Can this game be the 'end' of the tedious Genki Rockets promotional train, Mizuguchi seems obsessed with pushing? Seeing that same track and video that was just plopped into Lumines again into this years later, the otaku-ish obsession with this made up girl Lumi and more (the intro felt like an hour long...), the whole thing failed to make the kind of abstract impact Rez did.
None of the music even approaches Rez's OST, I guess thats the Sega pools of audio talent to thank for that. i also greatly missed the meta game of the lock-ons sounding different depending on the player avatar you were upgraded to. Also its a lot harder to judge "how big is a missile before it hits" than "missile is about to hit on screen player model". Predictably, nothing matched Area 5, apart from a clear attempt with... Passion I think the level was, for lightning to strike twice. With better music it might have come close. Area 5 is like perfection in audio/visual synchronisation.
A sequel to Rez was always going to be a hard one, but I wish it'd been more of a gameplay innovation in the way control affects music than a waaaay too visually busy, yet also a little vapid re-tread.
