As a long-time (since 2007) TGM player, my opinion on TGM4:
- At launch there were some severe issues that denotes a rushed release and lack of QA. The most glaring of which being the inability to rebind keyboard controls (a patch is underway for this Friday). It's quite paradoxical since it's a game that was originally announced in 2009 (and has been cancelled 2 times; it's a whole saga that would be widely out of scope of this HN comment). In the other hand, it is a game that's technically rooted in 2009 (a DirectX 9 game that originally targeted a Windows-based arcade system like Sega Ringwide; TGM3 itself being released on Taito Type-X which is already a Windows machine masquerading as an arcade machine with arcade controllers bolted on).
- On the other hand, the dev team has been super reactive and the lead producer/director/whatever is the appropriate title is in Japanese regularly communicate with the community. And we know first-hand that one of the main dev is also a legendary player (Jin8; the first player who obtained the Gm grade in TGM3, a feat that only 20 people or so in the world has replicated) that has the game in his heart.
- Gameplay-wise, it is a much more accessible game, due to having to implement one part of the Tetris Guideline gameplay element (the lock delay behavior switched from Step Reset to Move Reset; the details and consequence of which I don't have time right now to explain). Detractor would say that it's another pollution by The Tetris Company, but I think this is a conscious choice and makes the game overall better (all of the ill effect of move reset being counterbalanced by the rest of the rotation system, and of course the insane speed). The overall difficulty is lower and hence more accessible, but some of the endgame challenges are devious (but that's through the incursion of gimmicks instead of simply the game system being what it is). It has not the austere elegance of TGM1, the rigorous beauty of TGM2 or the manic challenge of TGM3, but it has still all the heart of TGM in my opinion.
- However I do find the meta-game lacking because of the removal of many of "grades" (in the older games, the game judge you and give you a grade to either your game or your account; think of it like martial arts belt). There are still acknowledgment of finishing a game (
"you are {this or that mode} Master!"), but this is very, very difficult (and very, very rewarding), but there's a lack of intermediate rewards for experienced but not expert players. Allegedly this is a TTC decision, and I find the game worse for it.
- Overall it's still a solid game (and being in 2025 and this being not an arcade game, we can have patches and the dev seems willing and motivated to add fixes and new features in the future), and in my heart one of the best Tetris out there. Tetris Effect has a way better eye-candy (it is a Mizuguchi game after all), but if you're willing to play with "TGM" rules instead of Tetris Guideline rules, it's mechanically incredibly rewarding.