Lumines: Electronic Symphony

Overview

Lumines: Electronic Symphony was a launch title for the PlayStation Vita and was developed by Q Entertainment and published by Ubisoft Entertainment. Q Entertainment also enlisted the help of the design firm BUILD to help with the creation of the marketing material for the game such as redesign of the Logo, the in-game fonts and the visual graphics on the game's packaging.

Gameplay

This the fifth game in the Lumines franchise keeps the formula and core gameplay of the previous games in the series whilst adding several new features to the game as outlined below:

Avatars:

The player's avatar also now comes with special abilities, one set for single-player and another for multiplayer. There is a total of 42 different avatars from which the player can select and 5 different abilities shared between the avatars.

The 5 single-player special abilities are:

• Chain Reaction: Which changes the next waiting block into a Chain Block
• Hang Time: Which increases the wait time of the next blocks for a set period of time.
• Hold the Line: Which stops the Time Line temporarily.
• Giant Steps: Which changes all 3 waiting blocks into single-color blocks.
• Instant Remix: Which changes the next waiting block into a Shuffle Block.

The 5 multiplayer abilities are:

• Invisible Man: Which changes one of your opponent's next waiting blocks into a Transparent Block.
• The Vortex: Which randomizes your opponent's block rotation direction.
• Giant Steps: Which has the same effect as single-player.
• Hang Time: Which has the same effect as single-player.
• Hold the Line: Which has the same effect as single-player.

Touch Controls:

The game makes use of both the front and rear touch screens of the PlayStation Vita.

• Tapping the front touch screen will rotate the current falling block and players can also move the position of the black via the front touch screen - although the traditional control setup is also available and the two may be used in tandem.
• Touching the rear touch panel charges the player's avatar power much faster than letting it charge itself over time.

General Gameplay:

In addition, the game also employs an experience system to unlock skins rather than the progression methods of the preceding games. Graphically the game uses dynamically-lit 3D models for the blocks rather than the 2D sprites of previous games in the franchise. Finally a new shuffle block was added to the game which shuffles up all blocks it in the connected block it touches in the well when it lands, randomly creating and altering the current layout of that section of the player's well.

Game Modes

The following game modes are included within the game although its worth noting that the Puzzle mode of the original game (Lumines: Puzzle Fusion) does not feature within the game.

• Voyage: The main marathon style mode of play in which players play until the well is full and no more possible moves can be made. Upon game over occurring players can either choose to exit with their current score and receive the corresponding amount of XP or continue from the current stage at the cost of their score and corresponding XP. As players play new audio and visual themes (skins) progress through a set order of songs / themes and the song playlist order is outlined below.

• Duel: Unlike the previous Lumines game (Lumines: Puzzle Fusion) which includes the possibility of playing against an AI opponent, Lumines: Electronic Symphony requires an ad-hoc opponent to play against. Aside from that the mode is identical to that included in the first game in which the screen is split in half by a vertical line which encroaches on the losing player's playing area. Once again the game ends when the well is full of blocks and no more may be dropped into the well at its current state.
• Stopwatch: These give players a set amount of time ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes and tasks the player with erasing a set amount of squares in the time allocated.
• Master: This mode starts off at a harder difficulty than the standard mode of play and tasks players with erasing a set amount of squares - it is essentially the same as Stopwatch expect does not include a time limit to erase the required amount of squares.
• Playlist: In this mode players create a playlist of songs and skins to play through and achieve as high as score as possible.

Development

The developers originally pitched the idea for the game as Daft Punk: Lumines, wanting to reboot the franchise. While Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Horem-Christo were interested in the idea, having already appeared in DJ Hero as playable characters, the duo wanted to create all new material and mixes for the games but were unable to as they were already hard at work on the Tron: Legacy soundtrack and what would eventually become Random Access Memories.

The game was announced at Gamescom 2011 and had its first public hands-on showcase at Tokyo Game Show 2011 later that year. The Tokyo Game Show demo featured two playable songs: "Hey Boy, Hey Girl" by The Chemical Brothers and "4 AM" by Kaskade both of which were the first confirmed tracks to be included in the game.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack includes a wide selection of licensed songs. Q Entertainment described the soundtrack as a "love letter to electronic music".

The song list is in order of appearance in the main Voyage mode.

1. "The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)" - Deep Dish feat. Tracey Horn
2. "Good Girl" - Benny Benassi
3. "Moistly" - LFO
4. "4AM" - Kaskade
5. "In My Arms" - Mylo
6. "Sunriser (Publicmind Remix)" - Kem Ishii
7. "Hey Boy Hey Girl" - The Chemical Brothers
8. "Autumn Love" - SCSI-9
9. "Disco Infiltrator" - LCD Soundsystem
10. "Yesterday When I Was Mad (Jam & Spoon Mix)" - Pet Shop Boys
11. "Windowlicker" - Aphex Twin
12. "Bang Bang Bang" - Mark Ronson & the Business
13. "Played-A-Live (The Bongo Song)" - The Safri Duo
14. "Close (to the Edit)" - Art of Noise
15. "Embracing the Future" - BT
16. "Automatons" - Anything Box
17. "The Sun Rising" - The Beloved
18. "Pacific 707" - 808 State
19. "What's Your Number (Jassanova Renumber)" - Ian Pooley
20. "Flyin' Hi" - Faithless
21. "Higher State of Consciousness (Deep & Slow Chill Edit)" - Wink
22. "Wooden Toy" - Amon Tobin
23. "Superstar" - Aeroplane
24. "Apollo Throwdown" - The Go! Team
25. "Celebrate Our Love" - Howard Love
26. "Kelly Watch the Stars" - Air
27. "Aganjù" - Bebel Gilberto
28. "Rocket (Tiesto Remix)" - Goldfrapp
29. "Always Loved a Film" - Underworld
30. "Wolfgang's 5th Symphony" - Wolfgang Gartner
31. "Dissolve" - The Chemical Brothers
32. "Out of the Blue" - System F
33. "Gouryella" - Gouryella

Also, Orbital's "Never" is used for the credits of the game.

The following songs feature as unlockable songs composed by Makoto Asai and once unlocked are playable in the Playlist mode.

1. "Final Days of the Samurai"
2. "Traces of the Past"
3. "The Afterglow"
4. "Subaquatic"
5. "We Are Connected"
6. "Another Dimension"
7. "Sub-zero"
8. "Riders on the Storm"
9. "Hot Stuff"
10. "Life"

Download

Like all of the PS Vita games, Lumines: Electronic Symphony is offered as a direct download and has a total size 722 MB before downloading any updates.

Trophies

Lumines Electronic Symphony controversially lacks a Platinum Trophy. In an interview, James Mielke (Producer at Q-Entertainment) explained that this was due to human error. He explained that the team assumed that all retail games automatically had a Platinum Trophy for completing all other Trophies when in reality, the Trophy must be manually entered by the developer and so as a result the game features no Platinum Trophy.