Tetris Attack

"Tetris Attack rocks every fiber of the original Tetris’s being"

My synopsis does NOT lie. By putting a spin on the way that Tetris works, Tetris Attack is able to create a completely new-feeling experience that’s very addicting. Instead of having various shapes slowly fall from the top of the screen and having to make complete lines from these shapes, you start out with a predetermined amount of blocks. With your cursor, you can only do two things; switch 2 different blocks places, or move a single block back or forth. Also, if you have a block with nothing to the side of it or under that side, you can move the block so that it falls down.

The basic concept behind this new spin on Tetris is to create combos and chains. By placing 3 or more identical blocks beside each-other, you cause them to disappear, and give you points. If you can manage to do this, and have the falling blocks make a row as well, you’ll have a chain, which will result in added points to your score. Sometimes, if you make a move just right, you can have up to a 5x chain! These are very difficult to achieve though, because spotting them is very hard.

To the right side of the screen is also a number representing how fast the blocks on the screen are moving up. A number such as one will make the blocks move up very slow, while a number like 20 will make the blocks move up considerably faster. By creating a combo or chain, you can pause the movement of the blocks for a second or more, and if you can create a good enough chain, you can get the blocks to stop moving for quite a bit longer(around 10 seconds most of the time).

There are 5 modes of single player gaming: Endless, where you play the same game until you fail or quit, Time Trial, where you have limited time, Stage Clear, where you complete all the levels one by one, Puzzle, where you must clear all of the blocks, and Vs., where you lay against the CPU. There are also 2 modes of 2-player gaming, Time Trial and Vs. For beginners, there is a long tutorial for you to learn everything, and a mode to help you improve your skills.

Each of the 6 levels of the game in Stage Clear mode have 5 sub-levels(Think 1-3, 2-5, 3-4, etc.). One Mario-related character resides over each level. Yoshi resides over level 1, level 4 is resided over by a character named ‘Froggy’ (representing one of Nintendo’s less original moments), etc. Bowser even makes an appearance!

The one player Vs. mode is somewhat like a story-mode. Bowser and his cronies are up to no good again, and they have cast a deluge on Yoshi’s Island, causing massive down-pours, and have also cast a spell on the denizens of the world. If nothing is done, the world will flood! Luckily, Bowsers spell didn’t work on Yoshi, and he knows how to break it! By winning a game of Tetris Attack, you remove the spell from whomever you beat. There are 8 citizens of Yoshi’s Island you need to save, and each one gets progressively better at Tetris Attack.

Tetris Attack was finish near the end of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan, and it really shows in the graphics and the music.

Yoshi and his friends look great in the game! The animations when blocks disappear are nice as well. Since this is a puzzle game though, there really aren’t a lot of graphics needed. However, when they are needed, they work well. Yoshi may not look as good as he does in games like Yoshi’s Island, but you still have to give some credit. The title screen picture looks really nice too, with Yoshi and a few of his friends sitting around on Yoshi’s Island.

The one area that shines almost as brightly as the game play in Tetris Attack is the music. Beautiful songs play on each stage, with Stage 2’s song being my favorite. There is also a sound effect and music testing option in the option menu, so you can listen to any of the songs in the game whenever you want. There are 36 songs that play at different points in each of the modes, and they all sound really great. Some of it is the stuff you’ve come to expect from a Yoshi or Mario game, and some of it is just really unexpectedly good stuff. Definitely some of the best music on any Super Nintendo game.

Almost all of the sound effects in the game occur when you’ve made a chain or a combo in one of the puzzles. Bloop, bleep, Bop. You’ve heard it all before. A pleasant surprise is the commonly heard noise Yoshi makes when she lays an egg, that plays when you’ve made a chain/combo in Stage 1. All of these sound effects can be heard extremely clearly, though.

Tetris Attack has a massive amount of replayability. This spin on regular Tetris is more fun than the original Tetris could of ever hoped to be. You’ll be coming back for more every day after you get it for some time to come. Even after that, you’ll still want to pop it in once in a while to relive the refreshing game play to be enjoyed in this game. The way that Nintendo was able to change the formula of the original Tetris doesn’t even make it feel like Tetris at all. It makes it feel like something new, and more importantly, something original. This isn’t just some rehash of the original Soviet mind-game.

If you consider yourself a puzzle fan at all, you owe it to yourself to seek this game out and buy it. I’m sure you could find it for sale on a web-site somewhere, maybe even new, considering that it was released at the end of the SNES’s run. Hey, even if you don’t especially like puzzle games, you should at least check this game out, if you have any extra money.

Foot-notes:

-Tetris Attack is NOT the Tetris that you’ve known for years. It’s much better.

-There are 5 modes of single-player gaming, and 2 modes of 2-player gaming.

-Since this game was released at the end of the SNES’s life-cycle, the graphics look fairly nice.

-The music in Tetris Attack is some of the best to be found on any SNES game.

-You’ll be coming back to play Tetris Attack for a long, long time.

-All puzzle fans should pick this one up. Even if you’re not the puzzle-game type, you should still at least check it out.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/03, Updated 06/28/03