I think Tetris is probably the closest we’ve ever gotten to a “perfect video game”. It has such a tremendous staying power and an interesting learning curve. Playing original GB or NES Tetris is still a blast, but playing newer versions like Tetris Effect and Tetris 99 also have this amazing amount of charm. There are very few games where I think this kind of consistency has existed throughout the franchise’s lifespan.
Tetris never really goes out of style tbf. There’s something too fundamental about it. Pong was the first truly timeless game imo, one of the very few of the arcade generation. People could still play a basic version of that and enjoy it 100 years from now, it’ll have some appeal. Tetris is the best example in that camp. It’s a masterpiece. It requires no nostalgia to appreciate, no real background or anything. Just a really simple, dopamine-escalating puzzle that is accessible to pretty much all. SMB3, Chrono Trigger or Ocarina of Time can’t say that, they all require you to be the sort of person that enjoys that sort of thing. Tetris really doesn’t, you could give it to someone that hates video games. Just mute the volume maybe.
It’ll outlive us all, in similar iterations to its current form. Most powerful thing to ever come out of Russia, hands down. Putting a man in orbit? Whatever. Fields full of tanks and a huge nuclear arsenal? Meh, fat lot of good its doing them. Atilla the Hun? Okay, could make a case there. Tetris, though… The west has never truly matched it. I think Candy Crush is the closest we’ve gotten.
It’s also one of the very few retro games I’m good at. (Had to use save states in Yoshi’s Story, believe it or not.)
Fun thing I read a long time ago: when Ubisoft made their version of Tetris. It had stuttering and frame rate issues. Yes. Tetris had performance issues. 😆
I read it was because the game would check your friends list in the background for things, but QA play tested on simple accounts that didn’t have a crapton of friends on them. They didn’t realize what would happen when the game freezes while checking every single friend all the time.
And what was worse it was supposedly in a more main method making it too difficult to patch.
I absolutely love the look of NES Tetris. The little specular highlights on the blocks, the bright colors, the utilitarian font. It’s my favorite (although I wish it had placement previews).
Love me some Tetris Effect but NES Tetris was my first.
