“The Tetris Effect”
Everybody knows Tetris is one of the greatest and most important video games to be created. Since its original inception on the Electronika 60, Tetris has been rereleased and iterated on time and time again, capturing the minds of hundreds of millions of players along the way. It’s more than just a landmark of gaming, but also world culture. Tetris has a way of working in to your mind and leaving a lasting impression, one that might even show up in your dreams or how you see the world. This phenomenon was named “The Tetris Effect” and is at the core of the aptly named Tetris Effect. Director Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the creator of Rez and Lumines, has applied his signature style to Tetris Effect, making it a delightful overload of music, color, and particles.
Journey Mode
Journey is the main mode of the game and takes you across 27 different stages, each with their own music, effects, and accompanying feeling. Yes, it is Tetris at the core, but through the way visuals and sound is applied, it’s become an entirely new sensation when you play. Whether it’s rotating or placing a piece, each movement adds a sound to the accompanying music, making each move feel like more than just playing and instead like the player is creating or conducting music. As you clear more lines, the stages evolve. Playing through Journey feels like listening to a specially curated album with perfect flow.
There’s also a new mechanic called Zone. As you clear lines, you start to build up the zone meter. Hitting one of the trigger buttons will active zone and slow everything down. At this point, any lines cleared will fall to the bottom of the grid, allowing you to go beyond the max of clearing five lines at once and potentially resulting in insane amounts of clearing. Zone adds an entire new layer of strategy to the game, and even improves on standard formula of Tetris. Overall, Journey Mode is an incredible end to end experience and one you’ll want to play through again and again.
Effect Mode
The other primary way to play is in the Effect Mode. In this mode there are four main sections – Classic, Relax, Focus and Adventurous – each with their own ways to play. Most players will gravitate towards the classic modes such as Marathon and Sprint, but the new modes under Adventurous are also fantastic. Mystery will apply random effects to game as you play, such as turning off the ability to switch pieces or even a giant Tetrimino that can really mess up your flow (in a good way). Overall, there’s a ton of variety in Effect Mode that will keep you coming back to beat your own high score and compete with your friends on the leader boards. There are unlockable avatars and even group events that have everyone working together to contribute points in order to unlock special event avatars.
Playstation VR
Tetris Effect is also fully playable in Playstation VR and it’s really is the ultimate way to experience the game. Paired with a set of quality headphones, playing in VR was by far one of the most immersive experiences I’ve had in VR to date. To be honest, it’s almost freaky how each stage in VR can really get into your head. Your heart will be racing on some of the more intense levels, like one featuring intense tribal music with visuals of cult-like worshipers. On the other hand, some levels made me emotional through the sheer beauty of the experience, giving me goosebumps unlike anything I had felt before in a game like this. As stated before, it’s clear that the best way to play is in VR, but don’t let that scare you away if you don’t have a headset. Tetris Effect is a stunning game regardless, and is especially brilliant in 4K HDR.
Critiques
The biggest omission from the game is multiplayer. The only form of competition is through the lead erboards found in Effect Mode. There’s no local or online play to be found at all. I can understand wanting to keep the peaceful zen aspect of the game intact, and omitting the stress of competitive play could make sense from that standpoint. One of my favorite ways to play Tetris in previous versions was simply a score based match where there is no interference between players. It’s unfortunate that there’s no way to chill out with a friend and play some Marathon mode together. Other complaints about the game are nitpicks. Certain game types in Effect mode do not allow the option to pick a stage upon which to play, so if you’re trying to grind out a high score on one mode, you can’t change up the look and sound. There’s also one stage in particular that doesn’t seem to play the same song consistently. I’m not sure if this is a bug or there’s something I’m missing, but the one track on that stage is particularly awesome, so I would have liked to hear just that song when I select that stage.
Our recommendation: Tetris Effect is a masterpiece. Tetsuya Mizuguchi took a tried and true classic and reinvented the entire experience around it, taking a game about falling blocks and making it an emotional journey. Whether it’s in VR or on a standard screen, the visuals will have your jaw dropped in awe, and your foot tapping along to the stunningly incredible soundtrack.
*Tetris Effect was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*
Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.
Listen to our special review episode on Into The Deep: A PSVR Podcast:
