Zane Mar 2, 2007
... well, it's a revival for me at least. Since I sold my PSP and all my games last year, the only thing I miss on occasion is picking up Lumines and playing a quick round or two (or a loooong round or two). Fortunately for me, Lumines is now on the PS2 in the form of Lumines Plus, a really good port of the original PSP game, plus some extra skins from Lumines II (and supposedly some all new ones).
First, the good. It plays just like Lumines on the PSP. Challenge Mode, Puzzle Mode, Single Skin Mode, VS Mode... it's all here. It's important to mention that the one thing that I do not like about the game is that it takes longer for the songs to load between skins. It was fairly smooth on the PSP, but on the PS2 there are times where the entire game goes silent for a few seconds while the next song loads.
But aside from that one technical hiccup, Lumines Plus is faithful to the original game with a twist in the form of new skins, none of which are crappy American licensed songs (thankfully!). "Shinin'" is still in there, though, but that's fine with me. I never played Lumines II, so I can't comment if any of the skins I've seen that weren't in the first game are from Lumines II or if they're all new skins, but they fit right in with the more wacky side of the compositions; the three I have heard are a piano jam, some Irish pub sounding music and... something really weird with ugly yellow and red tiles.
I wouldn't recommend getting this if you already have the PSP version, but I would recommend it for PS2 owners who want to check out a really great puzzle game. $19.99 is a damn good price for the loads of PUZZLE x MUSIC gameplay on the disc.