Former Sega UGA studio chief Tetsuya Mizuguchi yesterday lifted the lid on his long-fabled PSP exclusive project, revealing one of the more interesting titles destined for the Sony portable.
The game carries the name Lumines and is the first spawn of Q-Entertainment, Mizuguchi’s development studio set up in the aftermath of his defection from Sega and is his oft-rumoured spiritual successor to the acclaimed REZ.
To be published by Bandai in Japan, Lumines is described in the blurb from yesterday’s SCEJ presentation as being “An original title with a completely new style,” which doesn’t really shed light of proceedings.
However, from what we can make out, the player interacts with a set of blocks in order to manipulate a graphic equaliser, therefore impacting on the game’s soundtrack in some way. As you will know, REZ was a shooter/music game hybrid and it would appear that Lumines seeks to breed the puzzle genre with Mizuguchi-san’s electronica fetish, in very much the same way.
Expect updates from the Tokyo Game Show, where a full presentation is planned for Lumines, later this week.
I love Rez and most of the rest of what Miziguchi has made, but the whole falling blocks game seems so 1988. Then again, I thought the same about the on-rails shooters and Rez ended up being one of the best pieces of software written.
Really didn’t like Rez - the gameplay was bad. Beautiful graphics and music, though. Actually, I don’t think I’ve liked any of this guy’s stuff. Space Channel 5 was bad even for a music game.
Maybe this will be good, though.
There wasn’t a “game” there if you define game as a series of pleasing decisions. Yet I found the experience as a whole to be absolutely mesmerizing. The interplay between the player’s actions and the video and audio was very well done and was pleasing to me in a completely different way than other video games.
Well, that’s not how I define a game but I can see what you’re saying.
I found Rez pretty mesmerising too, only in the bad way.
I guess it’s just different strokes for different folks.
Rez is a game that makes me wonder, just how easily amused am I anyway? I agree that the gameplay is rather dull, but somehow it just… doesn’t… matter. “Mesmerizing” really is the best word to describe it.
Seriously, I should be able to fully recreate the Rez experience by merely using a cool Winamp/Media Player visual plugin while blaring some techno at top volume for forty minutes. Somehow, that just isn’t the same as playing the game.
And the fourth boss monster is one of my favorite moments in all of gaming. Everything feels like it’s going at 500,000 miles per hour, the already awesome soundtrack is absolutely at its best here, and I love the way the enemy divides its time between assuming a human form and splitting into hundreds of spinning fragments and add to the sense of pure chaos. If only that boss were actually as deadly as it looked…
My biggest problem with Rez is that $50 struck me as an insane price to pay for it. For the longest time I couldn’t even find a used copy that was priced below $40, and the game’s just too weak and waaaaaay too short to be worth that much IMO.
Dude fuuuuuuuck you for bumping this thread and getting my hopes up. But also this is breaking down my resolve to wait for the next iteration of VR hardware. I loved Rez Infinite on the PS4, and that new area? I want to live there.
I wanted to like this on the PSVR, based on all the high praise I had read for it. But it was pretty boring for me. I think I played it once after getting it on sale and never went back.
