Recently I've been playing the hell out of the Lumines II demo that came pre-installed on my Japanese PSP. The object of the game is to match the colours of the falling blocks to each other so they form four blocks. A line passes horizontally across the grid and makes all matched blocks disappear. The music changes depending on what you do in the game.
Like most demos, the Lumines II demo is not exactly full-featured. This demo consists of just one stage, pictured above. In the demo version "Level 58" is labeled "Stage 1-1". Since I didn't have the slow progression of going from levels 1 – 57, I of course find the demo pretty freaking hard, but a lot of fun. It's been so much fun that I've been playing the same one stage over and over for many days. After watching the demo video, which one can view if you don't start the game immediately, I discovered a few things I'd been doing "wrong" previously. Now I'm getting higher scores. Fun!
Because I've been playing it so much, I decided to just buy the game already. Thanks to oliemoon, I found it at Newegg for $9.99 with free shipping. I paid a couple bucks extra to have it arrive on Friday, because I want to have it in hand before my holiday next week. I will probably be playing Lumines II on the airplane(s) until the battery on my PSP dies. Unfortunately, the main leg of my journey is long (11 hours, 36 minutes, says my flight itinerary), so the battery will not last for the entire trip. Anyway, I'm looking forward to its arrival in the post (and of course to my holiday).
ETA – 20 May 2009: oliemoon reminded me that she had installed the Lumines II demo on the PSP Memory Stick before she sent it to me. So I stand corrected.
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Aw, I thought you were going to review it, or compare it to the original (which I bought with my PSP many years ago, played it to death, and then never picked up my PSP again… that was… 5 years ago?)
The screenshot makes it look awfully like the original… Maybe it just has a whole new range of catchy tunes and… funky colours!
Since the demo was just one stage, I don’t know what more I could say about it besides giving my initial impressions of the game play. I will add that the blocks fall extremely fast, since the demo is actually level 58 rather than level 1.
I haven’t played the original. As I noted earlier, I do want to get it. However, Lumines is a little hard to find new at a decent price.
I do know Lumines II has licensed songs, which I guess the original didn’t have? That seems to be one of the selling points of Lumines II, anyway.
“Earlier” meaning this post: http://www.acidforblood.net/2009/04/first-weeks-with-my-psp.html
:-)
Yeah, my bad — I remember reading that now!
I loved Lumines as a distraction, but considering I nearly always wiped out at the exact same moment, give or take a few seconds, it got pretty infuriating.
It was annoying because a) you want to hear the next song!! and b) you have to play through the piss-easy stages again to get to the hard bit… urgh.
I remember being shows the original Lumines for PSP when the system first came out. It looked like a good reason to own a PSP. Years later I bought a new PSP 2000, and I never got around to picking up Lumines. I should check to see if I can get the Lumines II demo on PSN.