Lumines Arise Demo Preview - More of the Same, But That's not a Bad Thing

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After a long wait, almost 10 years since the last true entry into the series, Lumines is returning later this year in the form of Lumines Arise. The game is also in good hands, made by the developers of Tetris Effect: Connected, and if you're a Tetris fan, you've undoubtedly enjoyed many hours of that gem.

We got an early chance to try out a demo of the game, but how does this new entry into the series hold up? Let's take a look.

Lumines Arise (Demo) - Gameplay Impressions

The first level of the Lumines Arise demo repeats the chorus "I'm facing my fears, not backing away", which pretty much sums up my going into a puzzle game like Lumines, but despite that, there's a handy dandy tutorial that explains the very simple concept of Lumines as well as some moves that you can pull off. Despite having never played the franchise before, it helped me immediately understand what to do and how to play the game.

I can confirm that Lumines Arise is an absolute joy to play, at least for me it was. We only got access to 3 levels of the "Journey" mode, but the soundtrack was solid throughout, giving you a feeling of both euphoria and tenseness. Pulling off a huge combo is incredibly satisfying, usually accompanied by the soundtrack revving up and large particle explosions in the background, reinforcing your amazing gamer skills.

If you enjoyed the Lumines of the past, you should have a blast here. The concept remains pretty simple, and I'm not sure we're getting too much in terms of "new" gameplay features, but what is here works really well, and the visuals, as you would imagine, are top-notch from the Tetris Effect: Connected devs.

The demo has a multiplayer mode that lets you play a 1v1 match against an opponent online, but the servers appeared to be offline for our tests.

The accessibility options are also nice in Lumines Arise, with the option to make the game easier, such as stopping the game from ending or making the blocks not drop until you wish, lowering the intensity of background effects, and disabling the appearance of certain creatures like spiders and snakes in the visual effects. There is also UI scaling, which I set to 110% as it made text easy to read for me.

Lumines Arise (Demo) - Steam Deck Performance Tested

Lumines Arise has great controller support, and it also supports 16:10 aspect ratio resolutions, so no black borders for Steam Deck users.

You might be surprised to learn that Lumines Arise has plenty of graphical settings to alter. It recommends using the "Low" preset for Steam Deck, which I agree with. Surprisingly, the game is rather graphically intensive.

I would recommend you apply a 60 FPS frame limit to keep performance consistent so you don't make any input errors, but Lumines Arise does manage to hold a good 60 FPS frame rate even in visually intense situations, and it's a great play on the handheld.

Final Thoughts

From the demo, Lumines Arise looks to continue much of the same. Don't expect anything groundbreakingly new here, but if you liked the games of the past, it's a fair bet you'll love Lumines Arise, plus it's a great game to play on the Steam Deck, particularly the OLED model.

The demo should be live for everyone today, so go ahead and check it out for yourself. However, it will only last one week, being taken offline on September 3rd. The full game will be released on November 11th.

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