This game made for the worse episode of Captain N ever

I got Tetris for the DS about 2 weeks ago and have been playing off and on between Kingdom Hearts 2 breaks. Tetris as never been my specialty when it comes to puzzle games but I decided to buy it and give it a chance. And after playing the game on the DS I do have to say this version is probably the best version of Tetris you can find.

Ok for those who don’t know what Tetris is it’s a classic puzzle game that was originally design not as a game but has a debugging program for soviet computers. It could probably be the only good thing that came out of the Soviet Union (well that and maybe Yakhov Smernoff). Because of the Soviet Unions bureaucratic mess back in the 80’s nobody knew who really officially owned the rights to Tetris. Some people thought they honestly purchased rights to the game, when in fact they didn’t and there where several companies making the game illegally. This lead to a pretty infamous court case in which Nintendo sewed Atari (Tengen) over the rights of the game. See Atari was able to hack there way through Nintendo anti-pirating mechanism on the NES and make there own versions of Tetris, Nintendo won the suit and Atari was forced to stop making there own version of the game. Usually this would be a good thing because the pirated hacks are usually shoddy jobs, this time however Atari’s was the superior version and copies of Tengen Tetris can cost you a fortune today. Oh and speaking of confused rights Nintendo made Tetris for the DS not THG like the Epinions sign claims.

Tetris was one of the launch titles for the original gameboy and was one of the reason why the lime green screen portable became such a hit. Now it’s back on the DS can Nintendo recapture the same magic, and can a 20 year old puzzle game still be worth picking up for a modern day portable.

Graphics/Presentation.
Tetris isn’t a game that needs flashy graphics to be fun, it was released when the original Gameboy was released so you can’t get any uglier then that. But Nintendo didn’t let the graphic power of the DS go to waste. While the play areas and the looks of the pieces could easily be done on the GBA, Nintendo tricked out the side areas with animated NES icons. That’s right if Tetris doesn’t inspire nostalgia among some classic gaming fans then the Nintendo NES sprites sure will.

There are a lot of classic Nintendo NES sprites making a return. Each game mode has a classic NES game that it emulates. In the standard game mode that takes only one screen you will see clips of Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 scroll by for every time you clear a line. In catch mode back grounds of the original Metroid scroll by. Mission mode is done with a Legend of Zelda presentation and push mode has the original Donkey Kong arcade game. There are a few other modes has well that I will describe below

The duel screens of the DS are used in some of the different modes. In catch modes you will see the pieces falling from the top screen for example. There is also a touch screen version of the game to.

Sound.
Classic NES music remixed but if your thinking Mario All Stars your way off. They still keep a somewhat beepy music to the remixes so it sounds like there NES versions but they have a techno spin on them. These are classic tunes done in ways you haven’t heard before and there quite catchy. The usual Tetris sounds for turning pieces and clearing away lines is still there.

Gameplay/Modes.
Standard. Super Mario Bros/The legend of Zelda.
Standard modes plays like the Tetris for the old Gameboy and NES. If you haven’t played it the rules are simple you drop odd geometric puzzle pieces called Terminus onto the field. Each Terminus is made out of 4 square parts. The idea is to arrange the Terminus so the squares make a solid line horizontally across the screen. This will clear out the squares and give you points. The most lines you can clear out at a time is 4 and this is called a Tetris, which is of course worth big points. The more lines you make and the longer you play the faster the pieces drop and the harder the game gets. If pieces stack to the top of the game board you loose. There is also the line play mode where you see how fast you can clear 20 lines and a VS CPU mode in this standard mode.

There are two big changes to the game though that people should know about. 1st is that there are now 6 next piece blocks that display on the side of the screen, this makes the game quite a bit easier because you now know whether or not it’s worth the wait for the long bar ones that give you a Tetris or if you should just be satisfied with a single or double. Then there is also a hold mode. See a piece that can’t fit anywhere now but might come in handy later you can now take the piece and hold on to it in till you need it. This also makes the game easier as well.

Catch. Metroid
This mode puts a new twist on it rather then moving the pieces and rotating them, you get to move rotate the board and catch the pieces. The idea in catch is not to make a line but rather a large square. When you succeed in that the blocks will start glowing and then detonate taking anything vertically and horizatinally with it, and you can score big points when this happens. If you miss pieces you loose power off a life bar, however the biggest threat won’t come from miss pieces but rather metroids. If you catch one of those life sucking parasites they will take a good amount of your pieces away without a bonus as well has a good junk of your life.

Mission. The Legend of Zelda.
This a Tetris version of Simon says. The idea is to clear out lines using the piece the computer tells you to. There are two different modes in this one marathon in which you have to accomplish your goal before Link runs out of hearts, or time trail in which you have to complete 10 goals in the fastest amount of time.

Push. Donkey Kong
This is a 2 player mode and if you don’t have a friend or online ability you can challenge the computer. This mode is like a Tetris tug of war. Every time you clear a line you push your opponent towards the bottom of the screen, and ever time your opponent clears a line you get pushed towards the top. Whoever gets pushed over a certain line looses. In an ironic twist of fate if you wind up winning it shows Mario getting killed on the side of the screen, go Donkey Kong.

Touch Balloon Men.
This is a different take on Tetris that lets you use your touch screen. No falling pieces or time limit, it lets you think of strategy on your own. You take the stylus and push large pieces around and try to make lines just like you usually do. The top screen points out the pieces that are coming down next. There are two modes to this in the first mode the idea is to clear enough pieces so that cage filled with balloons can touch the bottom of the screen. Or there is a puzzle mode which works a lot like mission mode, complete the tasks that the computer asks of you to clear.

Puzzle Yoshi’s Cookie.
In this mode that rips its graphics right out of another NES puzzle game called Yoshi Cookie. the idea is to choose the right order and the right side pieces should fall in to clear the screen. If you fail to clear the screen then you have to start all over again.

Wi Mode.
If you have a Wi Fi connection you can take Tetris online and play multiplayer online. There are 3 different modes to play in. Standard 2 player and Push are available online and play just like they do in 1 player mode. There is also a 4 player multi player online mode that takes a new twist on the Tetris multiplayer. Like the 2 player multiplayer whenever you clear more then one line your opponent gets extra blocks to fill there screen. But they also added in Mario Kart type items, some pieces will have ? blocks on them and if you clear a line with one of these blocks in it you get an item. The items can do things like make an opponents piece fall fast, or flip your opponents screens side ways, or shells that will clear out the bottom of your screen. The 4 player game is a pretty fun way to play it, to bad they don’t have a 1 player against the AI mode for it.

Nintendo is still pulling there friend code crap though when it comes to picking opponent. This time they try to make it a little fair by having a point system. You start off with 5000 points you win you gain points, if you loose you will loose points. The game tries to connect you with people with around the same amount of points but I still encounter Tetris fanatics while playing that raked up a considerable amount of wins and where able to beat me down within about 30 seconds of when the game starts.

Final Recommendation.
If you have Tetris for the Gameboy and still have it, what’s in it to get Tetris DS. It depends on how hooked you are to the game but there is plenty of new stuff to be found in Tetris DS, Catch mode can be especially addicting. Add in Wi Fi online and you got your self plenty of good reasons to pay 35 dollars for this latest version. And if your like me who miss it the first time then it’s not a bad time to pick it up and try it again there are plenty of things to do if you need to kill 5 minutes or 5 hours.