Tetris Effect Breathes New Life Into The Classic Puzzle

Tetris Effect breathes new life into the classic puzzle.

- Malindy Hetfeld

Tetris is one of those games that is so ingrained in our pop-cultural fabric that I don’t need to explain to you that, in it, you slot different blocks together until they form an unbroken line. Despite its age, Tetris also isn’t necessarily a game that inspires particular nostalgia, seeing as there are hundreds of versions for every platform out there already. It’s just Tetris, so why to bother with another one, I asked colleagues and friends after Tetris Effect came out for consoles last year.

An unapologetic Tetris disliker myself, I found it odd that everyone was acting as if Jesus himself had coded Tetris Effect. Despite being a Soviet classic, Tetris has always had an oddly Japanese flavor—it’s one of those games you either bounce off of or reach levels of mastery in that speak of obsession, just like games such as Ikaruga or Dance Dance Revolution.

Much has been said about how Tetris hits the perfect balance between challenge and skill in so many players that it induces flow, drawing you in. As someone with a spatial perception so bad Tetris was literally used to test me for brain damage, I could never attain the flow state or understand the supposedly universal appeal.