TETRIS DX Game by Nintendo Reviewed by Philip "Pocket Squirrel" Wesley Save: battery/3 Slots Released: 1998 Works with: Game Boy/Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance ESRB Rated: E Quick Opinion: Pass. **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: The Game Boy launched with Tetris. Once the Game Boy Color arrived, everyone wanted to know when Tetris was coming to the Game Boy Color. TETRIS DX is Tetris in color! However, that does not mean it is good.... **************************************************************************** Gameplay Description: This is Tetris, a falling block game where you move individual Tetraminos down a well. For the uninitiated, these are the three rules of Tetris. Tetris has three constant rules of play. First: One of Seven different kinds of Tetraminos will fall into your Well. Second: The Tetraminos stack on top of each other until you form a line. Third: If you fail to form lines, the Well will fill to the top and the game is over. Tetris DX does not change these rules in any way, but it does offer a few modes of play. Those are Marathon, Ultra, 40 Line, and VS. You start by selecting one of three saves spots or a "guest" spot where the amount of lines cleared and "power" gained is not tallied and your score is not saved. MARATHON: This is your normal Tetris mode, just play until you lose, there are 30 levels of speed with 9 speed levels available from the start. Just go for the highest score you can achieve! ULTRA: This is a 3 minute score attack mode. Get the highest score you can get within that time limit. 40 LINES: Instead of clearing only 25 lines like in the original Game Boy Tetris Game Type B, you have to clear 40 lines. Sadly, when you select a height, it just shortens the well instead of filling the well with unfinished lines. I do not like that as much as I like being given a bunch of junk lines to fix. VS: This is a version of the two player game, but against a computer instead of another person. Just clear multiple lines at once to send lines to your opponent and force them into filling their well. It plays like the original Tetris except for a few exceptions in the game physics. These two additional changes were made. 1. The time between Tetramino contact and lock has been extended. This allows for more spinning. 2. The weight of the Tetraminos has been decreased, meaning that they meet more drop resistance. 3. The force of the Tetraminos spin has been increased. I know that does not mean anything to a casual Tetris player, but to someone who is very familiar with the original Tetris it is incredibly crucial. These means that the blocks feel slightly looser, the game difficulty is reduced, and the mechanics feel very dishonest. It also means the game is BROKEN in this regard. To demonstrate how BROKEN this game is due to the messed up weight of the pieces, you just need to get an S or Z Tetramino and then press LEFT on the directional pad, and pound the A button as quickly as you can. You can also press RIGHT all the way and pound the B button. What this does to the piece is pretty telling. It causes the Tetramino to hang in the air or climb up the side of the well. Liked: Lots of modes to choose from in this game! Hated: The game is really easy. Having trouble deciding where to place a Tetramino? If it is any of the L/R or S/Z pieces, just force it left and rotate it quickly. It will hang in place for as long as you keep pressing that button. Seriously? That is just... bad. **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: There are a lot of high contrast colors and more color cutscenes involving space and fireworks. The colors clash with each other and it looks like something that you would see on the NES or Sega Master System. Everything is easy to see, the bricks are easy to tell apart and the color of the well background changes depending on the level you are at. The Soviet styling of the original game is completely gone and that is pretty heart breaking. Liked: It is very colorful. Hated: But despite that colorful look, the game lacks any kind of real aesthetic quality or unified theme. **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: I love Tetris because it has some great music. That music is missing entirely from this game. Instead, we are given some "jazzy" songs that sound awful, do not match the game, and are utterly forgettable. The sound effects are mostly there, but the lack of any good music is a slap in the face. Liked: The sound effects are there for the most part. Hated: The music is awful, annoying, and forgettable. **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: How do you get Tetris wrong? Apparently you just have to get the math behind the pieces wrong and take out everything that worked so well in the initial presentation of the game. This comes across as lazy, hateful, and just irritating. The inclusion of a time attack and a VS CPU option was very nice, but those inclusions can not hide the fact that Tetris DX does not stand for DeluXe in this case. Instead, I feel that the DX is a visual representation of the face that a discerning Tetris player will make upon playing this lack luster, broken, and simply terrible version of Tetris. Liked: The two new modes are reasonable additions. It saves your high score table information. Hated: The subtraction of certain presentation elements divided by the broken physics of the game are a real factor in multiplying my disdain for this game at the very square root of this review. **************************************************************************** Improve: Fix the math and up the presentation elements. RIYL: Tetris. **************************************************************************** Final Words: This is Tetris, in color, with a battery back up and a few new modes. Unfortunately, this is Tetris without awesome music, without proper weight, with terrible infinite spinning, and a less accessible multi-player mode. It feels incredibly lazy, rushed, untested, and just sloppy. **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: *** Graphics: **** Sound/Music: * Play Control/Game Design: *** Value: ** Star Total: 39 Personal Opinion Merit: 10 Final Score: 49% Letter Grade: F ****************************************************************************