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Tetris Effect: Connected by MM 11/07/2021, 4:31pm PST
I got an erroneous report that this game was DRM-free, which it is not, but decided to hang on to it because I found some dirty workarounds to keep the game in a more-or-less functional state should steam no longer be an option in the future.

I wanted to love Rez, but found it lacking. I think Tetris Effect achieves that synesthesia goal better than Rez or any of its other copycats ever did.

At it's core it's Tetris, specifically modern Tetris with piece-holding, 5-tetramino previews, piece-shadows, and multiple seconds to slip and slide a piece around the bottom of the playfield before it sets into place. And yet I don't mind all the modern jank because the music plays a stronger role in the game beyond background visuals.

As you play a level, a song with music video plays in the background, your piece movements creating little percussive beats and other noises in time with the music. As you clear certain line thresholds, the music moves to the next section and the background video gets steadily more and more detailed.

But the music rebounds back onto the gameplay too. You may not notice until higher levels, but the falling speed can make a sudden rapid increase during the chorus section of the song before settling down to a more reasonable speed in the final movement.

To counter this is TE's main gameplay gimmick the "zone" mode that freezes the playfield for several seconds, giving you a less-frantic break to clear lines. It also doesn't remove cleared lines until the timer runs out, then tabulates the score all at once, so you can clear four messy lines and still get a Tetris score, or clear several multiples of four to rack up even larger combos.

In addition to the main Journey mode, there are several puzzle and freeplay modes.

My main complaint is that a really good Tetris player can break the whole synesthesia effect by clearing too many lines too fast and advancing the song before the vocalist even gets a chance to sing their full lyrics.

Recommend if you're in the mood for a really good synesthesia game. If it's hardcore tournament-quality Tetris you're after, the synesthesia mechanics might be an annoying distraction.
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Tetris Effect: Connected by MM 11/07/2021, 4:31pm PST NEW
 
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