Tetris: The Grand Master 4 -Absolute Eye- Review – Review

In case you were unaware, the Tetris Grand Master series began its life as a ‘competitive’ arcade version of the famous falling blocks game. Among fans and professional players, it has a reputation for being one of the hardest but most complete versions of the original game. While the fine mechanics will probably go over most players’ heads, it is a series renowned among Tetris connoisseurs. Now I’ll readily admit that while I am definitely an above average Tetris player, I am nowhere near a Tetris expert. This is in part what attracted me to go hands-on with TGM4: Absolute Eye, which is now available on Nintendo Switch. While most Tetris players will probably get their fix elsewhere, this is a great back-to-basics Tetris on Switch.

After seeing so many different interpretations of Tetris over the years, from the celebratory with Tetris Forever, to the transcendent Tetris Effect, the mix-up of mechanics with Puyo-Puyo Tetris and of course the multiplayer-focused version with Tetris 99, TGM4 is almost a breath of fresh air. There are only a handful of modes, ranging from singleplayer and local multiplayer. Whether you try your hand at improving your score and skills with the traditional marathon or go head-to-head in a battle mode, don’t expect too many changes from the traditional game of Tetris. The practice mode in particular is brutal in trying to teach you how to play high-level Tetris. I wish it would go a bit more in-depth to truly help with understanding when to best deploy these skills in a real Tetris situation. Just relying on the outline of a piece and trying to replicate the movement demonstrated is a pretty high bar to clear.

However, this is the moment where you do start to see the small tweaks and adjustments TGM4 deploys that make it such a fine version of Tetris. When blocks connect on the field, small sparks appear underneath the piece to indicate you still have the ability to shift the piece around before it locks into place. By combining this with rotating pieces, you can fit even the most unfortunate piece into many otherwise impossible gaps. Usually the highest speeds amount to not much more than carefully calculating the drop of the piece when it happens, but here that little bit of flexibility is pretty much another lifeline. Add to that T-spins and holding pieces and Tetris at the highest level becomes a pretty intense but wonderful challenge.

Unfortunately, if you’re hoping for more than just a game of Tetris, that is pretty much where TGM4 ends. The presentation is very simple with little in the way of visual customization. There is one unique mode, Konoha, which asks you to use big tetrominos to clear the board as fast as possible. Doing so unlocks images of Japanese anime-style girls. It feels strangely out of place with a Tetris game. Though I must say that while you play with larger Tetris pieces in Konoha mode it does teach some cool mechanics for how to position pieces to set up combinations with future pieces. The placement grid is on by default to show you where those large pieces go, so it did become a bit mind-numbing. I didn’t mind that as much given that the other Tetris modes go to the maximum level pretty fast. But if you’re looking for anything that will spice up your basic Tetris, this isn’t the game for you. The biggest omission is no online multiplayer. I’d have loved to test my skills against other opponents online, but it seems that I’ll need to find some local Tetris die-hards.

Tetris: The Grand Master 4 – Absolute Eye is a fine version of Tetris that is tailored to those who are looking for the highest possible challenge. The small tweaks are welcome for those who’ve played Tetris religiously but the game lacks modes and variation to keep coming back to. With no online multiplayer you must really enjoy score chasing in singleplayer Tetris to stay hooked. While the guides and other modes taught me some valuable skills I can hopefully deploy in other games of Tetris, TGM4 knows that it is only there to provide you with just Tetris. For that goal it is perfectly adequate and plays great. For anything else you’re probably much better off playing a different version of Tetris. There’s a plethora of options out there even if TGM4 isn’t for you.