Posted in: Digital Eclipse, Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: tetris, Tetris Forever

The Short Quest: We Review Tetris Forever

Tetris Forever brings a wealth of knowledge about the series and great nostalgic gameplay, but a few pieces have yet to drop into place

Digital Eclipse and The Tetris Company came together to give fans one of the ultimate Tetris experiences of all time with the release of Tetris Forever. The game comes out this year as part of the franchise's 40th Anniversary, which has already been celebrated a few dozen ways with more coming, but this is one of the few truly video game-related ways. The team has collected several titles under one banner, along with an impressive history lesson on how the game came to be, but is this the ultimate collection for Tetris lovers? For today's Short Quest, we played as quickly as we could for this quickie review.

First off, let's get to the educational part of this game, as they have done what worked for a few other retrospect titles in the past (Atari 50). The game has a five-chapter series that covers everything from Alexey Pajitnov coming up with the concept of the game in the then-Soviet Union to Henk Rogers pushing to get the international rights to the game to the formation of The Tetris Company and the eventual global domination the game took on the planet as THE puzzler to play. It is, by far, one of the most comprehensive lessons in the title you'll get shy of an actual film documentary. It's well done, and watching the entire thing comes with its only little checklist to 100% completion across all five eras. Well worth checking out.

Then you get to the actual games in Tetris Forever, which is where the title shines. You're getting a ton of games across two decades, as you start with the very first incarnations of the Apple II to the titles released on the Famicom. Then, there was a detour to Hatris, which, I'll be honest, I forgot the series existed until the announcement of this collection. But a few titles were included as part of the mix. They then go into the later titles with the Bombliss series and the sequels, but the cutoff for this is 1998. Every single one of them plays like they used to, with modified controls for modern platforms, which makes it interesting to play the Apple II version on a Switch.

All of them present their own challenges, which should be a refresher for current players who are too accustomed to just hitting Up to make a Tetromino instantly drop. But for those looking for a modern flair, Tetris Forever also comes with Time Warp, the custom four-player title that has several different attacks built into the game to force players to warp to different versions of the game while trying to defeat the other three. This title alone will remind those who played four-player Tetris on other consoles how hectic it can be playing against others. It's a fun challenge that will appeal to fans of any generation.

However, it isn't all sunshine and roses. There are some missing titles here that are glaring omissions. For example, you're playing the Famicom versions, not the Nintendo versions, and that's an especially important distinction for a LOT of gamers who grew up on the 1989 NES version of the game played in North America and Europe, which plays much differently than the 1988 version Japanese players got. We also don't have the original 1989 Game Boy version beyond Time Warp, which is one of the most popular versions. Simply put, it's clear Nintendo didn't play ball with Digital Eclipse and offered their full versions as part of the collection. Or at least not at launch. That also means we didn't get Tetris 64, which deserves to be in this collection. Who knows if that will change with some DLC down the road, which, in our opinion, is a MUST NEED.

We also don't have the rare SEGA Genesis version that was developed in the '90s (and can be found online as a ROM) but was never released. That version also plays much differently than many others and deserves to be experienced. And with the '90s being the cutoff, we also miss out on games such as Tetris Worlds, Tetris Party, Tetris DS, and more. We also ran into issues with a few of the games when it came to controls. For example, a couple of the early versions have been programmed to respond to the two-button controls of using A + B for selection and rotation, but they often don't work. We ended up having to go in and remap the buttons to get them to respond to anything just to select a game mode.

Overall, we had a ton of fun with Tetris Forever. This is one of my favorite games of all time, and being able to experience all these different versions was amazing. However, it has a couple of flaws in the gameplay for older titles, and the missing editions kinda slap you in the face when browsing the library. Because, let's be real, long-time Tetris fans want what they grew up with. Again, it could all be fixed with some DLC, and it doesn't mean it's a bad game; this is well worth picking up and playing. We just wish those titles were here.

Tetris Forever

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Review by Gavin Sheehan

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9/10

Tetris Forever does everything it can to educate fans about the series while also providing a vast library of titles to try. While amazing to play and explore, there are some obvious missing pieces that didn't drop into this puzzler collection.

Credits

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Developer

Digital Eclipse

Publisher

Digital Eclipse

Release Date

November 12, 2024

Reviewed On

Nintendo Switch

Also Available On

Steam, GOG, PlayStation, Xbox

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