Tetris Effect Connected review

Tetris Effect Connected was recently added to Xbox Game Pass and its Tetris Effect with a new multiplayer component. It’s a great addition to Game Pass, but it’s also available on Xbox and PC, plus it’s coming to other platforms in 2021.

Here’s a quick reminder about Tetris Effect. It’s Tetris with a layer of visual and audio stimulation. There are all different kinds of skins and audio tracks that improve the regular Tetris game mode ten-fold. The visuals are often fairly trippy, set in space with vibrant colors and often a banging soundtrack. In a slight difference from regular Tetris, things can speed up and slow down – rather than the old-fashioned way of getting faster and faster as time goes by. Tetris Effect is one of the best, if not THE very best incarnation of Tetris there is. It’s the perfect winddown game and you can either spend minutes or hours with it.

That brings us on to Tetris Effect Connected. Connected brings you together with two other Tetris players and together you take on a series of bosses. As you progress the bosses get harder and they are related by the theme of the Zodiac. In practical terms what this means is you and your teammates all play Tetris individually, and the boss plays too. Similar to Tetris 99, progress made by players (e.g. successfully getting rid of lines) translates into an attack on your opponent. When the boss attacks you this means removing certain sections of your lines, adding more lines to the bottom. When you make progress, however, you build up a meter eventually leading to all three players in the team joining together.

All three players joining up together is a really fun moment. At this point, you take it in turns to place pieces plus you can see at all times what your teammates are doing. This is the point where things get quite exciting and you work together and try to take down the boss once and for all.

Tetris Effect on its own is a great game, but when you put players together to play together and work with each other to take down the boss, it’s a really fun experience. Anyone who has played a multiplayer game online will back this up that when you collaborate like this to achieve a common goal it’s hugely satisfying. It’s also very satisfying that it works so well and seamlessly. Three people get joined up in matchmaking and then proceed to tackle essentially a Tetris Raid boss together, with little communication other than the game in front of everyone.

There are different game modes found within Tetris Effect Connected including ranked, play vs friends, and also local multiplayer. As well as the connected game modes there are also other 2 player modes including Zone Battle, Score Attack, and Classic Score Attack. All modes hold up really well and act as a complement to the main event which is Tetris Effect Connected.

Zone Battle is very full-on, with lots going on all over the screen and it’s fast-paced and frantic. Probably one for the Tetris experts out there. Score Attack is a little bit more chilled, where players battle one on one and there’s no way to affect the other players’ game board. It’s much more in the traditional sense of Tetris. The difference between Score Attack and Classic is you have newer Tetris features in there like the ability to hold pieces and hard and soft drops. Classic Score Attack is much more like traditional Tetris, there are no hard and soft drops and you don’t have any indication of where pieces are going to be falling on the board. Classic Score Attack still has the elegance of Tetris Effect with the sound effects, visuals, and music but it’s a much more relaxing affair than the other game modes.

Tetris Effect Connected has to be the best way to play Tetris and build upon some great features introduced with the original Tetris Effect. Contained within this multiplayer upgrade is the original game, so if you don’t want to touch the new features then you don’t have to – it’s still possible to have a great time and marvel at the music and visuals while playing a challenging game of Tetris. But the multiplayer opens up a new way to enjoy Tetris with friends and it goes from a once solitary game to now being a great multiplayer experience. I had heard a lot about how great Tetris Effect was, but I am glad I waited to check out connected as it’s a real treat. I played the game on Game Pass, and if you have a subscription then I’d recommend checking it out too.

Developer: Monstars, Resonair, Stage Games
Publisher: Enhance
Platforms: Xbox, Game Pass, PC, other platforms in 2021