Welcome to our review of Lumote, a new puzzle game that looks great, plays well, and has no help or any sort of guidance to get you going…
Possess, jump and think your way through this beautiful 3D puzzle platformer with vivid visuals and quirky characters. Play as Lumote a squishy bioluminescent creature on a quest to overthrow the Mastermote. Solve a world of puzzles by taking control of its inhabitants.
Lumote is a game about two opposing powers in a struggle for control. Blue power controlled by Lumote and red by the Mastermote. You play as Lumote, whose only abilities are to jump and to possess. You must take control of the world’s inhabitants, the Motes, and use their abilities to progress. Depending on whose power controls a Mote, their behavior will either help or hinder you on your journey into the depths as you search for the Mastermote.
That’s one big world! The world of Lumote is a single massive environment containing six towers and fifty puzzles. Each tower marks your mastery of a specific Mote and unlocks a new set of puzzles to explore. Solve the puzzles to bathe the world in the blue light of Lumote and extinguish the red light of the Master Mote.
First of all, I love this game, short as it may be for the veteran puzzle player, it sure is fun to play but be aware, this game is part of a nasty new generation of games where you are not given any sort of guidance or even a basic tutorial. You are thrown into the game and while a lot is self-explanatory, I truly despise this new path that has been taken in the gaming industry, and sadly Lumote is part of it.
I say sadly, because Lumote could be better with it, be it just a small voice-over or an on-screen tip showing for a few seconds, anything would be better than nothing. Like how you fall down to your demise when falling off a ledge, I found that out with a smile and a disappointment at the same time. But not all is bad, Lumote is basically one giant world where you move on to the next part by solving whatever puzzle is thrown at you.
From just finding the way to the end to actually figuring out you can attach to certain items to how to jump to how to activate bridges across ledges or use flowers to reach even higher places, … Literally so many options but at the same time, this may be the reason why this game scores so high… On top of the cool graphics and they really shine on next-gen consoles, but also the versatility of the game levels.
I just kind of wish there was some sort of extra oomph to this game, maybe a faster movement mode or just an overall addition of more levels, and yes, this is in spite of really liking the game, I just want more. Maybe this will come over time in added DLC or a successor?
In conclusion, Lumote does not disappoint as a puzzler, just many things could be improved upon? A tutorial or so would have probably raised the score to a 9…
