mizuguchi's work fascinates me because it often incorporates musical elements without being explicitly rhythmic. the player within his games becomes an equal contributor to the creative tapestry of the soundscape rather than reciting canned phrases or demanding precision. as you move, rotate, place, and destroy blocks throughout this game, your actions directly accent the soundtrack and create new polyrhythmic layers over top of it, leading to a temporally fluid pacing that ebbs and flows with the eye-catching and psychedelic backdrops that each "skin" (or stage) brings. the effect is subtle; auspiciously off-beat inputs will not result in any added sonics, and with enough play this absence becomes noticeable. you unconsciously begin to follow the tempo and create your own grooves over top of the gameplay, and in this way the game manages to gently control your input timing to match up with the moving cursor that destroys your grouped blocks. this cursor slides along in perfect sync with the backing track... and here we come full circle. our button presses, twitches, and excited exhalations form their own accompaniment to the game, and lumines codifies these subliminal impulses to alter the player's behavior without letting them know explicitly. terrific design.

thankfully lumines would be an addictive puzzle game even without the audiovisual spectacle. the goal here is to clear 2x2 single-color block squares made up from two-tone squares you drop to keep them from stacking up to the top of the play area. while it draws heavily from the tetris-esque block puzzler genre, it twists the expected elements in ways that will fascinate and challenge even those who excel at other games of its ilk. the play area is much wider than it is tall, owing to the four-beat phrase that the cursor moves on sweeping the field of finished squares each measure. gravity is also in complete effect at all times, allowing you to easily chunk squares on uneven terrain in order to transform the structure by controlling where the blocks fall. once the idioms become apparent it becomes a classic game of optimization and risk evaluation: should I try to set up this complicated chain that's dependent on good block RNG? do I have a free spot open for this or will I have to set it down and hope for the best? that one column is getting a little high, do I have anything that could potentially break it down? etc. back when I initially played it it was an essential part of my podcast-listening routine, and one that I wouldn't mind pulling out today to kill a little time or occupy my hands.

I originally played the remaster though, and admittedly this version pales a bit in comparison to the content offered in that package. for a less serious player like myself, shuffle mode was an essential way to keep things fresh with a mix of skins from all modes rather than repeating the basic challenge playlist over and over. sadly it's not available here, as you can only choose between an endlessly looping of the basic playlist and single-skin play, the latter of which loses some of the charm of the skin variety. puzzles and the CPU versus mode seem basically identical between the two releases, and neither of which are particularly revelatory in comparison to the primary gameplay, but I do miss the often-perplexing missions within the remaster. in terms of mechanics, only one major difference exists: chain blocks which can wipe all attached blocks of a matching color whether within a square or not must be activated within a square in this original release, while in the remaster they fire off instantaneously upon touching another colored block. as for its ramifications on the design, I find both to be valid expressions of the quick-clear concept, with the original variation favoring more strategic play but only insofar as you care about score. the remaster has a bit of an 8th-gen mobile-esque sheen that will make fans of the starker, more lo-fi original blanch, but at the same time these updates have made the UI more consistent (a debatable positive) and made confusing layouts such as "Please return my CD" much more legible. ymmv on whether the remaster compromises the experience or not, but for me I will likely keep the remaster in my occasional rotation as much as I enjoy the novelty of playing it on a psp.

in the early days of the pandemic I dedicated at least an hour a day to playing the remaster, and replaying through everything now has brought a lot of those memories back to the forefront. while the game is second nature to me now, I still have those glimpses of utter confusion from when I first encountered it and attempted to make sense of its unorthodox characteristics. with a little time and effort, I think anyone can become comfortable with the concepts here and fall in love with the gorgeous and varied soundtrack. a must-play for puzzle fans of all stripes.