Tetris Effect: 2nd Controller Disconnected

Good:
- Has an Adventure Mode, or basically a campaign to play through that gets harder but gives you slow passages in between
- Has a ton of modes to goof around with
- Does a good job emulating NES Tetris in the Classic Score Attack mode. It uses the same mechanics and scoring as NES Tetris, is just as brutal and even allows you to choose between PAL and NTSC modes (Classic Tetris released in two different versions with different speeds at different levels because PAL runs in 50Hz and NTSC in 60Hz). It doesn't emulate the bugged score counter, bugged line colors and game crashes past lvl 150 afaik, but everything else seems good.
- Online PVP works nicely and easily. Matchmaking can take up to 5 minutes unfortunately because barely anyone plays Tetris and maybe also because there are too many gamemodes

Bad (Section: Actually getting into a game):
- The menu structure is annoying, you have to go through too many menus and screens just to start a game (5 screens or so)
- Loading screens between menus... Why
- Everything has a multiple second long animation. This is especially obnoxious if you're playing on higher speeds and top out in 30 seconds or so. And then have to wait for all the damn "here is your score, here is your number of lines, here is your time..." animations until you can finally hit "play again" after what must be at least 15 seconds of waiting time.

When I emulate NES Tetris (for free) it takes me literally 1 second to jump into a game. And when I lose I have to wait 1 second for the animation, can keep or change the start level and jump back in.
In Tetris Effect it takes about 2 minutes from the moment I click the desktop icon to even get into a game. And then another 20 seconds when I want to replay, which btw does not allow you to adjust the start level, in which case you'd have to quit and go through another round of loading screens, and then it doesn't even prefill your previous selected starting level. It's mindboggling how a game from this decade can be so much worse in all these regards than a game from 1989.

Bad (Section: Technical Issues):
- A lot of problems when multiple controllers are connected (when you wanna play local multiplayer). Sometimes the game decides to assign Controller 1 to both players. Sometimes it disables all Controller AND Keyboard inputs and you have to ALT+F4 (that combination still works, I guess Windows gives it priority before a game can do shenanigans with your controls). Sometimes it fails to recognize the 2nd controller. Sometimes when everything works and you go back to the menu, the controllers no longer work. It is a mess! I had all these problems on two different OSes (Windows 10 and Ubuntu) and any combination of my 4 controllers (Xbox 360, Xbox One, some fake USB NES controllers), which do not cause these kinds of issues in other games (including local coop).

Bad (Section: Pricing):
- Terribly overpriced if you're just after some basic modes. One of the rare cases where I think selling it for $5 and then add all the other modes as $3 DLCs or so would have been a good idea. There's no way I can get my friends to buy Tetris for 34€ just to do some goofy PVP rounds

I wish I could recommend it but with the current pricing model, the technical issues with local multiplayer, and the awful amount of loading screens and animations I can't do so with a good conscience.

Tetris Effect: 2nd Controller Disconnected Good: - Has an Adventure Mode, or basically a campaign to play through that gets harder but gives you slow passages in between - Has a ton of modes to goof around with - Does a good job emulating NES Tetris in the Classic Score Attack mode. It uses the same mechanics and scoring as NES Tetris, is just as brutal and even allows you to choose between PAL and NTSC modes (Classic Tetris released in two different versions with different speeds at different levels because PAL runs in 50Hz and NTSC in 60Hz). It doesn't emulate the bugged score counter, bugged line colors and game crashes past lvl 150 afaik, but everything else seems good. - Online PVP works nicely and easily. Matchmaking can take up to 5 minutes unfortunately because barely anyone plays Tetris and maybe also because there are too many gamemodes Bad (Section: Actually getting into a game): - The menu structure is annoying, you have to go through too many menus and screens just to start a game (5 screens or so) - Loading screens between menus... Why - Everything has a multiple second long animation. This is especially obnoxious if you're playing on higher speeds and top out in 30 seconds or so. And then have to wait for all the damn "here is your score, here is your number of lines, here is your time..." animations until you can finally hit "play again" after what must be at least 15 seconds of waiting time. When I emulate NES Tetris (for free) it takes me literally 1 second to jump into a game. And when I lose I have to wait 1 second for the animation, can keep or change the start level and jump back in. In Tetris Effect it takes about 2 minutes from the moment I click the desktop icon to even get into a game. And then another 20 seconds when I want to replay, which btw does not allow you to adjust the start level, in which case you'd have to quit and go through another round of loading screens, and then it doesn't even prefill your previous selected starting level. It's mindboggling how a game from this decade can be so much worse in all these regards than a game from 1989. Bad (Section: Technical Issues): - A lot of problems when multiple controllers are connected (when you wanna play local multiplayer). Sometimes the game decides to assign Controller 1 to both players. Sometimes it disables all Controller AND Keyboard inputs and you have to ALT+F4 (that combination still works, I guess Windows gives it priority before a game can do shenanigans with your controls). Sometimes it fails to recognize the 2nd controller. Sometimes when everything works and you go back to the menu, the controllers no longer work. It is a mess! I had all these problems on two different OSes (Windows 10 and Ubuntu) and any combination of my 4 controllers (Xbox 360, Xbox One, some fake USB NES controllers), which do not cause these kinds of issues in other games (including local coop). Bad (Section: Pricing): - Terribly overpriced if you're just after some basic modes. One of the rare cases where I think selling it for $5 and then add all the other modes as $3 DLCs or so would have been a good idea. There's no way I can get my friends to buy Tetris for 34€ just to do some goofy PVP rounds I wish I could recommend it but with the current pricing model, the technical issues with local multiplayer, and the awful amount of loading screens and animations I can't do so with a good conscience.