izigame.me

I almost feel bad leaving a negative review for this game, because I love the concept and it seemed like a dream game for me. An interactive retrospective on the history of Tetris? Sign me up!
However, I found the end result to be disappointing no matter which angle you approach it from.
- This is a collection of Tetris games that you can play on PC or Steam Deck.
The problem is that a lot of the games in this collection just aren't very good. There are far better versions of Tetris available, including Tetris Effect Connected which is already on Steam and has better gameplay and music than any of the games in this collection. Also, while the previous game in this series (Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story) had 42 games to play, this one only has 15. More on that in the next section.
- This is a compilation that allows you to explore the rich history of the Tetris franchise.
Again, 15 games is a tiny amount for a series with over 220 'official versions', and it honestly feels like licensing issues got in the way of making this collection all it could be. The most iconic and popular version of the game (the Game Boy one) is not even included here (aside from that mangled version that shows up sometimes in Tetris Time Warp). There was also a missed opportunity to include some of the other highly-regarded entries (such as Tetris DX on Game Boy Color or The New Tetris on N64) or some of the really weird curios that could have added extra novelty value (like Tetris 2 on Game Boy, Tetris Plus on Game Boy or even Tetrisphere on N64). And speaking of licensing, not only do none of these games have the iconic Tetris song (Korobeiniki) as an in-game background song (except for Tetris Time Warp) but even the Game Boy version of Bombliss has a different (and vastly inferior) song for the Fight mode.
Then again, this could be less to do with licensing and more to do with localisation. For some reason, most/all of the console games in this collection are based on the Japanese versions. Digital Eclipse have certainly done a fine job of localising these games into English, but there is also supplemental material (ie. scans of the original instruction manuals) that's only available in Japanese. There was an opportunity here to do what others have done and have an option to choose between Western and Japanese versions of certain games (like SEGA did with the Megadrive/Genesis Mini) but that hasn't happened here for whatever reason. As a result, the novelty value of reading old instruction manuals of classic games is completely lost on anyone who isn't literate in Japanese, and the fact that the collection doesn't appear to include a single Western version of the MANY 8-bit and 16-bit Tetris games seems like a weird oversight (or licensing issue).
- This is a documentary on the history of the franchise.
The documentary content (videos, photos etc) is really well-done and genuinely interesting, but the price here is way too steep just for documentary content. The price would be fine if it was documentary content ON TOP OF a fun and extensive collection of games... but we've covered that point already.
The other issue with the doco content is that it shows off games that would have been far more fun to play than to just look at. Oh, there was a PS1 game called The Next Tetris? I'm curious to know how that plays. Oh, there's a photo of the Tetris DX box for Game Boy Color? Well I know from experience that that game would have been better than the rest of this collection (not to mention that it talks about how the game 'added new modes' without mentioning what those modes are or letting you try any of them).
It's clear that this was a project that had a lot of time, effort and research put into it, and that's cool... but I honestly feel like Tetris deserves more than this. I mean, the opening doco video in this collection explains how Tetris is a 'perfect' game and how amazing it's legacy is, setting a high bar for itself in the process, and then fails to reach that bar or do justice to that legacy (either due to licensing issues or lack of funds/resources).
With all that in mind, I really don't think the game is worth the current price. Wait for a sale if you're really curious, or wait and see if they add more games like they did with Atari 50. But for this price, in this state, I can't recommend this no matter how good the overall concept is.