I’d almost guarantee a few will have you crying at its beautiful synergy of themes that instil the underlying theme of connection. If you’re new to Tetris Effect, far be it from me to go into any more detail, as the stages are just so inspired and clever in their composition that they deserve to be experienced fresh.
The single-player campaign is not a cohesive narrative arc story but you do go on a journey, each stage playing like a track from a concept album with themes as diverse as they are audacious, from the deep of the sea to the peak of a mountain and beyond, sometimes transforming within the stage itself. The soundtrack itself is similarly sublime, progressing from verse to chorus based on the number of lines you’ve cleared, while the game speed also changes in accordance with the mood or tempo of the music rather than simply speeding up like in a traditional game of Tetris. These all drive the immersive sensations as you’re playing to visual backdrops that wouldn’t look out of place on a big stage for a music festival. Taking its name from the phenomenon from the people play Tetris so much that they begin to see the falling blocks in their thoughts and dreams, Tetris Effect first came to the world in 2018 from Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the creator of Rez, where the concept of multisensory experiences akin to synaesthesia first began.Īt its core, the line-clearing gameplay is just like any other Tetris game, including all the modern techniques like hard drops and T-spins, although it also introduces an inspired ‘Zone’ mechanic where time stops, creating the illusion of entering a transcendent flow state, giving you the chance to clear even more lines all the way up to the top. READ MORE: ‘Metroid Dread’ review: a phenomenal finale to Nintendo’s sci-fi saga.And now it’s one you can take with you and share wherever you go.
Tetris Effect however is the game like you’ve never experienced before, a life-affirming interactive concept album. Tetris is already an all-time classic, while we’ve seen this simple but deep drop block puzzler take different forms over the years, from anime-flavoured mash-up Puyo Puyo Tetris to the surprise battle royale of Tetris 99.