It’s a game about planning and reflexes, and it’s as good as it’s ever been. In the main mode, you’re doing the same things you’ve always done: matching up tetrominoes to clear away lines while more and more rain down. This is all the more remarkable because, at its core, Tetris Effect is pretty pure Tetris. The mode is billed as “a voyage of emotion and discovery.” Is this really Tetris we’re talking about here? But it actually starts to make sense when you play the game. When you first boot up the game and play its “journey” mode, you’re immediately presented with a description that sounds absurd.
That’s what makes Tetris Effect so special: it’s a spectacular, strange ode to everything that’s so great about the block-falling puzzle game. It’s hard to find something that’s as good as the pure experience of the original. There are a handful of neat spinoffs, like Puyo Puyo Tetris, but most modern iterations are either gimmicky or just plain bad. But despite being one of the most beloved and popular video games of all time, the current state of Tetris is rather dire. Since then, I’ve played it on nearly every device I’ve owned - from terrible mobile adaptations to freeware PC takes on the game.
It’s the first video game I ever played on the NES, while the Game Boy iteration was the first portable experience I couldn’t put down. Tetris is a game that has followed me for my entire life.