Tetris Forever Review

Tetris Forever is a trip through history, brought to us by developer Digital Eclipse that takes us back to 1984 when the first iteration of Tetris was released on the Electronika 60 computer. Created and designed by Alexey Pajitnov, this seemingly simple puzzle game would become a title that is still loved and played decades later. This compilation includes 14 classic versions of Tetris, including ones that have never left Japan, and an all-new title called Tetris Time Warp. Accompanying the games is an interactive documentary full of videos and the history of the series on its 40th anniversary.

As soon as you load up the game, you have the option to travel through the 40 years of Tetris history and watch the videos telling the story of its creation and the entries in the series, or you can jump right into the action and try out the games on the collection. It only seemed right to start back at the beginning and try out Tetris on the Electronika. The rules in this early version of the game are a bit different: here points are awarded for how fast players drop their pieces into place, not for clearing lines. This was how the point system worked until 1988 when Tetris made its home console debut on the Famicom (Japanese NES). At that point, players would score points based on how many lines they cleared. There were multiple stages, each consisting of 25 lines. The game looks just like it would have on the Electronica computer, you get to select what colour the pieces will be on the screen between green or white. As you cleared the stages, the speed of the falling Tetriminos increased. It’s so weird playing Tetris without its iconic music — well it doesn't have any music at all, the game is silent.

There were a few versions that were released for other computer systems that you can play here, like the Apple II. It was neat to see them, but these are not versions that I will come back to as the visuals weren’t great. Once you get to the Famicom release of Tetris, besides having better visuals, there are three songs to select from: Technotris, Karinka, and Troika, or if you prefer silence is also an option. In this version, pushing down on the controller flips your piece, whereas hitting the right face button will instantly drop it. If you play Tetris a lot, you may find this version a little tricky, but you have the option to remap the controls the way that you choose. I got tired of accidentally dropping the Tetrimino instead of flipping the piece. When the blocks reach the top of the screen, it's not an instant game over. Instead, it adds up the points you got before hitting the top and you start the next stage with the calculated total. This will use up one of the lives that you have, represented by hearts on the left-hand side of the screen.

For each game, you can view the original instruction manual, learn how to play, see the default controls and change them if you want, along with selecting the screen mode from original, full, or wide. I kept mine on the original setting because I like the border that looks like the screen that you would have played the game on years ago. To really get the retro feel, you can turn on a TV or curved TV filter. The other feature I loved is that if you are playing a Game Boy game title, you can adjust the screen to the colour-accurate green we all love! If you are playing a game that was only released in Japan, the manual will be in Japanese. It's not translated, but that doesn't really matter since it looks really cool, and you can just click on the How To Play option.

Once we get to 1990, we hit games that are spin-offs of the original Tetris. Hatris has you trying to create stacks of the same style of headwear. The hats you are placing fall in groups of two and you move them left and right on the play area. There is only room for six hats across so at times you will be stacking mismatched ones on top of others. Stack five to clear that pile and get points. This title was followed up by a Game Boy version of Hatris that allowed you to play with two players if you had the connection cable and two copies of the game.

Tetris 2 + BomBliss is a mashup of two games. You can select regular Tetris, with A (endless mode), B (stage-based mode), and C-Types (like A but garbage slowly raises from the bottom) available to play. Or you can play BomBliss, which is also known as Tetris Blast. Each piece has at least one bomb in it. When you clear a line, it will detonate taking out that row and other pieces with it. Chain them together to clear the full screen and complete the stage.

There are a lot of repeats of these “spin-off” titles showing all the versions on the different consoles. That is until we get to Super Tetris 3 which introduces new gameplay modes like: Magicaliss, where the blocks have unique colours and rotating them will swap between three colours. Completing a line of one solid colour will clear all the blocks of that same colour or Sparkliss which has blocks that can be destroyed by lightning strikes destroying the stone rows.

Tetris Battle Gaiden is one of my favourite multiplayer Tetris titles. I first played it on my Super Famicom a few years ago. This title has eight different characters to play as, each of which has a variety of attacks to use against your opponent. As you clear lines you will acquire orbs that are used for special attacks. There is a different move using from one to four of these that unleash a variety of spells on your opponent.

There is one brand new game in this collection called Tetris Time Warp that can be played on your own or with up to four players. Every time you clear 10 lines a special Time Warp Tetrimino falls. When you clear a line using this block you will warp in time where you have to complete a challenge in that era. The more quests you complete the higher your points multiplier will be. Fail to complete the challenge in the required time, you are warped back to modern Tetris.

Tetris Forever is a great way to learn and play through the history of one of the most iconic puzzle games ever. I was disappointed to see that Tetris on the Game Boy is not in this collection. Especially when there are multiple versions of some games, like Hatris, just on different consoles.

If you are a fan of Tetris, this title is worth picking up just for the fun history lesson alone. You may only try some of the older titles a couple of times to see what they are like, but some of them are sure to be a fun time. Plus it lets you play the titles that never made it out of Japan like Tetris Battle Gaiden, that game is a gem!