Tetris Effect looks - and sounds - awesome
Decahexatris for the win.
When Tetris Effect was announced during E3 week, I knew it would be something special. Yes, it's yet another Tetris game, but it's Tetris by Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
Now I've seen gameplay, I'm pretty confident Tetris Effect is going to be one hell of a wonder.
The video, below, shows off gameplay. The psychedelic visuals look great, but I love the way the audio is tied to the player inputs. Each movement of a tetromino creates a sound that is in key with the background music, no matter when it occurs. And then there's the cool slam noise that comes from pushing down a tetromino. Lovely!
Tetris Effect plays like old-school Tetris except for the first time in the series history you can clear more than four lines in one go. The "Zone" mechanic lets you place several blocks at one time that can potentially clear 16 lines at once. This is called a decahexatris. It looks like this:
Here's how it works: as you clear lines in Tetris Effect you build up meter. You use this meter to enter the Zone. This stops time, freezing falling blocks until you choose to move them. It also stops the game from counting cleared lines toward your progress, which lets you clear lines in separate moves that are then added together.
Tetris Effect is named after the phenomenon of playing so much Tetris that you see Tetris being played in front of your eyes even when you're not actually playing the game, which is something I have experienced multiple times over the years (Tetris Splash remains a family favourite). I imagine Tetris Effect will have the desired effect on me when it comes out.