Tetris Attack

"So incredibly addictive there should be a warning sign on the label!"

Tetris Attack is a game that, surprisingly enough, I’d never heard of until a friend of mine was playing (the same one that led me to GoldenEye). Curious, I looked over his shoulder and watched this new game. After a few minutes of this, my friend realized what I was doing and let me play it to get out of his face. I was instantly addicted and wouldn’t give it back when he got bored of watching me play; that led to a bit of a scuffle. Anyway, after I’d gotten home, I instantly launched the internet to find this drug in a cartridge. No dice. TA was a bit of a rarity, it seemed. Months passed; one day, while looking around funcoland.com, of all places, it was found. Oh, yes, oh yes, this mecca was MINE!

Story: 5/10
Apparently, Bowser has mesmerized all of those on Yoshi’s Island except for Yoshi himself; all the rest have gone nuts and attacked him. That evil, evil Koopa has also summoned huge amounts of rain, flooding the world. So, it’s up to Yoshi, as the only sane one, to restore the rest to a decent level of sensibility and defeat Bowser for the umpteenth time, by dropping blocks on their heads (read: playing them in Tetris Attack).

…Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense; wouldn’t nice tranquilizers be easier? But who really cares? TA’s a puzzle game, for Pete’s sake! It’s lucky to have any story at all!

Gameplay: 10/10
Basics
Okay, I’ll say this right now: Tetris Attack, while the name suggests it’s like Tetris, it really isn’t at all at all:

It’s better.

In Tetris Attack, rows of blocks of five basic types (triangles, circles, diamonds, stars, and hearts) are constantly coming from the bottom of the screen. It’s your job, controlling a cursor which selects two blocks and can switch them, to make horizontal or vertical (not diagonal) lines of up to three to five blocks of the same type to make them disappear. The more blocks gone at the same time, the more points you get. Also, if the deletion of one line of blocks causes another line to disappear, double the points are awarded. However, if any blocks at all reach the top, you’re toast.

Tetris Attack is extremely simple, but extremely fun and addictive, too. This straightforward gaming, like Tetris, is actually better because of its simplicity. There’s nothing else whatsoever to worry about, leaving you to concentrate completely on the task at hand. Awesome.

Modes of Play
The most basic way to play TA is in Endless Mode: here, you can select the speed in which the block rise, and the difficulty. Once that’s done, you’ll play until either the blocks reach the top or your batteries run out (whatever comes first). It is, as the name suggests, endless!

The next mode is Time Trial; instead of playing for an unlimited amount of time, there’s a two minute limit for you to score as many points as you can. Speed is, of course, of the essence here. It’s quite fun to try to beat your best score here, and it’s also good for a quick dose of Tetris Attack.

In Stage Clear, you’ll have to keep clearing blocks until all above a certain line are gone. This is very simple, yet fun, as it has a very direct objective compared to the other modes. It’s a bit pointless, though, since all of the stages in it are just about the same; except for the difficulty and amount you have to clear, the first level could be the same as the last. Still, I really can’t think of a way that would make this any more varied, with the basic TA formula.

Puzzle Mode is the most mentally requiring-mode of the bunch. This gives you a basic setup of blocks, and within a limited amount of turns, you have to clear them. It’s quite devious; often times, some of them take me over twenty minutes to complete! There are dozens of puzzles to complete: don’t expect to beat this in a day, as they’re so mindbending. Also, if you’re an expert, you can see how quickly can clear all of the puzzles.

Vs. Com, while it doesn’t sound like it, is actually the meat of the game (and what the story’s all about). Controlling Yoshi, you’ll fight the other inhabitants of Yoshi’s Island, such as the annoying guy who flies on the cloud and dropped those spiny enemies in Super Mario Brothers. To fight you, they’ll drop lines of blocks; to hit them back where it hurts, you’ll need to clear lines of the rare exclamation point blocks (which only appear in this and Vs. regular modes, by the way) to lower their health. After they’re defeated, you’ll be able to use them as playable characters; basically, extra lives if you die. Eventually, once everyone has been saved, y’all will go up against the eternal big meanie, Bowser.

My personal favorite is the regular versus mode; ya know, the one against a real person, not a computer. This is truly awesome if you can find someone else with a Tetris Attack cartridge, which is, admittedly, rare. If you do, though, it’s great fun! Ahh, the fun of your opponent cursing at you repeatedly when you dump many, many blocks on him..

Control: 10/10
It’s quite simple, like the gameplay: A switches blocks while B makes blocks rise from the bottom of the screen more quickly. Yep, that’s it. The control shows yet again that simplicity is, in many ways, for the best.

Difficulty: Variable
In all of the modes, there is a difficulty selection option (Easy, Medium, or Hard). However, it leans to the side of hard if you’re a puzzler newbie. Also, the puzzle mode is quite difficult.

Graphics: 6.5/10
Quite frankly, there’s no real feasible to way to improve how the blocks look; they are just blocks, after all. The characters on the side of the screen’s animation look nice, and there are some choice title screens. But still, this is a puzzle game, and graphics are never the strongest point.

Sound: 7.6/10
The music is very nice and upbeat, the perfect stuff for a puzzle game, and quite catchy. It sticks itself in your head and doesn’t want to get out! The sound effects are very nondescript: there are just beeps and bloops when blocks clear and such, but there’s not exactly anything more to do with that, is there?

Value: 10/10
Tetris Attack is like a drug: it won’t let go and makes you keep using it. With all of the different modes and excellent gameplay, it’s not gonna go down easy. Expect to spend goodly amount of time with this for the first few months (and most likely longer, in most cases) after you buy it. It can be quite dangerous in that respect, though. I’ve had quite a few school assignments that were very close to not being done because TA!

Conclusion
I don’t feel in qualms in saying Tetris Attack is the best puzzler, ever. Yep, it’s that good. Though the graphics, sound, and story aren’t the best, but the gameplay and pure addictiveness make this absolutely outstanding. If you can find it, buy it. Of course, if you can’t, there’s always Pokemon Puzzle League, the Poke-fied remake of it, if you can stomach the excessive cuteness factor…

Pros:
+ Absolutely addictive
+ Excellent and simple gameplay
+ Lasts for a hell of a long time
Cons
- Silly story
- Simple graphics
- Boring sound effects

Overall Score: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/11/01, Updated 11/08/01