Few genres have made the jump to free-to-play monetization models quite as smoothly and successfully as puzzle games have. That’s why I was a little surprised when Mobcast and Q Entertainment announced Lumines was returning to iOS in both paid and free-to-play versions. The market is so different now compared to the period the last Lumines iOS game released, and to be honest, that version of the game didn’t go over great to begin with. Lumines VS, the free-to-play game, is still a ways out from release, but Lumines Puzzle & Music, the paid game, has launched in a few countries ahead of its wide release this September. Since one of those countries is Japan and I love Lumines enough to keep buying it wherever it appears, I figured I’d give the game a go and let you all know how it turned out.

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the corner: Lumines – Touch Fusion. The older iOS Lumines game, long since pulled from the store, earned the ire of many fans due to its clunky controls and IAP. Lumines Puzzle & Music appears to directly address both of those complaints. There is no IAP in the game, at least as of yet, and while the control setup mirrors the older game, it works a lot better here. It’s more responsive, and perhaps just as importantly, the game is now played in portrait mode as opposed to landscape, narrowing the playfield and making it easier to swipe blocks from one end to the other. The developers have also brought the proverbial thunder with the soundtrack and skin selection, including 10 brand new skins and songs and a selection of classic ones from the original PSP Lumines.

When you start the game, you’ll be directed to enter your name and choose between a boy or girl avatar. You’ll unlock more avatars as you play the game, and some of them come with special abilities you can use in a pinch. Once that’s settled, you’ll then be able to choose between two different albums. Puzzle & Music contains the new skins, while the Classic album holds a PSP nostalgia blast. Each album contains three different difficulty modes plus an endless mode, but only the easy difficulty is open initially. Opening up remaining modes simply requires you to clear the mode before them. Beat easy, and you’ll get normal. Finish that to get hard, and clear hard to unlock endless. To finish a stage, you have to survive through all of the skins it throws at you. Whether or not you clear the full round, any skins you beat will be added to your collection for you to play individually at your leisure.

The controls are set up as they were before, with swiping moving the pieces left and right and tapping rotating them clockwise. If you prefer counter-clockwise rotation, there’s an option for that in the menu. As I’ve already mentioned, they’re more responsive now than they were in Touch Fusion, but things can still get a little dicey during some of the faster songs. The narrowed playfield changes things up a bit, too, though it’s still possible to make large combos and chains. I guess the important thing is that Lumines Puzzle & Music feels like Lumines should. They haven’t compromised the gameplay or tried to reduce the lengthy sessions that characterize the series. If you’re going to play Lumines, settle in for a while. It’s nice to have a mobile puzzle game like that again from a well-known series.

Ideally, I’d like a few more skins in the game, but it seems set up for more albums to be added, so perhaps that’s in the plans already. As it stands, there are 18 in Lumines Puzzle & Music. Luckily, the first song they hit you with in Classic mode is Mondo Grosso’s Shinin’, long absent from the series and much beloved by its fans, so I doubt there will be a lot of complaints. But I would definitely shoot Carter Dotson into the sun in exchange for Genki Rockets’ Heavenly Star being added to the game. Just saying.

For what is technically a soft launch, Lumines Puzzle & Music is already miles beyond the previous game, finally doing the series proper justice on mobile. It remains to be seen what changes, if any, occur before the game’s wide launch in a couple of months, but I think it’s safe for Lumines fans and puzzle game fiends in general to get excited. Best of all, the presence of this paid version means I can take an interest in the free-to-play Lumines VS without having any mixed feelings about it. Seriously, though: Heavenly Star. Do it, Mizuguchi-san.