In the spring of 2005, I was looking for a new game for my PlayStation Portable and I came across very vibrant box art for a game called Lumines: Puzzle Fusion. I picked it up, played it for a short time and was instantly hooked thanks to the music and visuals — which took me to another level. Now 20 years later, Enhance, the development studio behind Tetris Effect (along with Lumines sequels and remakes), have brought their stylish blend of visuals and audio to the Lumines series with Lumines Arise.
In Lumines Arise players manipulate 2×2 blocks made up of two colors, aiming to create 2×2 (or greater) squares of a single color. A timeline sweeps across the playfield to the beat of a toe tapping soundtrack, clearing the squares and generating scoring multipliers based on how many 2×2 squares you clear.
New to Lumines Arise is a new mechanic called “Burst”. Burst allows you to clear up your grid and in the process rack up your score and save you from losing. You build up your Burst bar as you clear 2×2 blocks and there is a % indicator that rises with more clearance. You don’t need to wait to fill the full 100% to activate it, you can activate it at any point past 50%, and the higher the percentage, the longer the Burst occurs. When “Burst” is activated, the game goes into a trippy state where squares formed in one of the two colors won’t clear for a small period of time. The other colored blocks come back down. During this time, you are looking for the largest cluster with the numbered burst inside, you are tasked with growing that number by placing like-colored blocks adjacent to it. The other color blocks disappear when they touch the burst, and the number at the top of the line indicates how many passes you have left before it starts clearing the burst color.
The Lumines Arise demo includes a single player mode called Journey Mode, which is the familiar Lumines gameplay as you reach scoring milestones to get to the next stage. The 3 stages I played were: Arise, Duo Soul, and the Chameleon Groove. These won’t be in the same order in the final version of the game, but you will get to them and over 30 other tracks/stages. Hydelic, who was behind the phenomenal Tetris Effect soundtrack, is returning to provide the soundtrack of Lumines Arise.
I got to experience Lumines Arise’s new multiplayer mode named Burst Battle. Burst battle is best-of-three head-to-head competitive mode where you use Burst to beat you opponent. You send over garbage blocks when you clear out block on your end. The inverse of that is receiving warning messages when you are about to be hit with garbage blocks, piling up on each end if you do nothing about it. You can use Burst to cancel out the garbage block pile up, shift the momentum of a match.
I felt like I was being put up against more skilled players and getting taken to the cleaners. The devs have ensured that there will be a matchmaking system that will align players based on a skill (going off of your win loss record) much like it was in the company’s other title, Tetris Effect. So you won’t get smoked like I was.
Luminus Arise can be a little intense. Don’t you fret, the Lumines Arise team added a No-Stress option that modifies certain rules to make gameplay easier. Instead of receiving a “Game Over” screen the field will clear out and you can continue your gameplay. If you are playing on Steam Deck you can adjust the 2D setting to maximize your field of vision. You will have your own personal avatar in the game called a “Loomi”. You can unlock different items for the Loomi as you progress through Arise.
I am really excited for Lumines Arise. The mix of visuals and a stellar soundtrack help Lumines Arise become one of my most anticipated releases of 2025. Fans of the original Lumines and Tetris Effect will be happy with this new offering from Enhance. Lumines Arise will launch on November 11th, 2025 and be released on Steam (Steam Deck compatible) and the PS5.