Review: Tetris (Gameboy)

Often celebrated for being amongst the biggest-selling games of all time, it should be noted that Tetris was a pack-in game for the Gameboy in Europe and the U.S. from launch, which naturally helped it towards that goal. Its influence is still felt today; the mobile (iOS, Android etc.) version has sold over 400 million copies, far eclipsing even this Gameboy version's impressive sales figures. Incidentally, a Gameboy with Tetris was the first ever console I owned back when I was a mere nine years old, so it holds a special place for me. It would be a couple of years before I got a second game for the system, so this one had plenty of hours sunk into it.

Perfectly capturing Nintendo's late-1980s ethos of pick up and play, Tetris can be played for minutes or hours at a time. Like the best puzzle games it is simple to learn, and has game modes to cater to short or long gaming sessions.

On beginning a game of Tetris you first select for 1- or 2-players, the latter made possible using the Gameboy Link Cable that connects two consoles - each player must have a copy of the game, so it's handy that so many people got it with their console! I used to play against my sister a lot back in the day, and she taught me a trick to speed up the credits screen before the game loads by hammering the A and B buttons!

The only thing greater than A-Type is... R-Type.

Assuming you have selected 1-player, you can choose from A-Type or B-Type game modes. A-Type is your standard, never-ending game of Tetris, where you continue until you fail. B-Type offers a variation on the idea, requiring you to remove 25 lines from play to complete the stage. 

You begin by selecting an initial game speed from 0 to 9 then the game starts with an empty playing field of 10x18 spaces and your playing pieces (known as Tetrominos and made of four blocks in various configurations) start to drop from the top of the screen. You manoeuvre the Tetrominos into place by moving them left and right with the D-pad , and rotating them clockwise or anti-clockwise with the A and B buttons. Holding the D-pad down will cause your current piece to drop faster.

Throughout you must attempt to build a wall, whilst avoiding gaps in it. As you create a full horizontal line of pieces, you score points, the line disappears, and the wall drops down a respective number of spaces. With each 10th line you go up one level and the game speed increases. Your starting level can be selected between levels 0 to 9, though if you select any level other than 0 the speed will not increase until you reach a number of lines equivalent to the next level.

Beating B-Type at level 9 rewards you with a Russian
Dance. On High 5 you get to meet the full troupe.

B-Type varies slightly, in that you can additionally select a "high" level from 0 to 5. This places random blocks to the playing field, increasing the difficulty of completing lines. Your selected speed remains constant throughout this game mode.

Setting the game to 5 High adds random blocks to make
your game harder.

Though the game starts off sedately, the pace soon picks up. By the time you reach level 20 (if you do!), the pieces drop almost instantly. My record, incidentally, is 211 lines.

In all game types, game over is achieved by building your wall above the top of the playing field. The release of tension achieved when you successfully reduce the game to a manageable state from a near-death situation is second only to the joy of achieving a "Tetris" - four lines cleared at once. This is only possible in one way - you must build a perfect wall of 4-blocks height and drop in a "long" piece (4x1 blocks). The wait for this piece to come into play can be stressful as you continue to try and place the other pieces in the meantime.

About to score a Tetris with the second block from
the right!

Besides the playing field, the screen shows your score, current level, line count, and a window showing the next piece to come into play. You can turn this off with a press of SELECT if you want an extra challenge, but in faster levels this extra strategic advantage can be all that keeps you playing.

There are three options for background music in Tetris (besides OFF), and it's a good bet that even non-gamers will be aware of at least the main "A-Type" musical theme, based on a Russian folk song called Korobeiniki. The amazing chiptune version of  Korobeiniki was adapted to the Gameboy by Hirokazu Tanaka - who also created the soundtrack for Super Mario Land amongst other Nintendo games. Original composition B-Type and C-Type, a rendition of a piece by Bach, are also great soundtracks to your wall-building sessions.

Like the Super Mario Land theme, A-Type Tetris was remixed in 1992, this time by Doctor Spin - a pseudonym used for this sole purpose by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nigel Wright, famous for their musical stage productions. It peaked at number 6 in the UK Music Chart at the time. These were dark days in the UK music mainstream...

Beat B-Type on level 9 at 5 high, and you blast off!

Tetris is another game that included a custom colour palette when played on the Gameboy Color, as seen in these screenshots. On the classic console it would, of course, play in the standard 4 shades of green.

We should all be grateful that Nintendo chose this as a pack-in game. The classic Gameboy version has itself been outclassed on a number of occasions in the past 27 years - most notably by its Gameboy Color "DX" counterpart, and the near-perfect Nintendo DS sequel - but this remains a bona fide classic that played no small part in proving that video games were not just for children. Besides, no other version has come close to the wonderful music found here.

"Congratulations!", in a retro game, spelled correctly.
Who'da thunk it?

Screenshots for this review were taken using Openemu on OSX, but for the purposes of review the game was played on the original hardware.