Tetris Forever is, in one sense, not really a collection of games for Tetris fans. The game library includes multiple different versions of Tetris, which is more like a Tetris spin-off than actual Tetris. There are also three different versions of Hatris, which is categorically not Tetris at all. There’s even a Go game – as in, the Chinese board game, which isn’t even in the same genre as Tetris. It’s there for a reason, as you’ll find out as you dig into the collection, but it’s most definitely not Tetris.
Related reading: Tetris Effect is the perfect modernisation of Tetris. Our review.
In fact, Tetris Forever has 15 or so games and of those, only six or arguably eight games are the Tetris that people love enough to justify this compilation’s existence. No one’s buying a retro collection of Hatris, I can tell you that now. And of those eight, the older ones (including the very original Tetris, in Russian, that was originally released on the Electronika 60) is a curiosity that you’re only going to play a couple of times. The version released on the Apple II, in particular, barely counts as playable today.
So if you’re looking, specifically, for a game of Tetris to play then Tetris Forever is probably not the game for you. As certain negative reviews from the gamers have also noted there’s no online multiplayer or leaderboards, which for score attack games is a pretty big issue in 2024.
The one thing that redeems the package as a game to play over the longer term is Tetris Time Warp. This is an all-new game that starts out like conventional Tetris. Every ten lines you clear, however, a special block then drops. Clear it and you’ll be “warped” back in time and given an objective to clear from one of the older versions of Tetris. Clear it before the deadline and you’ll get another objective, and then another, and so on until you do run out of time, at which point you’ll be warped back to the main game with a points bonus depending on how well you did in the minigames. This is a fun and new spin on the basic Tetris idea, and it’s one I’ll return to.
However, that aisde, the reason to buy Tetris Forever isn’t really the playable games. It’s great that they’re there, of course, but the developer, Digital Eclipse, pitches this package as an “interactive documentary” or “digital museum” and that really is what it is. When you load Tetris Forever up, the main menu doesn’t even have the option to simply load up the list of games to pick one to play – that option is buried away as a separate button press. Instead the main menu features five “chapters” that each take you to an interactive timeline for a chunk of Tetris’ history.
In that timeline, you have the opportunity to watch short documentary videos, view advertisements, photos, and other key pieces of memorabilia, and then play the game from the related time frame. The idea of this is to give you the sense of making your way through a museum exhibit, where the playable games are like interactive parts of the overall learning experience.
Tetris has an absolutely fascinating story, especially when it comes to licensing and rights, and the developers have done a great job of capturing interviews and other materials to help tell that story in a personable and engaging way.
There is one problem with this, however: Licensing and rights are STILL an issue with Tetris and the Game Boy Tetris title, which Nintendo has rights over, is not in the lineup of titles, despite being referenced many times over in the documentaries, and absolutely critical to the development of Tetris as the iconic game that it is today. Playing this on Switch is especially frustrating as that Tetris is right over there on the Game Boy Nintendo Online App. For the full and convoluted reason for why the developer wasn’t able to include the game in this collection, you’ll need to make your way through all the documentary materials in there.
This really does bother me though. I’m fully on board with the “digital museum” approach to retro collections. In fact I think it’s a magnificent idea that helps to contextualise the importance of these older games and help us understand the history behind them. Like how most classic novels come with an essay in the foreword written by some expert or academic, or that a good DVD or digital download of a classic movie will have behind the scenes feature for people who want to know a little bit more about how the magic happened, retro compilations like this are a much more thoughtful and worthwhile project than simply dumping a bunch of old games and hoping that nostalgia causes someone to buy into it.
The lack of arguably the most important Tetris game of all, which is, again, cited many times over in this collection’s own history, is like putting on a museum exhibition before locking people out of seeing the most important artefact. Or going to an art exhibition on, say, surrealism, and then neglecting Salvador Dali entirely. Something critical is missing, and that undermines the entire effort. Yes, it’s easy to explain and understand – licensing made it impossible to bring into Tetris Forever. But as understandable as it is, this is a documentary with arguably the central part of it missing.
Digital Eclipse is onto something special with its “interactive documentary” approach overall. Atari 50 has become the standard against which all retro compilations should be judged. Additionally, I appreciate the intent and effort that went into Tetris Forever a great deal. I just hate, so much, how licensing has let everyone involved with this effort down.
