Lumines is a very special game. The concept is so simple, just two-colored blocks that fall down on the screen. Make the color patterns form squares and the sweeping timeline will clear them out once it passes through.
Timeline? Yes, because whereas other puzzle games show you instant results, Lumines is a rhythm-based puzzler. While progressing through the game you will go through all sorts of different musical stages and themes, each one with a different style, colors and usually also a different timeline. The line keeps its pace all the time and travels horizontally across the screen, tagging each square you have formed with the falling blocks and then destroying them once it reaches the end of the screen. String together lots of squares for big combos, which also results in the music reacting to you and changing its pace a bit.
Enough of that, though. The key thing in Lumines is how awesome the whole game feels like. You may be confused in your first few attempts at playing, but that will soon change into a stupid smile once you start going with the game's flow. It's a marvellous journey of musical bliss, with a fully-featured soundtrack by various Japanese electronica artists. Even if you don't particularly like electronic music it's very hard to not gasp at the game's presentation. It also gets rather hard as you go further in the game, as the themes themselves try to confuse you and you get hit with a new timeline that you haven't adapted to properly.
As you get better and survive longer through the game's main challenge mode you will unlock the musical themes for your own enjoyment which you can then play endlessly. Other modes include versus and puzzle mode, the former being a simple "battle" with a computer opponent. The other one is a weird hybrid of the main game's challenge mode, except you have to build various shapes with the blocks, which is harder than it sounds. The game also has a nice high score table and a nice selection of avatars for your game profile.
Overall, Lumines is a very important game in the PSP's lineup, although it didn't perform too well sales-wise it's been championed by critics worldwide as one of the best PSP games. In any case, it's most certainly the most original.
