Tetris = Life
So as a 37 year old gamer, I have played many games over my life since the way beginning of D&D with my dad at 7 or 8 years old to now. Out of all games I have encountered, tetris is the only one I can come back to in almost ANY form and enjoy. Tetris Effect Connected is no different, if not one of the best I have played. Trust me, I’ve played MANY forms of this game.
Beginning with the music and the visuals, it is inviting and beautiful. Thats just the title screen! There are three modes: Journey, Effect Modes, and Multiplayer. Each has amazing things to them and none is better than the other two. I’m telling you, this game is definitely worth the time to try.
Journey mode has several stages you play through with three difficulty settings (beginner, normal, and expert). Each stage has 4 to 6 parts to it and as you progress through they change and evolve. When you begin the first part of a stage its calm and mellow, the music goes along with the movement of the pieces as you place them. As you progress the music and even speed of the pieces go from 1 to 10 as you get to the end of the amount of lines you need to remove. It draws you in and gets you excited to see what the next stage will be. You also start the next part with the ending board of the last so it’s continuous til the end of the set.
Effect mode is a list of different modes that most Tetris game have had in the past from marathon and sprint to new modes like mystery where the pieces and/or board change on you while you progress along. Trust me, mystery is so fun! There is also events given where you also get a new avatar to use in multiplayer mode. When entering this mode you can position a marker on the world map close to where you live (if you want) and your little avatar for this mode joins others to float around the globe in a starry way. It is ver eye pleasing and you can even put it on a mode where you ‘orbit’ the globe and watch other avatars float by as well as all the twinkling location tabs below.
Multiplayer has a similar view to effect but more galaxy wide. Though I am not sure if this changes but I kind of hope is does. In this mode you can play ranked, with friends, or local (on the same console/system/network). With ranked, there are several modes to enjoy where you play with and against others. These modes are also available in the other multiplayer modes as well. Cooperative mode is where three players work together against an A.I. player to win the game. At a point in the match, all three of the co-op players boards become one and they need to work together to eliminate lines, after a few moves the boards separate again to individual ones.
It is super recommended to wear headphones with the game as the music with the visuals make the gameplay ten times better than without them. It moves you and gives a move immersive experience. I cannot tell you enough how this game has both relaxed me one minute and the next got my heart racing with trying to get through that part.
