Early in July 2023, the team at GamesHorizon swung by the rankings board on Metacritic to resolve a debate on our PS5 rankings. And we were rather stunned to see which game had the #1 spot for the year — Tetris Effect: Connected — a game some on the team had only ever heard of in passing. But then we realized, hey, there weren’t that many releases this year, so it isn’t surprising.
A few weeks later, the game did tumble down the rankings. Even then, it retained a respectable #5 ranking, also becoming one of the best rated games of all time on PS5. How?
On a certain level, I get it. It’s Tetris. Simple, approachable and so very satisfying. It’s a game that works very well and has an enduring fanbase. However, just the base game and its fanbase won’t make the game reach that ranking. I decided to explore why Tetris Effect works for so many players around the world, including me.
Tetris Effect was released in 2018, with its original multiplayer variant releasing in 2020 and the current iteration for PS5 releasing in 2023.
The Nature of Tetris
Understanding Tetris Effect’s impact starts with understanding the amazing design of Tetris. Simply put, the game requires you to fit together tetrominoes (puzzle pieces) on a rectangular gridded playing field. Each tetromino drops, moving ever downward, into the playing field from the top of the field and you can rotate the piece and move it side-to-side. Once you find the optimum spot, you can drop it on the growing stack at the bottom. As you fit them together and complete horizontal lines on the grid, the lines clear to make space, giving you points. If you can clear multiple lines at a time, your score multiplies.
Tetris is a classic game for a reason. It is incredibly simple, but that is where it is genius. Tetris’ difficulty stems from two factors:
- Your personal playing style and how good you are with pattern recognition: Since you are given a blank slate, you are the person crafting the puzzle and solving it. You can choose to play the game and clear the board line by line. Or you can build up blocks and clear 4 (a Tetris) at a time. Choosing to go for combos gives you a higher score but also makes the game harder and you now have less open space to deal with the other element of the difficulty.
- The speed with which the tetromino drops: As the game progresses, the blocks begin to drop faster, giving you less time to fit that block in perfectly.
To learn more about the game and how the designers came up with elements of the game, here is a cool video:
This setup created a highly replayable, if repetitive, game that was great for competitions. It was a challenge for most players to achieve a high score or to last for as long as possible. I, however, would play in bursts when I wanted the organizational challenge, to have the satisfaction of getting as many tetrises as I could. I would bow out when it got too fast for me.
The rhythm of Tetris Effect
Tetris is a game everyone knows. And since it’s pretty close to perfection, trying to release a new version would bring along a lot of criticism if it’s just a clone. But Tetsuya Mizuguchi managed to refresh the game with Tetris Effect by introducing a rhythm component; this changed how the game progresses and introduced a new level of challenge.
Tetsuya’s changes were interesting. Instead of the never-ending level that scales in difficulty over time, Tetris Effect has level sets made of 3-5 playing boards. Each board is connected to a song or soundscape which impacts the speed of the tetrominoes rather than time. You switch out from board to board by clearing a certain number of lines. It was an interesting way to think about progression. And all of it is paired with gorgeous and meditative, if occasionally trippy visuals.
The music and changes in the song/soundscape adjust the speed at which the tetrominoes fall. With certain boards, you can start faster and then things slow down. Or maybe everything will ramp up like crazy for a bridge of the song. And perhaps most interestingly, you move the song along by clearing lines. This allows you the luxury of choice. Would you want to move along gradually? Do you want to hold but trigger multiple Tetris and move the track along into an unknown difficulty level? It’s all the things you need to consider.
But outside of these design elements, my favorite part of the music is that every action contributes to the song or soundscape. Rotating the tetromino has a sound effect, as does dropping the piece and clearing the line. The sound effects are tied to and change with the board.
As a result, I try to match my moves to the beat. Smart… probably not, especially if those tetrominoes are dropping quickly, but my gosh, is it fun. It feeds into that need to fall into the groove and match the pocket. Honestly, that impulse is the only thing that makes cardio worthwhile too.
When it all gets a bit too much, if you have built up the meter by clearing enough lines, you can trigger the Zone mechanic. The music moves to the background, colors change to be more calming, the tetrominoes stop dropping, and you can use the tetromino queue to clear multiple lines to create insane combos of 8 or even 16 lines. Within the craziness and chaotic stimuli of Tetris Effect, it’s the deep breath you take to recenter and take control of your game. How you use this element is a key part of the strategy of this game.
Tetris Effect: Connected — Innovation changes the game
Tetris Effect’s greatest innovation lies in how you play it and with whom. Yes. I did say whom. Tetris Effect: Connected, the title that actually ranked #1 in the Metacritic list, is a multiplayer game with a short single-player ‘journey.’
On the platform front, Tetris Effect and its follow-up titles were first released for PS4 and Nintendo Switch. However, where it stood out was that it came with complete support for PSVR. It was a completely unique experience that everyone loved and is probably the reason why it is so well received by the critics.
From what I have heard, it seems that we, the normal console plebs, are actually at a little bit of a disadvantage with our standard controllers and tv screens.
Tetris Effect Connected added an entirely new layer with its multiplayer modes. In competitive mode, you play against an opponent and Zone adds your cleared lines to the bottom of their board, hastening their reach to the top of the board. It takes some nifty clearance to get rid of those ‘attack’ lines.
But there is also a coop mode where you can sit with friends at home or connect with players across the world. Here you can help each other, switch pieces, and even combine boards to play with each other when you trigger Zone mode. It is a completely new layer to an already impressive game. Those soundscapes now connect you with others around the world.
When you combine some truly amazing tweaks to already solid gameplay, and the VR experience, this game was bound to succeed. The rerelease from earlier this year features changes that utilize PSVR2’s eye-tracking technology to improve immersion as well as more play modes. It took the already amazing VR experience to new heights, something I am bummed I won’t get to experience thanks to the nasty biological quirk of motion sickness.
To understand Zone and how it works in multiplayer, as well as watch how an expert player can dominate, checked out this video:
The downsides
That being said, I have to acknowledge that some of these changes in Tetris Effect: Connected work against it for a lot of players. All of that beautiful art can sometimes be too trippy on the flat screen. It stops being meditative and the visual effects become overpowering, making it hard to see the board. This is even more apparent in the coop mode when each other’s actions impact the screen.
Even if you turn off the effects, visibility can remain an issue because you can accidentally move your camera, and the neon colors preferred by Resonair Studios don’t help either. It also leads to confusion with the outline that projects where your tetromino is going to drop. As much as I enjoy this game and use it as a method to bust stress, I can only play it in short bursts before the effects hurt my eyes.
Additionally, if you go in expecting a bog-standard Tetris game, it can be difficult to adjust to the sudden speed changes. Especially if you have a hard time getting into the groove of certain soundscapes. It takes a while to realize how you are impacting that specific board.
In the end
Tetris Effect: Connected is a game that doesn’t really provide you with guidance and instead rewards experimentation. And I know way too many players that are thrown off by this, both in the single-player and multiplayer mode. It can be tricky to wrap your head around and constricts how you play. Tetris Effect in all its versions are rather polarizing, and you will either hate it or love it.
But it’s a fantastic step forward on a tried and tested mechanic. For me, all these design changes, both ‘bad’ and ‘good,’ is what makes Tetris Effect so much fun.
Then again, I try to start all games on ultra-hard. Maybe I am just a sucker for punishment. And going by the MetacriticTetris Effect: Connected’s Metacritic ratings by I am not the only person to feel that way.
