• Light/Dark

REZ/Lumines Creator announces Tetris Effect, coming this Fall PS4/PSVR

Lord Brady

Lord Brady

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,392
Yeah, real nice to hear that all the music in the game is done in-house. No more licensing issues like they constantly had with Lumines.
 
Loudninja

Loudninja

Member
Oct 27, 2017
42,317
Tetris Effect Adds A New Strategic Layer to the Decades-Old Game… And it Works


This next part might border on blasphemy for the seasoned Tetris vets out there, but bear with me: Tetris Effect adds a new strategic layer to the core Tetris experience by way of its new "Zone" mechanic, and it's really good. Now hold on, I said bear with me!

As you clear lines in Tetris Effect, you build up a meter in the bottom-left corner of the playfield. As long as you have some meter to burn, you can ENTER THE ZONE (I'm not sure whether the official terminology for this is "getting into The Zone," "activating The Zone," etc, so I'm going with my gut here). The team at Enhance is finalizing how exactly players will activate this mechanic, but when I played it was done by pressing either R2 or L2. When you do this, time stops, freezing the falling blocks at the top of the screen until you decide to move them.

This is a great way to get yourself out of a jam, should you find yourself in one… but that's not where this new strategic wrinkle shines. The brilliance of the Zone mechanic lies in its scoring potential: not only do you get bonus points for clearing lines in Zone mode, the game also stops counting cleared lines toward your progress in the current level. This affords experienced players with an opportunity to stretch levels out longer than they'd usually run, which leads to more total cleared lines and tetrises, which leads to more sweet, sweet points and cool new terms like "Octoris," "Dodecatris," and — buckle in for this one — Decahexatris when you clear huge chunks of lines while in Zone mode. It feels… well, it feels awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
https://blog.us.playstation.com/201...c-layer-to-the-decades-old-game-and-it-works/
 
Last edited:
KORNdog

KORNdog

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
8,001
i really can't wait for this. if this can hook me like lumines did i think i might just live in PSVR.
 
Alex2DX

Alex2DX

Member
Nov 6, 2017
1,180
Border said:
I feel like this is going to be weird in VR if the playfield is only one tiny rectangle in the middle of your field of vision. I hope that the well is much bigger in that version of the game.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That Game Informer write up says you can freely zoom in on the board. So much so that you have to look up and down to see it all, if that's something someone would want to do.
 
Lord Brady

Lord Brady

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,392
You can see the new Zone mechanic in action in the b roll footage. It's on YouTube now. Not officially, but it's there. In the second song of the B Roll they activate it. During E3 they showed a video of it being activated in the skin of the song from the trailer, which showed me that the sound and video effects for that mode are unique to each skin.
 

Deleted member 7148

Oct 25, 2017
6,827
I watched that 4K footage from E3 and this game looks almost identical to Lumines in execution but with Tetris as the replacement puzzle gameplay. I'm sold. Can't wait to play this in VR.
 

Deleted member 984

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,203
If anyone just happens to know Tetsuya Mizuguchi get him to try SoundSelf. Seems like it would be exactly his sort of thing.
 
VanDoughnut

VanDoughnut

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,440
Slept on the trailer during the E3 blowout.
Now I can't stop watching it. Or listening to it.
Looking forward to this soundtrack.

I'm guessing they learned a lot from Area X from Rez and because of that I'm expecting a lot out of the VR mode in this game. Never thought I'd be hyped for a Tetris game.
 
jediyoshi

jediyoshi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,195
Optional Objectives said:
Kind of a weird video. The way they talk about VR at the end is odd, as is the emphasis that they seem to have seen between Trey playing with a screen vs. headset. Speaking of, while Trey and the NES version are both awesome, I don't see why he was the choice for this promo.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Because this isn't some officially produced promo for the game, it's just a piece by Nick Robinson edited together that's focusing as much on Trey as it is on the game.
 
-shadow-

-shadow-

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,110
The new drop mechanic seems cool, but the visuals seem way to distracting. We'll see soon enough. I'm actually curious if the modes from Tetris DS will ever see a return.
 
Lord Brady

Lord Brady

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,392
For anyone interested, Nick released part 2 of that video with the Tetris Classic expert. In it they explain why his gameplay doesn't look that impressive and what he thinks overall of the game.
 

Deleted member 18347

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,572
Optional Objectives said:
Kind of a weird video. The way they talk about VR at the end is odd, as is the emphasis that they seem to have seen between Trey playing with a screen vs. headset. Speaking of, while Trey and the NES version are both awesome, I don't see why he was the choice for this promo. I see much more rapid tetris play all the time with newer versions, not in the least with Puyo Puyo Tetris. Honestly, unless there is a drastic change in the mechanics for drop in Tetris Effect, I would play much more rapidly than shown in this video at any point. And when it comes to the scene, I'm a little scrub.

The NES Tetris doesn't have the drop mechanics of later games and the blocks do move at more of a fixed rate. If that's similar, then I can see why Trey was a good person for this demo. But I would be a little disappointed if there were no mechanics for drops and slides. I would understand if they don't touch spins, since that's more of a PPT thing, but...

... I dunno. Did that just seem slow to anyone else?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The follow up video was made for you

 

Deleted member 18347

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,572
Optional Objectives said:
That video misses the point. They address that NES tetris and newer iterations have differences, which, yeah, they do. And since Tetris Effect is a new version, I expect it has differences, too. I would expect that it has more in common with more recent variations than an earlier version. Nothing against Trey, but he can't exactly speak to that. And, from the sound of it, the narrator can't either.

There's a line in this video that, somehow, experience with the NES version made it more likely that Trey would get the right set up for the 16-line clear. I don't understand why that would be the expectation. Puyo Puyo Tetris, for example, is built on a combination of setups and speed. It's not just about pure speed, as Robinson implies. I mean, PPT is a game that has different consequences for different ways of clearing lines, different combos for clearing lines in the same way back-to-back, different combos for continuously clearing lines, etc. Some of those mechanics seem much closer to the way of comboing up to the 16 line clear than anything from the NES version.

Again, this isn't anything against Trey. But Robinson doesn't seem to understand how Tetris has changed as a game in between the NES version and Tetris Effect. That's too bad, since a video about that would be pretty interesting. I guess I'm already way too deep into this as a video game nerd, so I just can't resist– as far as Robinson goes, I don't think he knows enough about this game to really talk about it. Trey obviously has the skills, but only from a particular, retro perspective. And hey, that would make for a good video, too– retro master plays Tetris Effect, gives his opinion– but that isn't how Robinson wants this to come off. And, like I said the first time, it makes for kind of a weird video.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Any examples of Tetris iterations that are closer to Effect than the NES version?

I'm kinda interested to delve a bit deeper into this now that you put it this way lol
 
Alec

Alec

Hero of Bowerstone
Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,748
Louisville, KY
Instant drops. Pieces don't lock. Holds. Shadows. No droughts.

These things are common across all modern Tetris and are in Effect. It is definitely a modern Tetris game.

No idea if there is a "classic" mode. Probably not.
 

Deleted member 18347

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,572
Optional Objectives said:
I'm also interested! That's the root of my frustration with Robinson's video– I can't tell if Tetris Effect plays more like an old-school version with some really kickin' skins and music, or if it has a few new mechanics, or if it adapts some mechanics from newer versions, or what. The most I can get out if these videos is that Effect has some kind of up-to-16 combo meter that the player can activate. That gives me the feeling that Effect might be closer to some of the newer versions that reward line clearing combos (like PPT). But it's just a feeling– I don't think that either Trey or Robinson can speak to that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Robinson explains:

1. In contemporary/modern Tetris games, you can kinda slide pieces around pretty freely before they lock into place in the play field, which allows the player to pull off sophisticated maneuvers like climbing and T-spins.
2. In classic Tetris, pieces lock into place almost the exact instant they touch another tetromino. So it requires a more concentrated effort to maintain perfect stacks.

These two points make sense to me. I've seen modern Tetris players move and slide pieces around in ways that seemed a bit more forgiving compared to classic. Read up on it, and apparently you have half a second between a piece touching the surface and locking into place. But at the same time, some mechanical differences were made which makes it harder to compare with classic Tetris. Neither easier nor harder, just different.

So in conclusion, you can't directly compare the skills of a NEStris player (classic Tetris) and a TGM player (Tetris: The Grand Master, a modern version), as both have intricate mechanical differences that renders such a comparison moot.

But at the same time, a NEStris player is more trained at/accustomed to risk aversion, since pieces almost insta-lock and they can't afford it to make contact and lock in an undesired position at an undesired orientation.

So based on that, and since the target of the video was to simply demonstrate how a Decahexatris looks like (16 line Tetris), a classic player seemed like a fit.

Besides, watching one of the OG champions of the classic NES version play the latest VR iteration and demonstrate perhaps the first ever out-of-studio Decahexatris? Worth it.

Tell me if I'm missing anything here. I'm not exactly very familiar with the hardcore/competitive world of Tetris :P
 
Lord Brady

Lord Brady

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,392
Optional Objectives said:
I'm also interested! That's the root of my frustration with Robinson's video– I can't tell if Tetris Effect plays more like an old-school version with some really kickin' skins and music, or if it has a few new mechanics, or if it adapts some mechanics from newer versions, or what. The most I can get out if these videos is that Effect has some kind of up-to-16 combo meter that the player can activate. That gives me the feeling that Effect might be closer to some of the newer versions that reward line clearing combos (like PPT). But it's just a feeling– I don't think that either Trey or Robinson can speak to that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Tetris Effect's main modes play like modern Tetris. I think it was in the Giant Bomb interview that they talked about having to adhere to the new standards for the series set by The Tetris Company. But they were given the leeway to come up with new modes and additions such as Zone mode, but the controls had to meet the rigid guidelines set by TTC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.