Tetris DS

"It's a new take on Tetris with a great blast from the past."

Tetris is one of those timeless games. No matter how many times you play it, it just never gets old. You always try to beat your high score, see how far you can go. But, alas, Tetris has also always remained the same. From the original 1989 Game Boy game to the massive 1998 re-release, Tetris DX, Tetris has always suffered from strictly tried-and-true gameplay. Only one game, Tetrisphere, really tried to take the formula in a new direction, and yet the game simply didn't deliver.

But all that has changed. Because here we are in 2006 with a brand-new gem for the Nintendo DS called, appropriately, Tetris DS. One look at the game, and you'll know that it's not your daddy's Tetris. The menu screen is bright and inviting, and makes a great job of letting you know that there are now six different ways of playing the Tetris you know and love.

Each of the six modes that make up Tetris DS have a retro flavor to them. Considering that Tetris DS is published by Nintendo, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that all the retro flair comes from Nintendo's glory days of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Such a blast from the past has been tried in Tetris once before, namely Tetris Attack for the Super NES, which was released in 1996. The game was simply another iteration of Tetris, but featured backgrounds from Yoshi's Island: Super Mario World 2 (1995.) However, unlike Tetris Attack, the backgrounds actually affect the gameplay in Tetris DS.

For the purists out there, you should be no stranger to Standard Mode. This is the same Tetris formula that has been loved since its 1989 debut. Like always, Marathon mode is present. But unlike in other Tetris iterations, where you would play in an endless setup, Tetris DS's Marathon mode has one goal: to clear a minimum of 200 lines. Doing this will unlock the familiar endless mode, where you then play... endlessly... to attain the highest score you can. While Standard Mode is nothing new, it does feature highights from the Super Mario Bros. game. Each time you clear a line, you'll see Mario exploring different levels. And each time you advance to a higher level (by clearing 10 lines), you'll see Mario reach for that famous flagpole.

Between Meteos and sudoku, puzzles have been quite the rage lately. This is reflected in Tetris DS with the new Puzzle Mode. Quite a bit different form Standard Mode, Puzzle Mode features no falling pieces, no rotating pieces, no line clearing, or anything else you've come to expect. Instead, it's literally a puzzle. You'll presented with an incomplete block structure, and you must choose from pre-selected pieces to complete the puzzle. Like any puzzle game, it starts off easy but gets progressively more difficult. Like all the others modes, Puzzle Mode is given some retro flair. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what game is being shown off. Perhaps it's Yoshi's Cookies, a puzzle game for the Super NES released in 1993?

Tetris was never much for any sort of story or plotline. And this situation remains the same in Tetris DS. However, Mission Mode does play out like a progressive storyline. In this mode of play, featuring the Legend of Zelda, you are asked to perform different tasks. You may be asked to clear three lines at once, or clear a line with a specific piece. Much like Puzzle Mode, it will start easy and get harder. While Mission Mode is a nice addition to the Tetris formula, I found it to be too task-oriented, which took away some of the fun.

Remember that time period between 1994-2002 when no games called "Metroid" were released? Since 2002, we've been flooded with Metroid games, some good and some bad. Metroid has returned yet again in Tetris DS, this time adding some flavor to the new Catch Mode. This mode plays out quite a bit like Tetrisphere. Instead of manipulating individual pieces, like in a typical game of Tetris, you move the entire block structure in Catch Mode to capture falling pieces. All the while, Metroids are moving about the arena, causing havoc if they touch any of the falling pieces. Fortunately, as you capture pieces, the entire structure gets bigger and bigger until eventually you can explode a portion of it, decimating all the Metroids on the screen! This is personally my favorite mode of Tetris DS, and the one I imagine I will be playing for a long time to come.

Push Mode is perhaps the most interesting new take on Tetris that I've seen yet. Featuring characters and background from the 1983 arcade hit, Donkey Kong, Push Mode is like a vertical tug-of-war between you and the CPU or other players. Whereas a typical Vs. mode allows your cleared lines to build up on the opponent's screen, Push Mode shares one screen among two players. And as each player clears lines, the other half of the screen is pushed up or down towards the edge of the screen. The first player forced to the edge of the screen loses. The goal, then, is to create a barricade near the middle of screen and clear lines as quickly as you can, so you can force your opponent up or down to the edge of the screen. This mode is very fun to play competitively, and is perhaps the best mode to also hone your competitive skills.

Finally, Touch Mode was built especially for Tetris DS, using, of course, the DS's touch screen. And because this mode was designed for the touch screen, it's not just a stylus controlled take on Standard Mode. Touch Mode is completely fresh, with the goal being to collapse a large tower of blocks by touching and moving individual pieces around. Touching one side of a piece will move it a certain way, whereas tapping it will flip it over. Like Puzzle Mode, the idea is to manipulate each piece one at a time, clearing and collapsing away the tower as fast as you can. Like Mission Mode, I unfortunately found this to be a bit of a chore after a while. It's fun, but the tower is so big that you almost have to force yourself to clear it all away.

Tetris DS isn't the first version of Tetris to feature multiplayer, but it is the first version to feature multiplayer via Wi-Fi. This allows you to play against people worldwide, and have huge multiplayer tournaments of up to 10 people. One of the best parts of Tetris DS's multiplayer is that it's Mario Kart inspired. In multiplayer modes, you can receive items like bananas and red shells. Some of the items affect your opponent, while other items affect you, such as quickly clearing lines for you or giving you a steady stream of a certain block type. This adds challenge to the game, but also makes multiplayer Tetris refreshing, because it offers a spin that has never been done before.

I've played just about every version of Tetris there is to play, and in the end, there are only three that I can stand to play over and over again: the original Game Boy Tetris (1989), Tetris DX for the Game Boy Color (1998) and Tetris DS for the Nintendo DS (2006.) Honestly, I can't say for sure if Tetris DS tops the original, because the original was such a groundbreaking title. But at the same time, Tetris DS wasn't made to be the end all of Tetris games. Rather, it was made to re-interpret the original Tetris, to introduce new and fun ways to play with the same old classic formula. It's certainly one of the best DS games at the moment, though. From a personal standpoint, I'd say it's the best puzzle game for the DS at the moment, and I doubt that it will be challenged for quite some time.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/12/06