Mizuguchi originally wanted to make a music-heavy Tetris-style game, but licensing issues prevented this so he created a new concept for Lumines.

The game was released as a launch title for the PSP in Japan in December 2004, North America in March 2005, and Europe in September 2005.

Lumines: Puzzle Fusion sold over half a million copies in North America, Europe, and Japan, and was awarded "Best Handheld Game of 2005" by multiple media outlets.

Reviewers complimented the remastered version for enhancing the quality of sounds and visuals but were disappointed that an online multiplayer mode was not included as a new feature.

[2][3] The objective is to arrange grouped blocks descending from the top of a 16×10 grid playing field to create single-color squares once they have landed.

[3] Players earn increasing score multipliers by repeatedly clearing squares on consecutive time line sweeps.

[4] Additional score bonuses are earned by clearing the playing field or reducing the remaining blocks to a single color.

[4] Each stage has a skin that affects the background's appearance, the blocks' color scheme, the music track, sound effects, and the speed of the time line.

The Versus mode begins with the playing field divided in half; the goal is to clear successive squares, which shrinks the opposing player's space.

[18] When he first learned about the PlayStation Portable (PSP), Mizuguchi was inspired to make a puzzle game with music for the device, which he described as an "interactive Walkman".

[17] To attract casual players, Mizuguchi wanted his new game to be less daunting to play than his earlier titles Rez and Space Channel 5.

[19] The prototype was initially developed on a personal computer (PC) running Microsoft Windows with the specifications of the PSP in mind.

[17] During the prototype's development, Katsumi Yokota was mainly a graphic designer and illustrator and considered himself an amateur music composer.

He purchased several PC software packages, including FruityLoops and Cubase to assemble loops of electronic music, and Adobe Photoshop to create the visual graphics.

[22] When deciding Lumines: Puzzle Fusion's mood, Mizuguchi felt something was missing from the soundtrack and looked for extant external music.

Mizuguchi requested Osawa to include four tracks sequenced with the theme of a party beginning at sunset and ending at sunrise.

[22] He overcame this problem by constructing a variety of songs that were based on an understanding of the game's design and considered the final product to be reminiscent of ambient music.

[22] On December 12, 2004, Lumines: Puzzle Fusion was published by Bandai and released in Japan as a launch title for the PSP.

[13] By the time ports for additional platforms were released, several sequels and spin-offs had been made available and incorporated new music and gameplay features from those games.

Buena Vista Games released a port for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) that was published as Lumines Plus in North America and Europe on February 27 and March 9, 2007, respectively.

[35][36] The WildTangent and Steam versions included Mission and Skin Edit mode, previously introduced in Lumines Live!

[36] In March 2018, Mizuguchi, under his new company Enhance Games, announced Lumines Remastered[b] with the Japanese studio Resonair as the developer.

He decided to remaster it after learning about HD Rumble on the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con game controller and said haptic gameplay features would add something new to Lumines.

[67] Eurogamer deemed the audio superior to the visuals, praising the way the player's actions build the musical elements to a crescendo, and described it as "the real star of the show".

[63] Pocket Gamer criticized the on-screen visuals obscuring the background artwork and concluded the sound does not do justice to the Lumines concept.

[55] IGN was disappointed by the absence of new features, and said the "Plus" moniker is misleading, and would have preferred it to have the animated backgrounds and game modes introduced in Lumines II.

[73] Computer and Video games shared similar complaints to IGN and Eurogamer and called attention to the unused portions of the television screen, however, they considered the audio infinitely better than the original and almost makes up for their grievances.

PC Gamer UK found some levels ugly and didn't enjoy replaying from the beginning to unlock more skins.

[76] PC Zone had complaints about select stages having backgrounds indistinguishable from the blocks and did not consider Advance Pack downloadable content worth the purchase.

[81] Eurogamer called the Switch version "euphoric", comparing the rumble feature to Mizuguchi's previous endeavor with Rez's trance vibrator.