When I came across Lumines II boxed for about five bucks on a certain famous auction site, it struck me that writing Sort by Lowest Price on it would be way more fun than writing about another horrible racing game. And I was right! Lumines II is fun and it delivers exactly what you'd hope for: more Lumines.
This is true in two senses: it has both more of the same mechanically and a lot more content than its predecessor. Two colors of blocks fall in squares of four, you match them up and a little cursor goes around in time to the music that clears every group of four or larger that's on the screen all in one fell swoop. The more blocks you clear at once, the more points you get. It's a simple setup upon which a mighty falling blocks game is built.
The most notable difference from the first game is, Lumines II
includes licensed music--straight from 2006! I'm not in love w/ every last track but
every one does at least work w/ the game's format. Some tracks include music videos that run behind the game as you play which is maybe a little distracting form time to time but still an entertaining addition.
As far as gameplay, the meat of Lumines II is in the challenge
mode which is divided into three difficulties. Instead of making the
blocks just fall faster or something for harder difficulties, there's
actually entire new levels here for each difficulty which is a nice
touch. To be honest, none of difficulty levels seem all that much harder
or easier to me but it is nice to have three different sets of songs instead of always starting on the same one.
Lumines games require you to balance long and short term strategies. You have to pick and chose if you need to clear blocks right away or if you want to start lining things up to get a bigger score down the line. I feel like I intuit my way through strategy in Lumines. As I play, I consistently get better but I find it really hard to quantify what I am doing differently. I can't really say this is preferable to, say, Tetris where you absolutely know what you've done wrong but it works quite well w/ Lumines emphasis on music.
In addition, there is also your standard arrangement of versus modes and so forth. Of the extra stuff, the most interesting is puzzle mode in which the game sets you up w/ a set of challenges where you are given tasks like trying to clear all blocks in a set number of moves or to clear an entire column of blocks w/in a time limit. This is much expanded from the original Lumines and an excellent addition. I find completing these really helped get my head around particular tactics to use in challenge mode.
One of the nicer additions is the ability to make your own playlist of tracks that you actually like so you can play through w/o ever having to hear the Black Eyed Peas' "Pump It" ever again. There is even a built-in sequencer to make your own songs. Such a feature could honestly be a future Lumines title in and of itself but here it's so rudimentary it can't be considered much more than a little time-waster in this case.
As welcome as some of the new additions are, this is really more or less the same as every other Lumines game when it comes right down to it. If you are new to the franchise, pick up whichever version is cheapest, whichever one you run into first or the one for your preferred system. It's hard to recommend Lumines II in particular to start w/ but it's equally hard not to recommend it. One way or the other, this is definitely a franchise worth delving into if you are a fan of the genre.
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