effect to maximise the audio-visual experience, while also making a few changes to the moment-to-moment gameplay. The newest addition is Burst. Entering Burst sees blocks of the opposite colour jumping to the top of the playing field, giving you further opportunity to grow a single huge Burst block, with the other coloured blocks continuing to leap out of the way as it grows. Not only will it earn you even more points, it’s a great last-ditch way to try and survive the impending doom of a full screen, adding an exciting extra wrinkle for players to iron out.
Lumines Arise is all very Tetris Effect, which was, in turn, very much Tetris by way of Lumines. At this point, it’s practically block-dropping inception, but all you really need to know is that Enhance are masters of this genre and style, and Lumines Arise is the next step on that audio-visual pathway.
Lumines Arise responds to your gameplay with more feeling, more emphasis, than ever before. Blocks pulsate, breathe, or beat, while your controller throbs, rumbles and thumps in time. It makes you feel like you’re part of the musical track, rather than an observer, and for all that there are moments of frantic, abject terror at losing your streak and failing a level, this is an experiential game that needs to be played and taken part in, rather than simply spoken about.
Much like Tetris Effect, Lumines Arise looks spectacular. The visuals make this feel like a simple block-dropping game that’s come to life, that’s been inhabited by the very spirit of the music that accompanies it. Nothing is still; nothing is permanent, apart from your score and the frame of the gameboard. It’s a perfect juxtaposition of minimalism and maximalism, contained in one screen.
That would all be for nothing, if the soundtrack wasn’t good. Based on our early hands-on, this boasts the same mixture of progressive emotional dance music as Tetris Effect, and even if it’s not necessarily your genre, you can’t help but feel something while you’re playing. Soaring vocals, swelling soundscapes, all fit perfectly with the distinct thump of the drumbeat. It changes and evolves with every level and area, constantly shifting your attention, and the feel of the game, even while you’re performing the same fundamental task throughout.
It’s incredible how a shift in change, colour and tone can alter how the game feels. Circular pulsating shapes within the blocks feel completely different to the cold, harsh lines of straight-edged blocks, and they perform differently when they connect. One early level sees tiny astronauts appearing within the constructed block, floating off into space when the Timeline passes, and it’s hard not to be awe-struck and utterly put off at points. That will probably lessen with time, but, I have to say, I hope it doesn’t.
Pulling on that musical thread, once you’ve worked your way through Journey mode, you can take all of the tracks and create your own playlist. This is a perfect way to curate your own experience, and you can even watch the computer play while you just listen to the music by selecting Theater Mode.
There’s also multiplayer. Here you can compete side by side against other players, with Burst Mode coming in both ranked and custom flavours, while you can also fight your way to the top of the global leaderboards. This wasn’t active in our preview build, and I can’t wait to face off against some other players to see how I fare after years of playing Lumines. Probably not as well as I think I will.
Customisation comes in the form of your avatar, the Loomi. This diminutive floating fella is your in-game representative, and you can spend any Pon you earn while playing on customising them to make them truly unique amongst the other Loomi. It’s all random though, utilising the Loomi-Pon Rubiks-style cube to spit out a random cosmetic. If you want to get your avatar looking just right, you might have to play for a quite a while. Based on our hands-on, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Lumines Arise is the next evolutionary step in Enhance’s journey through audio-visual gaming. Once again, it builds on a framework that’s instantly comprehensible, but layers in an evocative set of visuals alongside some of the most compelling audio design you’ll find. Is Lumines Arise already essential? We won’t have long to find out, with the game set to release for PC and PS5, with PC VR and PSVR 2 support, on 11th November.
