What's that old saying? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Very little about the fundamental gameplay of Tetris has altered since 1984, which is a testament to the simple genius of its concept. Tetris Effect simply builds upon what Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov created almost forty years ago. Suitably named after the phenomenon in which players would find its puzzles impacting their thoughts and dreams, Effect bolsters the game with a phantasmagoria of hypnotic images, sounds and sensations. Oh, and it's really challenging. Like, I mean, really fucking challenging.

Tetris Effect is easily the coolest edition of Tetris made to date. In addition to being a wonderful VR experience on the same level of Rez Infinite or Thumper, Tetris Effect features almost everything a good Tetris game ought to have. Plenty of different game modes are included such as classics like Marathon or Sprint to the weirder ones like new Purify or Mystery modes. But the standout is definitely Journey mode. Functioning as a campaign, this mode takes you across almost 30 unique stages each featuring its own incredible dynamic music that progresses as you clear lines, and beautiful visuals that are greatly enhanced in VR. I expect this will be a game I keep coming back to from this year to play every now and again.

I really like Tetris. I think the Game Boy version is probably my favorite that I have played, and it's definitely the best version that I've played, but I have enjoyed some bad Tetris games in the past. For example, I spent more time than I probably should have with Tetris Ultimate on PS4. By all accounts, that is a bad version of Tetris, but the core modern Tetris gameplay is still there even if the presentation is unbelievably sterile. So, when you put what is by all accounts a better version of Tetris at me, I should really, really enjoy it, but it just doesn't really connect with me in the way that it seems to have for others.

I should preface that I have not played this game in VR, which, by all accounts, seems to be the superior way to experience this game. I think a lot of the visual gimmicks are really neat in the main campaign mode, but a lot of the levels go by so quickly that they don't really have a lot of impact for me. The soundtrack is something of this game that had been hyped up constantly before I played this game, and I was thoroughly underwhelmed by it in game. It should be noted that the game does some really cool things with its soundtrack as it connects to the actual gameplay, but a lot of the songs I did not enjoy at all, including the game's opening song, which just did not work for me at all.

It's difficult because what is here is very cool and I respect it a lot, and it's clearly a solid game, but I don't know how I ended up feeling underwhelmed by a Tetris game. Perhaps this was not helped by seeing multiple tweets prior to playing the game about how people were brought to tears by the experience. I don't mean to diminish the experience of those people because I 100% believe that the game had that sort of impact on them, but it just left me feeling like I didn't "get" Tetris Effect.

This 5-star review is not earned entirely off the merits of this specific game. Rather, I consider Tetris Effect to be the definitively best version of modern Tetris, and Tetris itself is a perfect game.

Tetris Effect especially understands Tetris as a meditative experience. It enhances that meditation through gorgeous music that reacts to your placement of pieces, and ephemeral relaxing visuals.

Tetris changed my life, really. Tetris is a patient companion for when the mind is too chaotic. Tetris is beautiful.