From the creator of Rez and SC5 comes Lumines.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:05 am

I know some of you guys enjoyed Space Channel 5 and Rez(or should at least with the latter). Tetsuya Mizuguchi, former head of UGA and new head of his indy studio, Q Entertainment developed their first game and it is for the PSP.

Interesting.

Post by **Popcorn** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:54 am

I've been waiting to see what became of this guy... I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer, though, 'cause all that looks like is some kind of insane puzzle game or something. I need more information...

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:58 am

Bandai? Is that the best he could do?

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:55 am

What's wrong with Bandai only publishing a game? Bandai is a big household name in Japan and I rather have them only distrubute and advertise a product than mucking their hands in developing it.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:26 pm

Yeah, but the kind of people who associate the Bandai name with anything other than dreck aren't really the kind of people Mizuguchi's stuff appeals to. If all I'd seen was the Bandai logo, I'd have brushed the game off without a second thought.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:49 pm

People would have brushed this game anyway without a second thought even if it was published by Konami or Namco because it doesn't contain guns, blood, thugs, or whatever's popular with the mainstream kids today. To Joe Average, this looks like a fruity-tooty puzzle game and the only way these type of games get popular or become cult-hits is through word of mouth from hardcore gaming fans throughout the internet.

That's why Katamari Damacy is such a pain in arse to find even though it was just came in yesterday and in some stores' cases, today. I did manage to snag the last copy in my local EBGames though.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:43 pm

Yeah, most people would brush it off either way, but I mean just the sight of Bandai would turn away even those few who might otherwise be interested in the game.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:09 am

And those people are most likely in the miniscule minority. I'm talking about even smaller than the hardcore gaming-forum freaks. I mean almost non-existant.

Anyway someone from the GAF have played this game first hand and gave his impressions:

Lumine is a great Tokyo mega-mall full of awesome gourmet restaurants where I eat lunch every day.

BUT THIS THREAD ISN'T ABOUT THAT SHIT, it's about Tet Mizuguchi's new trippy music game! Mizuguchi was showing it off at the Sony booth -- he had two demo units showing it off, with big ass headphones attached to each one.

It's kind of a Tetris clone. You have a block of four squares drop from the top. Each square is one of two colours. Your goal is to group the colours together into a block of four. Blocks slide down to the bottom if there's a lip so you don't get pieces hanging. It's very easy, you can pick it up in a second, three seconds if you're slow. Once you form the block, you wait for this line that scans from the left to the right of the screen to "Activate" and erase it. I think if you group the same color blocks near the big blocks of four you create BEFORE the scan line hits it, you get some kind of bonus.

I'm not sure how to describe the music. Kind of trancey, acoustic, LOTS of vocals being overlaid, which was really neat. I was playing the game and kind of rocking out to it and it took me a few minutes to realise that the placement of the blocks in the game were directly affecting the music in realtime, kinda like a sequencer. I can really see myself grooving out to this game on the train to work, it's very relaxing.

The problem is that the game is a little too easy. I started to get kind of bored and wanted to die so the guy behind me could try, and I started dropping blocks randomly, but somehow it kept busting out combos and I went to the next level. Hmm.

In short, it's good, the backgrounds are trippy and have lots of color cylcing and it's fun to look at, but the core of it really seems like a Flash game that you could put together in an evening. I'd probably drop twenty bucks on it or so, but I'm a sucker for that Bejeweled type crap, y'know?

http://forums.gaming-age.com/showthread.php?t=15893