Tetris Attack

"I WILL BREAK YOU!"

Few games have the ability to psychologically turn a grown man's intellect into raspberry jam, and I can't think of many of them off of the top of my head. One of them is Contra III: The Alien Wars (also on Super Nintendo), but that's not a puzzle game. That's a dose of shooting action in a class all its own. The one we're looking at tonight is Tetris Attack. It isn't really related to the original Tetris in any way - it just has the Alexey Pajitnov stamp of approval on it. It contains many characters you wouldn't normally associate with Tetris, such as Yoshi, Lakitu, and Bowser. It doesn't work like a normal Tetris game. The pieces are upwardly mobile instead of the reverse. And you don't have to match an entire line, just a group of three at least. It breaks all the rules of Tetris and is a puzzle game unique in its intricacies. And that is precisely why it remains so beloved to this day.

With one character of your choice at your side, you'll face up to a stack of blocks that initially rises at a slow pace. You'll spend the first few moments surveying what is laid out before you and possibly setting it up for some quick combos. You can also increase the speed of the blocks as long as the B button is held and bring up some more potentially useful blocks from the bottom of the screen. There are a few colorful block designs that can be matched up together for points. However, judicious use of the combo system will greatly multiply the amount of points one starts to receive. A small break in the action when combos are being triggered like crazy will give just a split second for even greater things to happen, and a player attuned to the nuances of the game's inner workings will find that use of this quick pause can often mean the difference between the end of a combo and the beginning of two more. You can do any of this in a solo bout ending only when you fill the screen up with blocks or against a clock. However, no experience on your own can stack up, so to speak, with the divinely inspired multiplayer game.

Tetris Attack is about fifteen thousand times more entertaining with a buddy in tow, however. Split into two halves, each of you will have your own set of blocks to do what you will with. You can piddle around making small matches that are inconsequential to the game's outcome, or you can realize that this is where the game's combos have the most impact on the course of the match. If you score a big enough combo, your friend will be burdened with what's called a ''garbage block'' - a huge slab of concrete that won't go away until a match is made that touches the block. The bigger the combo you score and the more you achieve in succession, the bigger a garbage block can be. Some people have reached a Zen-like state of two-player mastery and are practically alchemists with these things (that is, making huge blocks out of nothing). I have seen garbage blocks that literally take up half a poor person's playing field, and coming from both players at that. While the outcomes for any given match may seem limited when you see how good or bad certain players are, there is at least one unexpected turnaround for every massive move of destruction. I'm not exactly an expert of the game myself, but I've been known to turn the tables in my own favor from time to time. Oh yeah, that's another thing about this game - it can boost your ego to a level where it will hurt badly for it to be deflated by one awesome garbage block from your opponent. Of all puzzle games, this is one of the most original and fun to play. It has aged very well, like the finest of foreign cheeses, and it's safe to say that this mode is one of the main reasons why.

Graphically, Tetris Attack remains of the fresher SNES games, probably because of its relative lack of age compared to most others (1995 or 1996, I forget which it is). You can move blocks around and create fast and furious combos without a lot of lag, even while in the throes of a multiplayer festival. The frenetic pace kept up by this simple cart makes it great for parties with friends who also like to play video games. The colors are bright and might put off somebody who doesn't know better. Rest assured, however, this is no kiddie game. It was designed with that trademark tinge of Japanese cutesiness that's common over there. (Totally normal guys wear dresses over there! I don't understand it. Maybe that's why a lot of Square's heroes seem oddly effeminate to us.) Some of the colors and bombastic designs on that very palette can be very distracting and tempting to stare at. I am most impressed, visually speaking, by how the framerate holds up under everything that goes on at once. Again, Nintendo hasn't failed in this department. They always make their games look flashy without it being at the expense of the game's speed, which is most certainly not a bad thing.

Control is definitely the hardest thing to judge puzzle games on. Either it works well or it doesn't. In the case of Tetris Attack, the controls are flawless. You'll have to snap the two-block-wide cursor back and forth around the field of play to make the right combos and set things up in a precise order. There is a time and a place for everything within the confines of Tetris Attack. Know your place and what's going on and you will begin to master the idiosyncrasies of the game in no time flat. You couldn't ask for anything better: the cursor will switch two blocks at the drop of a hat to make sure that a combo is executed at hair's-breadth timing. And believe you me, you will need that hair's-breadth timing to make this game work for you. Menus are also easily navigable and simple to work, which adds to the incredible ease of use in only a slightly more minor way than the other commands in this game do. In summary, props to TA's moves.

I don't really pay a whole lot of attention to the music when I play this game. It's like what plays in elevators, and I don't often give a second thought to the docile tunes I hear in there. There's some minor stuff done on keyboards that you can't really appreciate. However, don't think that the lack of any hardcore blood-pumping tunes hurts this game's score. It provides enough action without notes and rhythms getting in the way. TA's songs are so quiet that I bet some people reading this review don't even realize that the game had music. All of it and the sound effects are far more evident in two-player mode, where bone-crunching sounds are sure to get the better of you when your pieces are under the weight of a garbage block or two. Since I didn't really pay attention to the sound, it must be a negligible thing. Oh well.

Puzzle fans who haven't been in front of a screen and invested some time in Tetris Attack are sorely missing out. This will easily see as much time, if not more, than other Tetris games or the myriad of different puzzlers out there. The only things I can recall that require even the whit of brainpower that this game does are picross games, which I also recommend if your frontal lobe needs a good slave driving. Still, no puzzler has ever relied so heavily on or had such innovation in its multiplayer mode as Tetris Attack does. This is the reason the Super Nintendo comes packed with two controllers. If you have any semblance of a social life, get your pals in the fray too. You'll be the life of any party when you bring a Super Nintendo and Tetris Attack with you. It's guaranteed to bring up that low social status of yours, though I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that it will attract women. If it does net you a girl, however, that's the one you need to marry. Any girl who will play Tetris Attack with you into the wee hours of the morning is a girl worth having around. Make sure she can cook, too. Then you're set for life.

Shaping Up
--Doesn't slow down when the pieces start to fly
--Combos can be executed with staggering accuracy and frequency thanks to the spotless control
--Most innovative and entertaining multiplayer mode ever
--Has a chance of improving your social status. Can't say that about too many games

Garbage Blocks
--Music and sound don't factor in as much as they could or even should
--Can get boring if you're flying solo

Score: 10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/02, Updated 07/03/02