My Game Pass journey is just getting started. Next up is a game I've wanted to play for a long time. BACKGROUND:
As a big Tetris fan, hearing about Tetris Effect immediately piqued my interest. I watched someone stream the game and went "yes, this is a game that I want." Unfortunately, the game was a PS4 exclusive at the time, so the most I could do was live vicariously through the Let's Plays of other people. Imagine my surprise when I found out that a) they released a PC version, and b) it's on Game Pass PC. PLOT: Yeah... no. PRESENTATION: This is arguably the defining aspect of Tetris Effect. Everything from the backgrounds, block designs, music, and overall sound design has an incredible amount of polish, and all these elements come together to deliver a Tetris experience like no other. Let's start with the visuals. In Tetris Effect, there are a couple dozen stages, each with their own distinct theme. For example, you have stages that are space-themed, or stages set underwater. Each stage has a fully animated background with gorgeous visuals, flashy particle effects, and borderline distracting transitions/animations. If I weren't so busy actually playing the game, I'd be able to fully appreciate how stunning everything looks. The backgrounds constantly shift in appearance, as they respond to what you're doing in the game itself (e.g. all sorts of dazzling lights flash if you clear lines). The Tetriminos even feature designs that fit with the overall theme of the stage, and in some stages, the pieces themselves have cool effects like changing colors. The music in this game is absolutely phenomenal. Each stage has a corresponding music track, and while many of the tracks lean more towards the EDM sound, there are a more than a few musical styles featured throughout. Some of the songs even have full vocals, and those are among the most beautiful tracks in the entire game. And to make things even more immersive, your gameplay adds to the music. If you clear enough lines, the music changes in tempo to mark a transition, and even the act of clearing itself makes sounds that go along with the music. Hell, even the simple act of rotating your piece adds to the music. I enjoy sound design that ties in your actions in the game to the music, and Tetris Effect is probably one of the best examples of that. From what I've read, the goal (or at least the inspiration) of the developers when they put together the visuals and music was to emulate and induce the real-life Tetris effect, which is that psychological phenomenon when you play too much Tetris and start seeing falling blocks in real life. Given how it felt like I was in a trance every time I played a round in this game, and how persistent the images and sounds are in my memory, I would say they accomplished their goal. Overall, this game looks and sounds absolutely amazing. I highly doubt I did it justice just by talking about it. GAMEPLAY: Well, it's Tetris. If you're reading this, you probably already know what Tetris is and how it plays. And if you somehow don't (which is unlikely), here's a link to the official browser-based version of the game. Go drop some blocks and clear some lines. Tetris Effect has a campaign called Journey Mode, which takes you through every single stage the game has to offer. Your goal is to clear a set number of lines to progress to the next stage. It's pretty straightforward, but there is a caveat: unlike normal Tetris, where the speed gradually increases, the levels in Journey Mode have set speed settings, and they will change in accordance to the music. It's a little jarring, but it works really well in conjunction with the music. Unique to Journey Mode is a mechanic called Zone. When you clear lines, you fill up the Zone meter, and when it's full, you can activate Zone. What this does is it makes it so any lines you clear during the duration of the effect don't disappear, but instead shift to the bottom of the matrix. Zone allows you to clear a significant amount of lines in a single combo, even allowing you to reach absurd numbers like 18 line clears in one move. Of course, this mechanic has a time limit, so you better be quick about clearing lines. It's a cool mechanic that feels like you're stopping time (but you really aren't), but the only real use for it is to rack up points. Journey Mode has three difficulties: Beginner, Normal, and Expert. Each difficulty adjusts the game speed and the line clear requirement to progress accordingly. I played on Normal, which caps out at a speed level of 13, and that's already somewhat challenging to react to. I recommend picking whatever you're comfortable with so you get to actually enjoy the music and visuals without freaking out about getting a game over. Once you're done with Journey Mode, you can check out Effect Modes, where you can play Tetris with different rules. You have your more classic modes (score attack, time attack, endless), modes designed to be chill (i.e. no game overs), challenge modes (like a mode where you attempt to get as many all clears as possible), and modes with weird random effects (like Mystery mode, which has all sorts of horseshit power-ups). This is where a lot of the game's replay value is, and the best part is that for some of these modes, you can use the stage themes from Journey Mode. All the stages from both Journey Mode and Effect Mode have letter grade rankings, determined by your score and clear time. It doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme, but if you want to get the achievements or are a leaderboard chaser, you may feel compelled to grind out those S rankings. New to the Connected edition of Tetris Effect is multiplayer. Here, there are a variety of both cooperative and competitive modes, as well as options to play locally or online. I've played enough Tetris 99 to know that I will get my ass kicked online, so I didn't play much of these modes. VERDICT: Tetris Effect is probably up there as one of my all-time favorite iterations of Tetris. It has the classic gameplay I know and love, except with truly amazing visuals and music. Playing Tetris is already something I find therapeutic, but this game's presentation makes it an otherworldly experience. If you have the means to play it, plus a good screen and headphones, this is a version of Tetris you simply must experience. Even if you're not that good at Tetris, you can still enjoy this game's Journey Mode thanks to the lower difficulty settings. And if you like Tetris a lot, there's plenty of modes to sink your teeth into after Journey Mode, plus the option to play some multiplayer. Oh, and did I mention that this game is available in VR? The PC version of Tetris Effect: Connected is only available on the Microsoft Store at the moment: Buy Tetris® Effect: Connected - Microsoft Store Here's the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack on Spotify: Tetris Effect (Original Soundtrack) - Album by Hydelic | Spotify - end -
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
Derryck
|