Castlevania: Circle of the Moon Platform: Game Boy Advance Released March 21, 2001 (JP) June 11, 2001 (US) Designed by Koji Horie Developed by Konami Included in Castlevania Advance Collection
Bats are basically just sacks of blood, apparently.
I got Circle of the Moon on the day the Game Boy Advance launched in North America. Oh, I didn’t play it then. Did you ever watch the White Walker battle in the final season of Game of Thrones? Probably not, even if the TV was tuned into it, because you couldn’t see a damned thing. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was kind of like that when it launched. Even after my father installed one of those aftermarket, warranty-voiding light kits to my GBA, visibility wasn’t very good and I still didn’t play it. Actually, because the Game Boy Advance screen was so impossible to see, I didn’t play a lot of GBA at all until the SP and the Game Boy Player (for my younger readers, this was a device that let you play Game Boy Advance titles on the TV via a GameCube) came out in 2003, both of which came with the novelty of being able to see the games you bought. Well, the Game Boy Player did. The original SP was front lit, because Nintendo never admits to mistakes until they’ve exhausted all other possibilities. But, for me at least, the killer app of the Game Boy Player was Circle of the Moon. In fact, I binged the three Castlevania GBA games back-to-back-to-back. And it was a couple of the happiest weeks of what would be a very crappy year for me. So, I cherish the Castlevania GBA trilogy. But, did they age well?
Find the right enemies and grinding can go so quick that it’s kind of shocking. Does it still count as “grinding” if you can get a couple levels in under five minutes?
As the second “Metroidvania” game in the series and the first since the legendary Symphony of the Night, Circle of the Moon had a LOT to live up to. Circle of the Moon doesn’t attempt to be quite as RPG-like as that game. Actually, it’s more like a noncommittal hybrid of a traditional Castlevania game and a Symphony of the Night-style adventure. While the actual map is massive and sprawling, your only primary weapon is the Vampire Killer whip. Apparently this is not THE whip of the Belmont clan and instead is called the “Hunter Whip” but who gives a f*ck? It’s the Vampire Killer, period, and there’s no permanent upgrades for it and no alternatives. Luckily, the whip is one of the most satisfying of any Castlevania whips, with plenty of OOMPH and a lot of magical spells to buff it and the standard assortment of Castlevania subweapons to complement it. The action is top-notch. Controls really well, too. This is one of those games that plays so well that it completely lives and dies on the merits of the design.
This was my map when I finished the game. Dracula is directly to the right of the first yellow block from the left. With his room filled in, this is a roughly 90% complete map, and I have no idea how many HP/MP/Heart boosts I missed along the way. I didn’t use a guide for them, and actually, I only used a guide for which enemies drop which weapons.
Instead of finding weapons, there’s only armor and accessories which are dropped by enemies. In fact, each individual enemy drops only two potential things, one common, the other rare. I’m not the biggest fan of this design because I hate having this type of thing come down to tracking down lottery tickets. Like, the second best armor in the game is dropped by an enemy that exists only in one specific room. Also, the base drop rate for this armor is 0.5%, and since there’s only one of these enemies in the entire game, if you don’t get it, you have to leave the room and come back and fight it again. Something about that is really inelegant to me, and for this game, I decided not to play along. Instead, I used save states to make some of the drops go quickly. Sometimes it made a big difference, but other times? I’m not at all encouraging you to watch this whole video, but even cheesing the game with save states, it could take quite a while for the item I was seeking to drop.
By the way, the dice seem to be rolled the moment the fatal shot is THROWN, not LANDED, so if you have a boomerang about to kill an enemy on the return trip, reloading the state won’t change whether or not the enemy drops something or not. Speaking of the Boomerangs, they’re pretty rare in this. I’d recommend holding onto them when you first get one because they’re seriously overpowered for all bosses.
Additionally, some enemies drop cards that allow you to cast spells. Unlike armor, card drops happen only once, but if you want to do THAT, logically the first kill against the target enemy should result in a drop. It doesn’t. Lame. There’s two tiers of cards that have to be combined. These mostly enhance your whip. For the most part, I only used two combos, one of which gave me a fire sword and one of which made my whip twice as long. I might switch to one that increased the damage I inflicted by 25% for bosses, but otherwise, I mostly stuck to those once I had them. The problem is the same as the accessories: they’re random drops from enemies. Every treasure that can be found (besides post-boss upgrades) are either upgrades to hit points, magic points, or max hearts you can carry. I didn’t start cheesing the game with emulation trickery until over halfway through the game. If the drop system had been remotely rewarding, I would never have done it. Random drops might be great for the surprise factor, but I can assure you, it gets old. I really think it would have been more satisfying to hide the big armor and accessories as treasures in the castle.
Mercury Card + Golem card ended up being, no joke, my favorite Castlevania whip ever. It reaches nearly half the screen and, although it comes at a cost of speed, it sure made backtracking a lot less painful.
So, this is awkward to say, but I found the RPG elements of Circle of the Moon to be some of the worst in a good game I’ve ever played. Too many enemies that are pushovers pay off too many experience points. Like this room here:
That “frozen shade” paid off so much that I was able to grind up about ten levels in under half-an-hour. It’s not up to players to use the honor system to protect the integrity of the game from lazy design. Designers are supposed to discourage that through challenge, right? Clearly that enemy was not something I was supposed to be fighting then and there. It had easy-to-dodge attacks and, with the fire sword spell and the star bracelets it dropped for me, I was wasting it in four or five hits, before it even fired at me. And since magic refills slowly (another bad choice, in my opinion) I didn’t have to hold back while fighting it. I have no idea how they determined some of these XP totals, but it makes Circle of the Moon one of the most exploitable RPG systems in the entire history of gaming.
One neat thing that it does do is replace weak enemies with strong ones as you make progress, though it waits a little too long to do this, and it doesn’t implement it nearly enough. If you want to put such a heavy emphasis on backtracking, you need more of this. These enemies are at the start of the game, but they don’t show up until you’re nearly finished.
There’s just absolutely no sense of balance, and no balance means no risk/reward to calculate. This is where you have to give turn-based RPGs props. In those, if you encounter an enemy that pays off so huge that you can hypothetically grind out hours worth of leveling-up in under half-an-hour, a punch-for-punch battle would see you go tits-up, lights-out in probably the first attack the enemy got on you. Action games can be that way too, but if you don’t PERFECTLY distribute the enemies or accessories, at some point the opportunity to cheese the game will present itself. Circle of the Moon does that a few times. It’s really badly done in that regard.
Don’t get me wrong: finding the hidden stuff is f’n awesome. I cracked a smile every single time a wall broke.
Now here’s the good news: the level design is mostly pretty good. There’s a ton of annoying backtracking and not nearly enough fast-travel tunnels. According to the game’s clock, it took me six-and-a-half hours to finish the Circle of the Moon, and I’d guess at least a third of that was spent making my way back to areas just to get one previously inaccessibly stat upgrade or find an enemy who dropped a card I missed. If the combat wasn’t so damn satisfying and the level design some of the best in this genre, I wouldn’t have been up for it. Yet, there’s a lot of really weird design choices that made me shake my head. Stuff that shattered my immersion that I was a badass vampire hunter exploring a castle. Like, this for example:
Are you kidding me?
One of the very last items you get from defeating a boss is the ability to shove boxes. Okay, that’s a time-honored staple of the genre. EXCEPT, one of the very first upgrades you get in Circle of the Moon is the ability to shatter stone blocks with a dash move. So, let me get this straight: Nathan Graves (hero of the game) masters the ability to shatter stone with his shoulder before he learns how to push a wooden crate out of the way? I had a spell that turned my whip into a goddamned flaming sword that, by all rights, should have set the box on fire, but I had to wait until the game was almost over to schlep a box? And by the way, they put a lot of those boxes throughout the “levels” of the game, so after getting this upgrade, if you want to boost your stats you have to spend about an hour just making your way to them so you can push them out of the way and pick up the boosts.
When the game is over, you get a series of passwords that allow you to replay the game in a different way, though the hero sprite is still Nathan. Thankfully, you don’t have to beat the game to get these, but honestly, they’re all really boring and feel like the type of challenges that pro gamers come up with to keep themselves amused. The Wizard (pictured here using a spell that turned me into a skeleton) is activated by putting FIREBALL as your name, which is also the name of Angela’s dog. Funny. The wizard is weak in everything except magic, and you start the game with every card so you basically have to magic your way through it. GRADIUS is the fighter, who can’t cast spells but his strength is insane. CROSSBOW is the “shooter” who has weak stats and has to use sub-weapons (including a new version of the dagger) that come at half the cost of hearts to use. This is one of the worst ways to ever play a Castlevania game. Finally, THIEF has weak stats but enemies drop stuff at a significantly higher rate. Sorry, no upside-down castle this time.
In terms of a pure action game, Circle of the Moon is clearly one of the most elite launch games in the history of the medium. It’s actually astonishing to think about: this was a day one Game Boy Advance game. I mean, pity about the vision thing, because the wide variety of enemies, settings, and huge boss fights make this legitimately a pretty good Castlevania adventure. While the RPG aspect is a complete airball in my opinion, the epic scale of the boss fights almost makes up for it by itself. This includes one of the best Grim Reaper fights of the 21st century, a memorable encounter with a gigantic minotaur that’s practically trapped in a pillory, and an even more gigantic two-headed dragon. Sadly, after several top-notch boss fights, the game ends with back-to-back AWFUL fights: the battle against Nathan’s rival, the insufferable Hugh Baldwin (who was originally going to be a playable character) and one of the most sloggish Dracula battles ever. Seriously, the final form of Dracula includes this dashing attack where he’s invulnerable and it’s just the worst. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon sticks the landing about as well as that pole vaulter who landed ass-first on the pole.
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Okay, so Circle of the Moon wasn’t as good as I remembered it. Not even close. I can’t stress enough: this WAS the killer app for the Game Boy Player twenty-two years ago. It was the reason I wanted to own one in the first place, and I suspect I wasn’t alone in that. In 2003, at the age of thirteen/fourteen, it felt like it lived-up to my high expectations. But, it certainly didn’t hold-up perfectly two decades later. As great as the map is, it’s not an optimized map. More fast travel points would have been transformative of this game. Hell, just get rid of those and turn the save stations into fast travel points. Why not?
I’m a complete idiot, because it turned out I had the ability to do this much sooner and I just somehow skipped past that card.
Plus, the lack of balance really shows a roughness that I never noticed the first time. Like, the first time I played the game, I beat levels out-of-order because the way you clean the toxic water out of that level is so far away and disconnected from that area that I actually missed it back in 2003. I beat the toxic water level without ever cleaning the water. I just thought it was a really hard stage. That’s on the designers. Actually, knowing where to go next is not intuitive. The first time you play this, expect a LOT of aimless wandering. Thank god for the combat. Circle of the Moon is lucky that Castlevania’s core combat is so bulletproof that you can tack on a terrible RPG system and some haphazard Metroidvania progression and still have a good game. But I’ve been wrong for the last twenty years, because I thought Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was great. It’s pretty good, but nowhere near great. Verdict: YES!
Mickey to Donald: Magical Adventure 3 aka Magical Quest 3 Platform: Super Famicom Released December 8, 1995 Developed by Capcom Originally Never Released Outside of Japan – Ported to GBA in 2005 No Modern Release
How many trilogies have the first game end up being the best one? I can’t think of many.
I hated the Great Circus Mystery, which had nothing inspired about it. That’s not exactly the case with this third and final Magical Quest game. Hell, I even think they could have released this in America and saw roughly the same success as MQ2. I get why they didn’t. While Mickey Mania didn’t exactly block the release since Traveler’s Tales and Sony didn’t own exclusive Mickey Mouse rights for any window, Magical Quest 3 looks kind of fuddy-duddy when put side by side with Mickey Mania. Regardless of whether or not Magical Quest 3 is the better game, Capcom had experience with one of their sprite-based games getting smashed by a game promoted by cutting edge cel-graphics: the Aladdin fiasco with the Capcom SNES game and the Virgin Sega Genesis game. They didn’t want a repeat, and Mickey Mania was even better looking than Aladdin, on the Nintendo platform as well, and critically acclaimed, so they said “nah.” Yea, that’s almost certainly why this didn’t come out in America. Sad, huh? Especially since Magical Quest 3 is no-doubt-about-it better than the SNES version of Mickey Mania. Whether or not it’s better than the base Mickey Mania that I gave a YES! to on Sega CD wasn’t as clear, at least immediately.
Unlike Magical Quest 2, where you can choose to play as Mickey or Minnie but it doesn’t make any gameplay difference, Mickey and Donald are unique characters with unique costumes and abilities. Well, “unique” is a bit a stretch, and I’m almost certain the climbing costume has the same abilities despite having a different look. Both characters each have a knight-like combat costume. In water, Mickey sinks in his suit of armor while Donald, who looks like a complete tool in his barrel, can float. See, Mickey? You should have dressed like a tool. Of course, in the underwater stage, you can’t use Donald’s suit at all since it takes you to the top of the screen.
One HUGELY annoying aspect of the game is just the act of turning around, because you don’t just turn and face the other way. You also move a character segment forward. That makes avoiding boss attacks a huge pain in the ass.
In the knight costume, Mickey follows in the footsteps of Green Arrow and uses a lance with a boxing glove on the tip, while Donald uses a hammer. BOTH are hugely satisfying and probably the best costumes in the entire franchise. No notes. The problem instead is the magician costumes and the randomly-generated refills for them. Mickey is CLEARLY a comic fanrat since he throws playing cards like Gambit. Donald wears a fez and uses a lamp with a genie to cast spells. Mickey’s costume allows for rapid fire, while Donald’s projectile has a pronounced delay for the animation. When I fought this mini-boss as Donald:
I had to hold down the fire button to successfully score hits. The boss is immune to all attacks BUT the magical costume, since it’s shooting fast moving cannonballs at you that you have to deflect. TECHNICALLY you can use two costumes with Mickey, but with Donald, you can only use the magic costume, and it makes for a slow, agonizing fight. Early on, I thought they corrected the problem with spongy bosses, but they didn’t. There was a boss fight with a giant flower that died so quickly that I couldn’t believe it, But, by the halfway point of the game, boss fights once again dragged on so long that it sucked all the excitement and joy out of the battles. Even the mini-bosses are total slogs to fight. On the plus side, collision is better than the SNES Great Circus Mystery, but if the gameplay isn’t fun, that’s not much of a consolation prize.
The final battle against Pete did ALMOST put a smirk on my face since he changes costumes like the player. Cute idea, but the animation is so limited and sloppy that it’s like amateur hour. He just sort of waddles back and forth, and when he attacks, it doesn’t do a convincing job of creating the illusion that it’s one sprite doing all the work.
I’m genuinely fine with extended boss battles. I just drooled all over the fact that I spent nearly an hour battling a boss in Super Mario RPG, and I could totally be on-board for a platform boss being along those lines, but only if the fight is kept exciting. That requires changes of tactics, but most Magical Quest bosses have one form of attack and maybe some kind of rushing move, so two total gameplay elements that are then repeated randomly over and over and over. They also usually have some kind of interval when they’re vulnerable, so the fights feel like you’re just waiting around for something to happen. These are BAD boss fights, and they didn’t have to be. Cut the damage required in half and they would have been fine, and maybe even fun.
The first boss is actually a massive tease because he’s the type of boss I want. He has two distinct forms that feel different and take the correct amount of shots to pass. I have no idea why all the bosses aren’t like this.
Like Great Circus Mystery, I assume a lot of the decisions made were done to accommodate co-op play. This time, I *did* play a limited amount of co-op, but it’s just a slower experience that mostly comes down to one player creating a platform for another player. It’s the same problem World of Illusion had: the original game was fine, and you don’t need to build a co-op game out of that. You need to build UP, and co-op inherently prevents that. Part of me has always wondered if that’s why the New Super Mario Bros. games never “did it” for me. How many things have to be sacrificed so the co-op design can work, which has a NICHE audience as opposed to the all-encompassing one of the original game? With that said, the levels are significantly improved over the second game, but they’re still not as good as the first. There’s also some problematic elements related to the climbing gear. It’s done like a lumberjack, with a rope around the thing you’re climbing that you use to sort of scoot upwards and fling yourself. But things like these:
I really struggled greatly to “bind” myself to, even with practice. It’s certainly not intuitive or smooth-flowing. There were multiple moments in the game where I was stressing that a soft-lock was in play and ultimately only barely got past because an enemy appeared that I could use to bounce off of. There’s an overall lack of elegance, and lots of situational issues where if you run out of ammo for the magic, you probably will get stuck. The refills are random, even if they’re inside blocks. A couple times, I had to rewind the game and break blocks a couple times to assure I got refills so I could use the magic to create a platform to scale over a structure and continue the level. Well, the obvious answer is that these segments were made, you guessed it, for the co-op. If they feel that strongly about co-op, stand by your conviction and have no single player. Because all the uninspired design made for a co-op experience that between 5% and 20% of all players will probably use really seems to be the root cause for all the conservative level design.
Well, the climbing stuff isn’t great in general, single or otherwise. It’s slow and clunky, and so when they do the rising fire trope in the final level based around it, it doesn’t land at all. You can’t do that gimmick if it’s based around unreliable controls.
Or how about this one part where there’s switches and you have to use the climbing rope to drag a barrel over to them. Except, you don’t actually DRAG the barrel. Even though they’re placed quite a distance from the object, you have to throw the rope out and catch it, then drag it one single space, then repeat until it’s on the switch. Look how far away it is! How stupid! It’s actually breathtaking how consistently the Magical Quest games consistently manage to add busy work and subtract fun from so many aspects of gameplay, from bosses to platforming segments to even the act of putting a barrel on a switch. Did they sit around with a stopwatch and try to find places they could add seconds to the gameplay, so that nobody could accuse them of making a game that can be finished in an hour?
I actually thought this was going to get a YES! by virtue of being closer to the first game than the second, but when it was all said and done, I actually had to ask myself “did I really have fun with that?” At the start of the game, I did. The first couple levels were pretty good, but the fun stopped soon after. I played Magical Quest 3 twice, once with Mickey and once with Donald. The two characters weren’t so different that it felt necessary. When the credits rolled on the Donald game, I said “well, that was a colossal waste of my time.” And that’s when I knew my verdict. Unlike Great Circus Mystery, Magical Quest 3 isn’t entirely a wash. There’s a couple really good levels, but the majority of the game is a slow, clunky bore. I was bored playing it, and I was bored writing about it. There’s a reason why this franchise died the death it did. The first game was the best, and it felt like it left so much on the table. The ideal Magical Quest game would be one that takes the first couple levels from Magical Quest 3 and somehow cuts them and pastes them into the middle of the first game. Magical Quest 3 isn’t a dumpster fire, but it’s not good, either. Verdict: NO!
I’m going to do the SNES game, then the Genesis one. Can you tell I wrote the full SNES review before I touched the Genesis version?
The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie aka Disney’s Magical Quest 2 Starring Mickey & Minnie Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released October, 1994 Developed Capcom Re-Released for the Game Boy Advance July 18, 2003 No Modern Release
Well, it looks good. I guess.
If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that the second game in the Magical Quest trilogy was made up entirely of ideas, levels, and costumes rejected from the first game for being too boring. Mind you, for all the whining I did with my review of the first Magical Quest, I also said in no uncertain terms I thought it was “one of the better SNES mascot platformers.” So, what happened to this piece of crap? How’s this for a bonkers conspiracy theory: I think they dropped the “Magical Quest” name from the US version of the game and changed it to the Great Circus Mystery (despite having only ONE LEVEL related to the circus) because Capcom’s US branch recognized what an absolute failure the sequel is. Folks, this is a TERRIBLE game.
What a strange name. “The Great Circus Mystery” when none of the enemies outside of the first area, none of the costumes, NOTHING is circus themed. It’s not even a well done circus themed level, either. It’s entirely superficial.
The core pick-up-and-throw gameplay returns for the sequel with basically no changes, so the new content is entirely based around the three new costumes. The first one is a vacuum cleaner, which is basically the fireman’s suit from the first game in reverse. It’s easily the most satisfying costume in the game as well, but even it’s boring. Instead of sucking up enemies which can then be shot, it eats the enemies and poops out coins, and it does it in a way where the coins go FLYING behind you so you have to scramble to get them. How stupid. A couple bosses are fought using the vacuum gun, and while I think all the bosses are, simply put, boring, the least boring ones usually involve the vacuum. There’s also some very limited (and entirely optional) platforming bits that require you to use the vacuum to pull a block closer. As in, I did it exactly twice, back-to-back. That tracks with the unimaginative level design in general. The only costume that gets extended use for platforming is the explorer costume, which is basically Mickey with a hook. It’s used for swinging off pegs, scaling walls, and occasionally sliding down vines. That doesn’t sound TOO bad, right?
Behold, the best part of the entire game. This is like a better version of Super Castlevania IV‘s rotating room. It lasts under a minute. So, the sum total of the entire game’s entertainment value is maybe 45 seconds of someone else’s idea made marginally better. Being a Mode 7 segment, this room is not in the Sega Genesis build.
Even the explorer costume is as boring as possible. First off, there’s NO offense with this thing besides enemies who can be jumped on. You can’t even pick up a downed enemy and throw them with this costume, nor can you pick up any blocks at all while wearing it. Because there’s a huge delay when you’re swapping costumes, this costume alone causes a much slower pace than the previous Magical Quest game. The level design that takes advantage of it isn’t much better. In the first stage based around the explorer costume, there’s an extended section where you have to climb up trees. As if to really stress how much contempt the designers of this game had for players, the things you’re waiting on are actual snails that move as fast as you would expect, which is so goddamed slow that I wanted to throw my controller through the screen.
Platforming done at a literal snail’s pace.
The third costume is one of the worst power-ups I’ve ever countered. It’s “Cowboy Mickey” which sees Mickey bouncing up and down on a hobby horse. All movement with this is bounce-based, and it’s SO inelegant. If you want to jump higher, which is the theoretical advantage of this costume, you have to time it based on when the up-and-down hopping is currently down. Since the hopping is so quick, it’s really not easy to actually jump or do anything with this costume. It also shoots, but not straight in front of you. The corks you shoot are a little bit high and then arc slowly. It’s literally custom designed to be hard to shoot anything with, and when games do that, that’s not really a challenge. That’s just being trollish. It also has a dash move, but that seems like a hold-over from the Genesis game, as there’s no place where it was useful in the SNES game. The poor controls with the cowboy suit make it one of the most unresponsive, unintuitive gimmicks in any platforming game. The whole idea should have been killed on the drawing board. It should NEVER have made it to the finished game.
Imagine if you could only jump randomly 1 out of every 3 times you pressed the button. That’s sort of what using the cowboy costume is like.
I wasn’t doing a comedy bit in the first paragraph. I genuinely think Great Circus Mystery is composed entirely of concepts rejected for the original game. There is just no way that everything sucks as much as it does. The first game was too well made. Hell, even the bosses fail. They’re a total slog, all taking too many hits to kill without changing up their attack patterns. “Why be four hits to kill when it can be six? Why six when it can be eight or more?” Well, because if you’re not throwing more twists into the fight, you’re really just making the bosses an endurance test, right? And it’s really not helped by the fact that the collision detection this time around is really bad. There were multiple points in the swimming stage where I used rewind just to search for the thing that damaged me. The closest enemies were so far above my sprite that I couldn’t believe that it was the cause, but it must have been unless you just randomly take damage while swimming. Look at this. The answer seems to be “the jellyfish” but you’ll note that it’s not even a little close to me.
What the f*ck, son?
What the f*ck, son?
UPDATE: Actually, you have to breathe air underwater via bubbles. They just forgot to have an air meter, which I assume was an oversight since the sequel has such a meter. Every time I took damage, it was close to an enemy, and since the collision is bad outside the water, I just assumed the damage was caused by the enemies since there was no indication on-screen that this was one of those “need to breathe” games.
Non-swimming collision is never THAT bad, but it’s never consistent. Some enemies are 1-to-1, but others aren’t. Most of the boss attacks sure aren’t. With the SNES version of Magical Quest 2, you can’t ever really use the sprites to suss out the safe distance. By this point in the SNES’ lifecycle, anything but 1-to-1 sprite collision is lazy and unacceptable. Every single boss had at least one moment where I had to jump over something and my sprite clearly, unambiguously missed the danger sprite with a full character length between us and I still took damage. NOTHING in gaming breaks immersion quite like bad collision detection, and it was the final straw that ruined Magical Quest 2 for me. Look how much clearance I had over the thing the boss is throwing at me here:
The whole game is like that, but the bosses are where it’s the most damning. Bosses are like double-or-nothing for mediocre platformers. Really good boss fights can absolutely turn a meh game into a decent one, but bad ones can confirm it as an all-time stinker. The Great Circus Mystery’s bosses do the latter. You know, there’s a third Magical Quest game that remained a Super Famicom exclusive until the Game Boy Advance re-releases in the mid 2000s. I’m starting to figure out why that never came out in America. The Great Circus Mystery killed the franchise, dead. I have no idea what the contemporary critical reception was to this, but I genuinely feel this is one of the worst sequels I’ve ever played and I can’t imagine what a let-down this must have been for kids of that era. It’s REALLY bad. The levels are dull and lacking in memorable set-pieces. The combat is dull. That cowboy costume is genuinely embarrassing, and hell, I even think the graphics are pretty lackluster. And now I know what the great mystery REALLY is: why this wasn’t cancelled before release. Verdict: NO! No, I didn’t play this co-op. Absolutely nothing I said above would be fixed by having a second player suffer with me.
The Great Circus Mystery aka Mickey to Minnie: Magical Adventure 2 Platform: Sega Genesis Released June 2, 1994 Developed by Capcom NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
For Sega Genesis fans, the collision detection in the Genny version of Great Circus Mystery is VASTLY improved. It doesn’t make it a YES! game. The costumes, level design, and spongy bosses are all still so terribly boring. But, my final big complaint was fixed in this version. If you only play one version of Magical Quest 2, fire up the Genny version. It’s MUCH improved and rises to the level of a standard boring platformer.
I wasn’t originally going to do this review, but right before publishing, curiosity got the better of me, and then I saw that the Sega Genesis game released before the Super NES game did. Hmm, I thought. I think I figured out what happened with the SNES game. Funny enough, I think it’s the same thing that happened to another Mickey Mouse game, Mickey Mania. I think the developers built a Sega Genesis game that they then had to port to the SNES. The collision detection for Mickey Mania was historically awful on the SNES. It was almost a non-issue on the Sega CD build that I played. In the case of Mickey Mania, it led to a split-decision, with the Sega CD build coasting to a YES! and the Super NES getting the NO! hammer dropped on it. Well, Great Circus Mystery is now the second Nintendo versus Sega game starring Mickey Mouse where the Sega version is better based on collision detection. Remember this?
Here’s the same boss on the Genesis, doing the same attack. Look where I am.
I’m LITERALLY TOUCHING THE SPRITE and I’m not taking damage. While it makes a monumental difference in terms of playability, it was also never Great Circus Mystery’s biggest problem. The levels are largely the same, with the only noticeable difference being the lack of the rotating room. No Mode 7 on the Genny, so they couldn’t do it. That’s where the cowboy dash move comes in. Like with the vacuum’s ability to draw blocks closer to you, they created a couple situations where it’s necessary to use it to justify its existence.
Right here. You have to hold the fire button down, which means shooting a bullet in order to perform this
The Great Circus Mystery on the Sega Genesis at least rises to the level of competently boring. I totally stand by my theory that this game is made entirely out of ideas for the original game that were shot down. The best costume in Magical Quest 2 is worse than the worst costume in Magical Quest 1. The weakest level in that original game is also better than this one’s strongest level. There is NOTHING memorable here. It’s so paint-by-numbers basic and predictable. I assume it was done that way to accommodate co-op gameplay that nobody asked for. Technically, the level design is microscopically worse on the Genesis. At least the SNES game had a forty-five second segment that outclassed one of Super Castlevania IV’s most memorable sequences. The Genesis version doesn’t even have that going for it. Meanwhile, a couple of the bosses on the Genesis game, even with better collision detection, last longer. Like this boss fight on the back of a dinosaur:
On the SNES, I could occasionally hit it twice a pass, which is nice because the bosses are so unbearably spongy that it sucks all the excitement out of the fight. On the Genesis, you’re limited to one shot per pass, which makes the fight drag on so much longer than any sense of fun lasts, then it keeps going until you actually regret turning the game on at all. None of the bosses are memorable in the least bit. The first game had a giant Pete Spider. In the sequel, the final boss is a giant, generic looking Pete Dragon. Not Pete’s Dragon. That would be lame as f*ck too, but not as lame as it turned out. I’m just in a state of shock over here because the original game was such a quality title that absolutely did not get the most out of the costumes it had. They could have done more levels with THOSE and ended up with a better game than this. While I give the nod to the Genesis version, it still really does nothing right. Ease back on the sponginess of the bosses and the levels are still bland. Make better use of the costumes and they would still be uninspired. Magical Quest 2 feels like a sequel they didn’t want to make. Nothing more than an arbitrary +1 for the release schedule. Magical Quest deserved a better sequel. Verdict: NO!
(SNES Version) This DOES NOT pull off the “use background sprites to create the illusion of the boss being bigger than it actually is” trick. That’s actually laughably pathetic. What a farce of a game.
Super Mario RPG Platform: Nintendo Switch Released November 17, 2023 Directed by Ayako Moriwaki Developed by ArtePiazza Published by Nintendo Listing at Mario Wiki $59.99 is never going to get 100 jumps in the making of this review.
SPOILERS AHEAD for a nearly three-decade-old video game. You’ve been warned.
This is going to be a largely whinny, negative review focused on the changes (and lack of changes) from the original, so I wanted to state right here and now: this is some of the most fun I’ve had in the last couple years playing a game. I loved this remake. I recommend even non-fans of RPGs who have held out on Mario RPG check it out. But, it’s a remake and I have a lot of opinions on it, and remakes in general.
If you think this looks bad for our heroes, you should see what happens when they say “I don’t know!”
I have a bonkers conspiracy theory about Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars that is 100% for sure not what really happened (based on the concept art that you can see at Cutting Room Floor), but I’m sharing it anyway. I think the game was originally going to be Mario fighting a demented mechanical Santa Claus who, instead of making fun toys for good girls and boys, made weapons that caused kids to turn violent. The whole “machines want to take over the world” thing is a little too Power Rangers Zeo for me, but is it just me or do these weapons look a little.. toy-like? They crash into Bowser’s castle for no reason, and when you finally enter the thing that crashed into the castle, it turns out to be a factory of these toy-like weapons. A workshop, if you will. Perhaps the story was about saving Christmas and Santa Claus, or maybe even saving ALL the holidays. And what does the final boss look like? EXACTLY like an evil Santa Claus.
“MECHA-SANTA WANTS A HUG! HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUG ME!”
I’m telling you, I’m on to something. Or on something. Either/or.
Regardless, this is probably the first Mario game where the story matters. I really don’t want to play an RPG with a paper-thin story, but here we are with a story so thin it’s measured in atoms. I played Mario RPG for the first time when it debuted on Virtual Console in 2008, and writing in RPGs had come a long way from the 8-bit/16-bit era. *I* grew up on the PlayStation Final Fantasy games, which were essentially the bridge to the modern well-written/well-translated era of RPGs. Going back to play games with blunt, on-the-nose writing is something I struggle greatly with when I do these retro reviews. I’ve liked a couple old school RPGs, but that’s usually based on the gameplay merits. Like, Final Fantasy VI? AKA the one the generation before me was told was Final Fantasy III? It’s fine but it didn’t “move me” because, again, a different time and era.
“Okay, I found a scenic cliff. Now, according to Simon Belmont, if I just stare at the castle with triumphant satisfaction, it’ll crumble. Okay, HMMPH, there. Okay, crumble. Any second now..”
I won’t say the plot of Mario RPG is deep, and hell, most of the actual writing is just okay. It is somewhat cleaned up in limited areas, but most of the script carried over from the original game. When I first played it in 2008, even though the dialog often had me cringing, I thought it was one of the funniest games I’d ever played. They would NEVER call it a “comedy RPG” but it clearly is. Playing this now, in 2025, most of the jokes still hold-up. That’s why I’m kind of puzzled as to why they ruined the best gag in the game: the introduction of Geno. In the SNES game, when Mario is shot by the child with the Geno doll, it’s a really violent impact with a rocket. In the remake, Mario is shot with what looks like a few Nerf balls. It completely ruins the entire bit. Why’d they do that? Ugh, you just know someone said “we can’t have a child violently shoot Mario! Someone will say we’re being insensitive towards people who are shot by children who fish their daddy’s pistol out of his sock drawer.” YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE! That’s probably why they changed it and it’s stupid. On the other hand, there’s this:
Jesus mother of God. Okay, maybe I’m wrong.
Otherwise, most of the humor still lands. It is somewhat lacking the charm, because it no longer feels like it’s squeezing the most out of the limited technology. Like how the heroes change into other characters to act out the story for new characters? That was done that way because it was a novel and entertaining way to do expository dialog using the limited space of the SNES. They did add a few brief and context-limited cutscenes that are mostly used for major character introductions (and boss introductions). They look great! I mean, like this:
Christ, can you imagine the fan fiction this led to?
Actually, bad example because that was a cutscene in the original game. Okay, the part where Peach joins the team by jumping out the window. That’s a pre-rendered cutscene now.
That looks like it’s straight out of a modern Mario game! Fine with me, but there’s just not nearly enough of it, and the timing of when to use them isn’t exactly perfect. The above whining about ruining the Geno gun gag? Wouldn’t that have been an awesome time to cut to a pre-rendered cutscene? If my hunch is right they were really worried about the visual of a child accidentally no-scoping Mario, change the gag! Have the rocket knock a statue over that falls on Mario. I also found it annoying that they have to spell out that you’re not really joining Bowser’s minions. In fact, they continue to spell out that you’re only pretending to believe Bowser’s bravado basically every time the character is given dialog. It’s kind of condescending, but I assume that’s because the script was written in 1996. I’m surprised Square didn’t have the characters look into the camera and say “DO YOU GET IT?” So, while the humor still works, the writing typically doesn’t. Too on-the-nose, too clunky, and it really doesn’t have a lot of faith in people to get what the intent is.
“Sir, I keep trying to tell you that you can’t always get what you want.”
Okay, so the plot and writing wasn’t fated to age perfectly, but do you know what did? The combat. I re-played the SNES game back in 2021 and by that point, you’d think Mario RPG’s peppy timing-based combat system would have started to show its age. Well, it didn’t at all. Twenty-five years after the game’s original release and I found myself grinding XP just for fun because menu-based combat had never felt so impactful. If there was one aspect of the game that nobody could possibly complain about being copied and pasted as it was to the remake, it’s that battle system. Well, besides the graphics themselves, ArtePiazza barely changed any aspect of the main game. The dialog, script, mini-games, enemies, bosses, etc. are mostly unchanged, with the small exception of the names of a few basic enemies and items. If they’re leaving that much alone, why rock the boat by changing the most famous, celebrated, and evergreen aspect of the game?
Hell, for the Beetlemania game, they didn’t even change the graphics.
But they did change the combat system. The balls on them for doing that, too. The riskiest change to make, easily, and if it sucked, you could insert the Stan Lee “broke, or made better?” meme from the Simpsons and call it a day. Thankfully, that’s not the case at all. The combat is even faster paced and more rewarding, with attention to the little details. I really don’t think there’s any aspect of it that isn’t better in this version. Like, it didn’t bother me but the SNES game paused a little bit when enemies cast spells. In the remake, the pause is briefer and feels like it flows directly into the attack. A small change, but one with profound gameplay results. Most of the special effects for unblockable enemy spells are faster. They turned one of the speediest combat systems in RPG history into an even peppier one. It’s a pretty remarkable achievement.
In the remake, it’s a LOT easier to time the “LUCKY” shell game and double your earnings. Once I figured out the timing and how the game occasionally does a little sleight of hand at the climax of the shuffle, I never lost once. Combined with the Exp. Booster you can buy with frog coins in the back half of the game, I was basically maxed-out going into the final two game worlds.
By far the biggest change is the addition of splash damage. If you hit the timing perfectly on basic attacks, it creates a shock wave that has a high chance of damaging all other enemies. Not as much as if they were attacked directly, but it still made the basic battles and even a few boss fights fly by. This also made backtracking a lot less annoying. If you’re searching for stuff you missed in previous stages and have leveled-up enough, instead of having to fight every enemy, a single basic attack might wipe out the entire battlefield. If the splash damage isn’t the biggest change, it’s the combo system. There’s now a meter for stringing together both offensive and defensive timing. This not only buffs your characters but builds up a new triple-team special meter. The triple teams can be devastating attacks, create unbreakable shields, etc., and each three-character combination has their own unique move. Assuming one of the three characters is KOed, the special is replaced with Toad providing a roulette wheel to buff you in the battle. That roulette single-handedly saved me from defeat in the final-final battle of the game against the 3D Culex.
This is the “!” warning that helps players get the timing down. If you want, you can opt to play “breezy” mode, which gives you a much bigger grace period on the timing-based stuff. This can be toggled on and off any time.
There’s even more changes to the battle system. KOed/transformed characters are allowed to be swapped out mid-battle for a reserve character. And yes, if the situation provides, you can swap one KOed character for another KOed one. The game also now tells you what magic attacks from enemies can’t be blocked, something the original game never stated. There’s also a visual cue of when to hit the action button for both attacks and defense. BUT, here’s the thing about that cue: once the game is satisfied you have the timing down for the thing triggering the action, the game stops doing it, like training wheels. Later on, if your timing gets out of whack, the prompt returns. It’s SO SMART. The whole combat system is!
The improved battle system is also the reason why I can’t overlook all the changes they didn’t make. Jeez, and I thought the Link’s Awakening remake was stubborn about fixing stuff. Like, the lame puzzles in the sunken ship or in Bowser’s Keep are copy and pasted wholesale from the original 1996 game, including the solutions to those puzzles. In the sunken ship, you’re trying to ascertain a six-letter secret word. The answer is the same in the 2023 version as it was in the 1996 version. Would it have really killed them to change it to something else? Some of the puzzles in the first version were just plain not very fun. Like this one:
This is a blind jumping maze. Behind those boxes, you have to randomly jump around until you find your way through it. No visual clues to help once you’re behind the stack. No real way to logic through it besides the abstract shape of the maze. It’s so inelegant, especially for such a rich and layered game. This is scraping the bottom of the barrel. So, like.. replace it! How the hell do you justify so many additions and enhancements to the BEST part of the game while leaving the gameplay elements that were kind of the f*cking pits the same? And I’m only bitching about it because they proved their bonafides with the battle system. The remake designers clearly could recognize areas where quality of life could be seamlessly applied. They’re just too talented to leave the bad parts bad. And by the way, there’s also parts that are significantly worse. Remember this mini-game:
I found it to be a lot more sensitive when turns are made. I never cared for this part to begin with, but I didn’t *hate* it. But in the remake, I really didn’t care for it at all. Or how about the Goomba Whack-a-Mole game with the pipes? I found it to be a lot less precise and I’d never want to play it again. That was actually true of most of the mini-games this time around. I remember grinding-up frog coins by doing the waterfall/river mini-game over and over. Something about it in the remake just didn’t “do it” for me. Very few areas where an improvement NEEDED to happen were actually improved, while the thing nobody would have expected to be overhauled was overhauled dramatically. It’s F*CKING WEIRD! It’d be like bringing your car into the shop because it has faulty brakes, and when you pick it up, the mechanic says “we decided not to fix your brakes, but hey, we installed heated seats and a sat-nav for you!”
They didn’t fix the Yoshi race, either. It’s still one of the most unnecessary and ultimately boring parts of the game.
Speaking of the frog coins, that’s another change to the battle system and overall game that wasn’t capitalized on. In the remake, 20% of enemies will now be “special enemies” that hit harder and have more HP, but when you defeat them, you get double the coins, double the experience points, AND a frog coin. Awesome, except one little problem: they didn’t really create more situations that require frog coins. They’re basically only good now for finishing your journal 100%. There’s a detailed list of monsters in the game that, when you use Mallow to read their mind, get a check mark on the list. Some of these are one-off beasts, and if you aren’t using Mallow, you have to pay a guy hidden in Booster’s Pass three frog coins, and you don’t even get to choose which one he checks off. I’m pretty sure it’s done randomly.
It IS a cool feature. You can watch every attack animation, spell animation, etc.
And, that’s basically it for the frog coins, other than the stuff that was already in the game. I never liked the items sold in the tadpole pond, so the frog that sells accessories like the Exp. Booster in Seaside Town is really the only legit use of frog coins, and in the new system, you’ll be able to buy out his full inventory pretty fast. That’s the extent of ways to spend this massive windfall of what had been a rare and desirable currency in the previous version. Sorry, but you just can’t do that! If you add more of a LOT more of a currency, logically you have to add a LOT more ways to spend it, and they didn’t. So, while I enjoyed the special enemy encounters quite a lot, all they ultimately do is take all the risk/reward out of how you spend frog coins.
If you’re into soundtracks, that also gets unlocked post-game. Not only that, but it comes with a fully decked-out player that also lets you listen to the original versions and even do random play.
I swear I’m done bitching. Well, mostly done, but now, here’s the good stuff. Super Mario RPG Remake is, no doubt about it, an easier game than the SNES one, so, I didn’t know what to expect from the post-game content. The framing device is that, once you restore the Star Road and wishes can be granted again, seven previous bosses had THEIR wishes granted. Now, getting this unlocked is busy work on top of busy work. Toad gives you a voucher for the honeymoon suite in Marrymore. When you use that, Geno looks longingly out the window. You have to go a couple screens into Star Road, and there you’ll discover the boss wishes. Unfortunately, instead of just clicking them and going to the new boss fights, you actually have to make your way to the original chambers where you fought them. Sigh. Okay, so that’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: most of these fights are legitimate RPG challenges, and lengthy battles to boot. The first one, a rematch with Belome, took me over twenty minutes to finish. In the second one against “Leveled-Up Punchinello”, the first thing that happened was he one-shotted Mario to death.
I guess he played Mike Tyson in Punch-Out!! before making his wish.
Actually, the Punch-Out!! comparison is pretty accurate, because the best way to describe these bonus fights is to think of the rematches from the Wii Punch-Out!! Only the final fight against 3D Culex is a normal punch-for-punch RPG battle. The other six all have some kind of twist to them, and for five of them, it’s a twist that makes them almost puzzle-like. Belome clones one of your party members, like in his previous fight. Only, this time you HAVE to fight the clone, because the clone’s first act is to cast a shield that deflects everything. Do you know how I won this fight? HE RAN OUT OF FIRE POINTS! I didn’t even realize enemies had FP, but the fight dragged out so long that he ran out of them.
You even fight Booster in the post-game quest, which never happens in the main game. He’s seen here, about to one-shot my entire party for the second and final time in this fight. Yep, I game overed against Booster, who is, for lack of a better term, a “special” individual. This is one of those “sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done” moments of my gaming life.
Now, these seven extra fights don’t scale correctly at all, at least in the order the page on the Wiki said to tackle them. The rematch against Johnny Jones, the 5th fight, is a one on one, no items allowed Mario v Johnny fight, and I won it on my first attempt when Johnny offered to let me swap my party members (who give you buffs even if they’re not part of this fight) and equipment. I put the best armor on Mario and just whittled him down. So that one kind of sucked. On the other hand, the final battle with Culex 3D took me a whopping 40+ minutes to finish. It has 9,999 health, and the crystals are beefer too AND killing them causes the crystal to buff whatever is still alive as it dies. And IT WAS AWESOME! Besides the Johnny Jones fight, all the bonus bosses were! The best part of the game for me, easily.
There’s still a hard cap on leveling-up. 30 is the max.
Two things annoy me about the bonus bosses. First is that there’s only seven of them. Seriously, they’re SO fun that I wish they had done one for EVERY boss. All-in, I spent about two hours locating them and fighting them. Two hours of additional content sounds like a lot, but this is a nearly three decade old game. Come on! The second annoyance is that this type of post-game beef is entirely limited to those seven boss fights. They didn’t enhance the overworld basic enemies post-game at all. Why not? Now granted, they added fast travel via the map, so it doesn’t take THAT long to reach them, but there’s also the emphasis on finding all the enemies you didn’t use Mallow to read the mind of. Post-game, those fights are spent having everyone else do nothing but defend while you wait for Mallow’s turn to read another mind. Had the developers added some muscle to the post-game overworld enemies, I honestly ain’t sure I’d be writing this review right now. I think I probably would have felt compelled to go out and fill out the whole monster checklist. So, I’m pretty frustrated with Mario RPG Remake. In fact, I don’t remember a game I liked that disappointed me off more. That KEPT disappointing me consistently.
Spent a solid 20 minutes trying to jump from the yellow vine to the green one, kept grazing it, but I couldn’t hold my grip on it. I was getting angrier and angrier, until my father asked “are you sure there’s not a platform there?” I said “I checked” and I truly believe I did, but yea, there was a platform there. So embarrassing.
But, even through all the disappointment, I never had to remind myself “this is one of the best video games ever made.” It never lets you forget that. It absolutely holds up to the test of time, changes or not. I guess that’s a big part of why I’m so frustrated by leaving so much of the game unchanged. Because there aren’t a lot of games out there that are honest-to-God contenders for the title of greatest of all-time. Mario RPG surely isn’t in that discussion. There’s just too many head-scratching decisions that were no doubt compromises based entirely around what could and couldn’t be done with the limitations of the Super NES. But, it feels like what’s already in the game could be tweaked slightly and transform Mario RPG into that legit GOAT contender. There’s a big difference between “one of the all-time greats” and “THE all-time greatest.” As much as I loved playing this remake, there’s something heartbreaking about a culture of development where “the greatest of all-time” is on the table and they don’t go for it, Verdict: YES!
“You’re sure he said ‘triumphant satisfaction?’ Sounds like baloney to me! If this worked, why would he go through all the trouble of fighting Dracula? Logically, wouldn’t he just need to stare at the castle whenever Dracula resurrects? Okay, I’ll go back to staring. Just had a thought is all.”
This the first Definitive Review I’ve done since Able To Play started presenting my Retro Review Index. This is an amazing idea and a great cause. They’re creating a game accessibility database, so that people like me can look up what games have epilepsy risks, or so colorblind gamers can know what games might be more difficult or impossible for them to play, and every other game accessibility necessity you can imagine. Make sure to sign up for their list and start to contribute! I’m proud to use my platform to promote them, and I wanted to start that with a game I’ve wanted to review for a long time.
Not every in-depth look at a game has to be complicated. Kung-Fu Master is a very uncomplicated game. Six total basic enemies and five unique bosses. As far as action games go, it really doesn’t get less complex. Yet, few games are as famous as it. It’s based on the Jackie Chan movie that’s only called Spartan X in Japan but Wheels on Meals everywhere else, but it’s so disconnected from the movie that it’s not even worth mentioning. Especially since it’s really based on Enter the Dragon, a totally different movie. Then, in 1988, it had a completely different movie based on it that was made in France! Bet you didn’t know that! The French Kung-Fu Master movie, based on the game where you punch and kick people to rescue your girlfriend, is the story of a middle-aged housewife and mother who falls head over heels for a 14 year old boy and, um.. wait, WHAT?! Am I reading the right synopsis? Wait, the kid plays the arcade Kung-Fu Master in the movie, so they named a movie about a woman heartsick over a child Kung-Fu Master? You’re kidding me, right? Where’d they even get the idea for that?
Oh. Yea, probably that. Sh*t, based on that description, Kung-Fu Master might be closer to the source material than the 1993 Mario movie.
Well, anyway I’ve wanted to do Kung-Fu Master for a while. I decided, while I’m at it, why not give it the Definitive Review treatment and check out ports of it? And hell, while I’m at that, wouldn’t it be neat to look at the games that rode its coattails? So, here are the 28 games included in this feature! I hope everyone enjoys!
My Hero (Sega Master System, 1986) aka Seishun Scandal
FlashGal (Arcade, 1985)
Kung-Fu Master (Commodore 64, 1985)
Lady Master of Kung Fu (Arcade, 1985) aka Nunchackun
Kung-Fu Master (ZX Spectrum, 1986)
Mr. Goemon (Arcade, 1986)
Black Belt (Sega Master System, 1986) aka Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star
Kung-Fu Master (Amstrad CPC, 1987)
Kung-Fu Master (Atari 2600, 1987)
Kung Fu Kid (Sega Master System, 1987) aka Sapo Xulé O Mestre do Kung Fu
China Warrior (TurboGrafx-16, 1987) aka The Kung Fu
Kuri Kinton (Arcade, 1988)
Vigilante (Arcade, 1988)
Splatterhouse (Arcade, 1988)
Kung-Fu Master (Atari 7800, 1989)
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu (NES, 1990)
Kung Fu Master (Game Boy, 1990) aka Spartan X
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu (TurboGrafx-16, 1991)
Spartan X 2 (Famicom, 1991) aka Kung Fu 2
Splatterhouse 2 (Sega Genesis, 1992)
GAME REVIEWS
For those not familiar with my way of thinking of how retro games should be reviewed, I take NO historical context into account, at least for the games themselves. I don’t care how important a game was to the industry, because that doesn’t make a game worth playing today. The test of time is the cruelest test of all, but every video game must face it. I might not be here if not for Pong’s success, but I wouldn’t want to play it today. Not when there’s better options. Therefore, when I review retro games, every game gets either a YES! or a NO!
YES! means the game is still fun and has actual gameplay value when played today and is worth seeking out.
NO! means the game didn’t age gracefully and is not worth seeking out, and certainly not worth spending money on.
IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Kung-Fu Master aka Spartan X Platform: Arcade Released November 24, 1984 Designed by Takashi Nishiyama Distributed by Irem (Japan) Data East (US) No Modern Release except Antstream
Am I the only one who thinks the less detailed NES one looks better? Oh this animates better, but in screenshots, I kind of like the simpler NES game.
It’s really easy to understand why Kung-Fu Master ended up one of the most famous and legendary games ever made. It’s one of the more simple and straightforward games of its era, but with such a nice, snappy attack that it’s impossible to not get some satisfaction out of the combat. Most of the combat is based around two types of enemies who walk onto the screen and then fall off the screen with a single attack. It’s staged in a way where it really does feel kind of like a cheap, cheesy, but ultimately entertaining martial arts movie. It barely beat Karateka to the market, but despite having somewhat similar gameplay, this is a much more energetic, arcade-like experience that is a little more nuanced than it appears at first glance.
OOMPH is the term I use to describe video game violence having the look, sound, and feel of real weight, velocity, impact, and gravity. With that said, Kung-Fu Master’s OOMPH is unlike any other game’s OOMPH. It’s very subtle, but it works so well because of the pitch-perfect death sprites of the enemies, which fall off the screen in a swooping, “out cold” type of way. Spot on, and one of the best death animations of the 80s.
Like, for example, the difference between punches and kicks. I don’t know if this is simply the placebo effect, but I find the slightly faster punches to be more effective at handling timing issues that happen when enemies come at you from both sides. I figured that’s why they were added to the game, since the kicks are more viscerally satisfying and punches have a LOT less range. BUT, there’s more to it, because punches are worth more points than kicks. That means that arcade goers with dreams of high scores in the 1980s had actual risk/reward factors to consider. That doesn’t matter so much for people with nobody to challenge today, and I never used to consider scoring at all. These days, hey, I like to see what scores I get. It matters a little.
It’s also a shockingly hard game. Not so hard that you can base an entire movie around a teenager struggling to beat the game, but to that film’s credit, he was boinking a married woman. He probably had a lot on his mind.
Kung-Fu Master is a very short game. The full five level cycle can be beaten in under ten minutes by even an average player. But the pacing of those five levels is nearly perfect. When fighting endless waves of “Grippers” and “Tom Toms” with the occasional knife thrower starts to get repetitive, BAM, jars falling from the ceiling with various contents in them. When that gets old, back to the guys in level one. When that starts to get old again, how about moths? Okay, so it’s weird most of the baddies that act as the cannon fodder opt to hug the life out of you. Maybe they smell bad. Like, really bad. I’m talking “old man wearing aftershave” bad. I don’t know why they opted not to have strikes be the primary enemy attack. Maybe it didn’t cause enough damage and made the game too easy. Maybe it caused collision issues. Who knows?
Knife guys who back away from you combined with the Grippers make for a quick loss of life.
But the hugging-to-death stuff is pretty frustrating. First off, being forced into wiggling the controller in a strike-based game makes the offense and defense feel disconnected. This isn’t helped by the fact that you can’t do things like, say, punch the knives out of the air. It’s also surprisingly hard to do a jump kick in a way where you move forward. I was mostly familiar with the NES game, where it’s significantly easier to pull off. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if that, by itself, is why many consider the NES game superior. Your health drains relatively fast, too, and sometimes there’s so many enemies it’s hard to shake them off, and like in the picture above, later stages have an uncanny knack for unleashing the knife guys at the worst times. This is why games of Kung-Fu Master can turn on a dime. I think I got pretty good at it, but in over a dozen play sessions, I never came close to finishing the second cycle, which spawns basic enemies during boss fights. Speaking of which, the bosses are easily the highlight of Kung-Fu Master.
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If I had to guess why Kung-Fu Master was uniquely memorable, I think the bosses are probably the biggest part of it. Hell, I dare say that Spartan X cemented what a boss fight should be. It’s not the first game with boss fights, but it is among the first that had unique bosses for each stage. I have this theory that boss fights are like a game’s metronome. They don’t exactly set the tempo, but they do maintain it. This might actually be the first release that my theory applies to. It’s not just in appearance, but in personality and strategy. They nailed the scaling too, and the five boss fights all feel both unique and climatic. Besides final boss Mr. X being a little too block heavy (hell, I once timed-out against him on the first cycle), they’re genuinely fun to do battle with. Kung Fu Master certainly isn’t a perfect game. The grabbing aspect is just not exciting, you know? But, the offensive game is so very, very strong. Irem and their business partners need to figure the rights issues. Maybe try to get them in perpetuity, because this should be celebrated in the 2020s. Verdict: YES!
Kung Fu Master Platform: MSX Released in 1984 Developed by Mass Tael Published by ASCII Entertainment NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Um, wait a second..
Um, wait a second..
Yea, this isn’t Spartan X. As it turns out, an entirely different game called Kung Fu Master (no hyphen) was already out on MSX. Hell, my emulator said this came out in 1983, but all other sources say this came out in 1984. Either way, it almost certainly beat Spartan X to the market. Oh, the real Spartan X is coming, but with a different name. And then there’s this piece of crap. Holy cow, this is awful. It does have a similar punch/kick mechanic to the more famous Spartan X, only you have to fight robots. Blue ones can only be punched. Red ones can only be kicked. There’s an actual goal for each of the two levels. In the first, you have to walk into the background until you reach the end point, and to assure you don’t avoid combat, you must also kill X amount of baddies. That rule applies to the second level as well. How do you finish that level? I honestly don’t know. I never got past it. The combat is simply terrible. It’s one of those games where the challenge comes from getting on the correct plane to line-up with the enemies. I never got a feel for it. It never felt consistent, frankly. Neither did the collision for when the baddies got me, and I just gave up. This doesn’t really belong in this feature, anyway. It’s hard to imagine I can possibly find a worse game in 2025. (Cathy from the future here, and I really have to learn to stop saying that, because boy, was I wrong). Verdict: NO!
Seiken Achoo aka Kung-Fu Master aka Spartan X Platform: MSX Released in 1985 Developed by ASCII Entertainment NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
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Here’s the real Spartan X for MSX. Real in the sense that it resembles the game you’re hoping for. Not so real in the sense that it’s a good port. Maybe it’s not their fault. They seem to have sneezed while typing in the title, so maybe they were sick at the time. The combat’s satisfaction is dramatically scaled-down. Your health drains so much faster than in the arcade, which gives you very little wiggle room to make mistakes. I went from full health and next to a boss to “dead” in the blink of an eye because enemies spawned on both sides at the same time. On the plus side, the bosses are nearly as fun to fight in the MSX version. Of course they don’t quite feel the same as the coin-op, but given how poorly done the feel of the normal baddies are (especially the jars), I was stunned that all five bosses were such close approximations. Mr. X especially, the final boss, is really close. Well done, whoever did this.
Grrrrr.
Grrrr.
Easily the hardest level is the second. It’s because the jars take half your life. So do the snakes, which somehow do as much or more damage than fire breathing dragons. The moths in level four also take half your life bar, but you see them coming, and they have very predictable patterns. I legitimately beat that part on my first try (oddly enough, I also beat the 4th and 5th bosses on my first attempt as well). The second level’s jars can drop on you in the same spot back-to-back, with not enough warning to avoid them. Since they take half a life bar, two jars, or a snake then a jar, if my math checks out is, you know, death! So the pitch-perfect scaling of the coin-op is lost in translation, and that badly hurts Kung Fu Master. A ROM hack that balances the damage would probably tilt this into the YES! column. Maybe. Hell, it took me a dozen or so non-cheating games just to reach the first boss thanks to the timing issues. I discovered a nifty trick that helped me out. I found making progress impossible until I started ignoring the knife throwers who were behind me. That ended any timing issues of being attacked by grippers from both sides and, all by itself, cut the difficulty in half. When they do attack from both sides, there’s often so many enemies that even making the screen scroll a step forward is a chore.
The moths are heavily changed from the coin-op. They don’t spawn out of chutes and are already on the screen. The ones above your head almost never do u-turns directly into you, and instead won’t change directions (and lower themselves) until you’ve passed them. That made level 4 the easiest level in the game. It wasn’t even close, actually. Again, they completely screwed up the scaling. Normally I wouldn’t hit a game as hard for that, but given the perfection of Spartan X’s scaling, it actually is kind of a big deal.
Unlike some MSX ports, Kung-Fu Master wasn’t a disaster by any stretch. In fact, it’s probably the best version of the game that I’m giving a NO! to. I put a LOT of stock in how well the bosses were made. Seriously impressive effort, given the limitations. Sigh. I really hate doing this because MSX fans are just first-rate fans who did a lot for this blog in 2024, but the lack of difficulty balance and the muffled satisfaction of the attacks really brings down this version of Kung-Fu Master. Reworking the damage would probably push this into the YES!, but I can only play the game I was given. This scales as badly as any action game I’ve ever played. It’s not an impossible game and, with practice, I could make it to the end without cheating. Fans of the coin-op in 1985 who were lucky enough to have an MSX weren’t entirely hosed, but this is a mere shadow of the coin-op. Kung-Fu Master as a coin-op holds up to the test of time, but this port doesn’t. Verdict: NO!
Knuckle Joe Platform: Arcade Released in 1985 Developed by Seibu Kaihatsu Distributed by Taito NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED (?)
It looks fun. I mean, it looks like a complete and total rip-off of Fist of the North Star, but still, it looks like it’s going to be a good time. But there’s a reason Knuckle Joe faded into obscurity, unlike his brothers G.I. and Cotton Eye.
From the studio that eventually birthed the Raiden shmup franchise comes this horrible wannabe. Instead of scrolling towards a goal, you’re placed into an arena where the object is to defeat X amount of enemies. It uses the same basic concept as Spartan X: a punch and a kick, both of which can be done while jumping or kneeling. Interestingly, holding the attack buttons causes you to hold the attack outward. Interesting in the sense that it’s different. There’s no point to it. I mean, it doesn’t really do damage and leaves you open to attack, plus you look silly doing it. Like you’ve just sh*t yourself and decided in the moment if don’t move, nobody will notice. On the other hand, Knuckle Joe (no relation to the Kirby character) could do a slam dunk from the NBA three point line from how far he can jump. And hey, this is the first game in this feature where you can block, which is done by holding both jump and kick at the same time. So, it seems like everything is here for a decent game. Well, except the combat is a wet fart. Oh, maybe I was onto something with the holding attack.
See how far the hero is (on the left in the blue pants) from the baddie on the right? That’s roughly the distance of a knock-back from being hit. Yes, some attacks knock you back that far.
Knuckle Joe is one of the worst games in this genre, ever. Enemies block and/or counter attack nearly every attack, so even basic enemies are spongy and sloggy to fight. There is absolutely zero OOMPH to the attacks, so the only way to know that something is actually making contact (as opposed to being blocked, the sprites of which look too similar) is a barely visible point marker appearing when a strike lands. Non-basic enemies take even more hits and counter-punch right to the frame. This has HORRIBLE programming, because it’s literally trading punches with frame-perfect baddies. Go ahead and block enemy attacks. Most of the time, as soon as you release the block, they’re going to hit you anyway. There is no gameplay elegance to the attack. The CPU is just too damn perfect. Consequently the gameplay isn’t exciting. It’s just demoralizing with no upside. And I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet.
Again, look at the knock-back length. I was right next to him, close enough to attack, just a split second earlier.
I couldn’t make any progress at all. I watched Let’s Plays trying to figure out how to not go punch-for-punch with enemies and really tried, for hours, to finesse my way through this with all the settings on the easiest. Couldn’t do it. It’s just a terribly programmed game that gives too much advantage to the frame-perfect enemies. Thankfully, this is one of those games where one of the dip switch toggles is a cheat that gives you infinite health. Okay, so at least I can get media for the late game. Well, even when I can stand and throw hands with the enemies without risk of losing my health, I still suffered GAME OVERs, because I timed-out several levels in a row. Had the progress on reducing the enemy count not carried over between lives, I wouldn’t have beat the game even with cheating. In addition to perfectly counter-punching/blocking, enemies use the timer and avoid contact with you. I seriously want to ask the people who made this “did you really have fun play testing this?” I don’t think they did. Knuckle Joe is as bad as any coin-op gets. One of the worst I’ve ever played in my life. It’s one of those games that I would say is so bad that it’s practically a scam, except for the “unfair arcade game” scam to work, the game has to be fun enough for a player to reload quarters. The core gameplay is a total bore with some of the most weak violence in any punch ’em up I’ve played. Knuckle Joe deserves its place in gaming oblivion. Verdict: NO!
Shao-Lin’s Road aka Kicker Platform: Arcade Released March 23, 1985 Developed by Konami Sold Separately on Arcade Archives ($7.99)
Okay, so, this recommendation from my unofficial-official curator Dave Sanders really doesn’t belong in a Kung-Fu Master feature in terms of gameplay. I’ll buy that the theme was inspired by the success of Kung-Fu Master and the ultra-satisfying kicks from that game. BUT, Shao-Lin’s Road’s connection to Spartan X stops at the theme and attack. It actually shares much more DNA with something like the original arcade Mario Bros. It’s a wave-based platform game where the object is to eliminate all the enemies with well-timed kicks. The basic enemies take a single kick to knock out. “Bosses” for lack of a better term (the stage doesn’t end when you beat them) take four kicks. When you defeat a green enemy, it throws out limited-use items like fireballs, deadly shields, and spiked balls. Besides the items, it’s all kicks, all the time. You have to press UP to jump high enough to reach the next platform while the jump button is really only effective for jump kicks or to jump across gaps. If you walk off the ledge of a platform instead of jumping, fall onto your head, and lose one of three hits that reset every stage. And, that’s pretty much the whole game.
Happy I didn’t have to bet my life on who made this without knowing, because I would have guessed this was a Sega game. AM I WRONG? Doesn’t it look like it?
Whether it’s called Shao-Lin’s Road or Kicker, the game is as shallow as a puddle of spit. And yet, I’ll be damned if it isn’t a lot of fun. The kicking action is solid, and it really helps that the pace is quick. Well, at least when you’re not down to the final enemy. Sometimes the last baddie seems more concerned with switching which platform they’re on than trying to kill you. This continues even after you’ve completed a cycle of levels. Hell, if anything, it feels like it increases as the game goes deeper. Kicker is also probably one of the easier coin-ops I’ve reviewed in recent years. I made it through the full cycle of levels on only my second game. This is the rare arcader where I felt compelled to beef-up the difficulty in the dip switches, as the default medium was a little too easy and low-stakes. I’m also hugely bummed-out that there’s no co-op. You would think this would be perfect for that, and maybe even with a Joust-like “kill the second player” twist to it. Alas, it’s alternating players only. Shao Lin’s Road is one of those ultra-simple titles that just plain works because sometimes a core gameplay concept is so foolproof it can’t go wrong unless you’re REALLY bad at making games. Will it be a game you go back to? Nah. It’s good for an hour at most, but it’s a pretty dang solid hour. Verdict: YES!
Kung Fu aka Spartan X Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released June 21, 1985 Designed by Shigeru Miyamoto Developed by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Only two of the global top twenty-five selling NES/Famciom games have never been re-released since the retirement of the console. #16, World Class Track Meet (originally released as Stadium Events, which is THE holy grail of officially released NES games), has a perfectly good excuse: it requires the Power Pad, a precursor to dance pads. That makes Kung Fu, #13, the only one that requires no accessory that has never been celebrated with a re-release. 2025 marks the 40th Anniversary of it. Let’s do the right thing here.
Like I said above, Kung Fu is the thirteenth best-selling game on the NES, and the best seller most lost to history. This is largely based around being a Nintendo-developed title of another company’s game. A company that, until recently, really had mentally checked-out of the video game business. Now that Irem and ININ’s partnership is seeing the re-release of multiple games, they need to figure out something with Nintendo. I’m not sure if I would call this “superior” to the coin-op, but at the time it came out? Probably one of the ten best arcade ports ever made. I found the kicks a little more effective on the NES despite them allegedly having a smaller collision box. The most obvious change is to the 4th boss, the Black Magician, who is missing his spell that creates a clone of himself. On the second cycle (or B-Game), I found him to be the hardest boss because, when he teleports, you’re left frozen while the basic enemies are still free to move. There’s a BIG window before you get the controls back, and it doesn’t take long for a Gripper to kill you, especially if you’re already damaged going into the fight. You need luck against him.
Well, look at that.
UPDATE: The Magician DOES clone himself on the NES, but the circumstances that seem to generate this are ones I can’t imagine any player would do unless you’re deliberately chasing a high score. You basically have to not try to win the fight and just kick his fireballs and stall until the timer reaches a certain point. I was certain that I had timed out against him, but there’s no way I did because the clone always shows up at around 880 seconds. So, my new operating theory is that I just won every fight against him too fast. I maintain he’s the most dangerous boss in the game because of the fact that he can prevent your movement while the rest of the game, including any normal enemies, don’t pause around him. You wouldn’t want to stall for time with him. Thank you btribble3000 for sending that in! But then, after I wrote this update, I tried it again to show off to my family and..
HE NEVER F’N CLONED HIMSELF! Now my family thinks I’m cray-cray. Why does it have to be so weird? Why can’t it just be a move he does regularly like in the coin-op? ARRRRRRGH!
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Otherwise, the NES game is pretty spot on. It’s such a simple game, but Kung Fu, be it arcade or the NES, is one of the most cathartic games of its era. The bosses are still every bit as satisfying as before, even if the Magician’s attack pattern doesn’t quite match the coin-op. It never gets dull knocking the basic enemies off the stage no matter how many times you do it. The sound design plays a lot into that, not to mention the genuinely hilarious death sprites. There’s plenty of little details that help a lot, like when the little Tom Toms jump at you, you just have to stand up to kill them. Hell, why stand up when you can jump and score double the points? And, you can also set your own difficulty. The B-Game is no slouch, but don’t discount the A-Game. I never got past Mr. X on the 3rd cycle, which takes less time to reach than the length of a typical sitcom.
You know what would be really funny? If Thomas died right here. I mean, hugging is one of his weaknesses!
Now of course, what makes this version of Kung Fu a genuine historic curiosity is that it was designed and developed by the legendary creator of Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto. The volumes it speaks to how amazing the foundation of Kung-Fu Master is: a guy widely considered game development’s G.O.A.T. took such a shine to it that he wanted to personally oversee its transition to the NES. Even more profound? He did it to educate himself on how to make an amazing side scroller. This was the game that taught Big Shiggy Style how to make Super Mario Bros., and that means we owe everything that followed in its wake to Kung Fu. Wow. So, while I might give a slight, teeny tiny gameplay edge to the coin-op, there’s no doubt about it: the legend of NES Kung Fu will continue long after we’re all dust. Figure out the rights on this thing, Nintendo, and start celebrating it. Hell, carve a spot for it in Nintendo World Championships. It would be PERFECT for that, especially with the bosses! Some form of celebration is long overdue, because Kung Fu absolutely holds up to the test of time. Verdict: YES!
Dragon Wang I’m not giggling. You’re giggling. Seriously, stop giggling. Platform: Sega SG-1000 Released July, 1985 Developed by Sega NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
This is the first Sega SG-1000 game to get the full IGC review treatment. Fascinating platform. Basically the closest Japan got to the Colecovision, sharing similar stats and thus having games that look similar. There’s not a lot of SG-1000 games. Seventy-five, in fact, and while this is the first I’ll review, it’s not the last.
At first glance, Dragon Wang looks like a stripped down but otherwise shameless Kung-Fu Master ripoff. The first thing you’ll encounter is identical basic enemies that take one shot to kill, knife throwers that take a couple shots, and a boss that uses a stick to attack you. But, cancel the cease and desist letter, because there’s a little more to Dragon Wang than just copying Spartan X. See, when you beat the stick guy, instead of going to the next level, it drops a key, and then you have to turn around and go searching for the next boss. There’s gaps in the ceiling and floor that you have to jump up and down. Yep, this is an exploration game with maze-like levels. The object is to find the bosses, slay them, and gather all the keys. Also, only the two basic enemies and the first boss copies Kung-Fu Master directly, so while this shares a TON of DNA, it’s also a new experience. One ruined by a single gameplay mechanic: false floors.
Dragon Wang has a strict timer of 8 minutes to finish every stage (says this FAQ), but movement is slow and exploration takes a while, so having these booby traps that can reset your progress quite a bit, with no warning and no means of evading them once activated, is just stupid. I’ve never liked the idea of no-clue/no warning false floors anyway. It’s one of those underrated gaming pet peeves that nobody would say is the absolute worst, until they happen. They always cause the same problems too, no matter the game. They add too much downtime, backtracking, and tedium. In the case of Dragon Wang, all of those issues apply to what is an otherwise genuinely decent combative game. One that, unlike Kung-Fu Master, had a tougher challenge when facing the test of time. The only attack is kicking, but it’s nowhere near as satisfying as the kicks in the game that inspired it. Not only is the collision detection fickle, but enemies poof out of existence instead of having a visually-pleasing death.
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Sega seems to have grasped that Kung-Fu Master’s memorable bosses were largely responsible for that game’s success, so Dragon Wang leans very heavily into them. In the first level, you have to find and slay three bosses. Each of the next three waves has you repeat each of those fights, plus adds one additional boss. The combat against the bosses is clearly the highlight of Dragon Wang. Even though one of them is just a basic enemy’s sprite that teleports around, the fights feel different from each-other and wisely restore your health to full upon completion. While the actual battles aren’t as dynamic as Kung-Fu Master’s, they do work and provide the necessary big moments that make Dragon Wang come close to making it just over the YES! line. Of course, they’re not all awesome. The last boss is named “Jonathan” and is, I’m not kidding, a disembodied pair of legs. It’s such an unimaginable letdown that I have to wonder if there was some kind of programming error that they didn’t catch until production. Dragon Wang isn’t a complete abomination, but alright combat and an alright concept doesn’t quite make up for some shoddy game design. This was closer than I expected, but it’s still a NO! Albeit it, a NO! done with a heavy heart. This is dying for a remake. Verdict: NO!
My Hero aka Seishun Scandal Platform: Arcade, Sega Master System Arcade Released July 10, 1985 SMS Released January 31, 1986 Arcade: Designed by Kenichi Kuma SMS: Designed by Kotaro Hayashida Developed by Coreland (Arcade) Sega (Home) Published by Sega Arcade version Included in the Astro City Mini Master System version: NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
(Arcade Pictured) You know, this Definitive Review made so much more sense on paper. In reality, most of these games don’t feel that related, but eh, I played through them.
My Hero combines Kung-Fu Master’s cannon-fodder enemies with set pieces and some not-so-mild platforming elements. Tale as old as time: your main squeeze gets kidnapped and you have to rescue her. It’s one of the most hilarious kidnapping scenes in gaming history. It should be a meme to rival “shocked Pikachu face.”
“Can you believe that guy? The audacity!”
Combat features one-shot kills that consist of punches, ducking kicks, and jump kicks. Interestingly, every jump is a jump kick and your foot doesn’t even have to be extended in the sprite for it to kill the baddies. It’s highly cheesable, which is kind of surprising for a coin-op. While it does make the basic baddies little more than cannon fodder, My Hero makes up for it tons of secondary hazards, some of which are flagrantly cheap. Bombs are thrown in from the side of the screen that are pretty hard to avoid, and the collision detection for them isn’t perfect. Thankfully, those rarely show up. There’s other quick-reaction traps too, but it never feels too much like a GOTCHA.
(Arcade Pictured) The most annoying part of My Hero is the start of the second level, where these ninjas spawn and respawn to such a degree that you basically inch-forward for the entire opening section of the stage. No elegance to it. It practically rains them.
The other annoyances are a few enemies that you have to jump over rather than kill and the fact that there’s only three levels that loop to infinity. Three levels, even ones that are slightly above-average in length, isn’t a lot. Thankfully, there’s three decent bosses in the mix. When you reach them, suddenly the one-hit deaths end for both sides, and it’s instead first to score ten hits wins. They’re decent enough battles that feel more like Konami’s Yie Ar Kung-Fu than Kung-Fu Master. There’s also a nifty “power-up” where you basically rescue your pink-wearing twin brother, who follows you along until something hits him. There’s a few timing-based hazards that sure seem to mostly exist in order to prevent you from making it too far with the duplicate, but eh, it’s fine. I was told not to expect to like My Hero, but I’ve seen a LOT worse and was never bored, at least for the entire first cycle. This would make a good +1 for a collection. I wouldn’t call My Hero phenomenal, and I shouldn’t have picked this game for this feature at all, but it’s okay and that’s all I really ask for.
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And I really, REALLY shouldn’t have picked My Hero for the Sega Master System.
In a screenshot, hell, that doesn’t look bad or stripped down at all. In practice, this is historically stripped down. Now THAT would be a fascinating feature if someone is looking for content: the most stripped down arcade ports ever made. I don’t do those kinds of features. I’m strictly a full-scale reviewer who likes to do themes. Whoever wants that idea, all yours, and I’ll be the first to read it.
My Hero on the SMS is incredibly stripped-down from the coin-op, likely to accommodate the Sega Card file size limit. It only has one level theme that changes the color of the sky and slightly alters the basic layout. The main cannon fodder enemies never change after the first level, and there’s only one boss that’s fought at the end of every round. The arcade game was largely carried by the set pieces that gave a sense of freshness to go with the breezy, light-hearted action. This is really just the action, and that’s not enough. Not even close. Oddly enough, the console game uses a lot more cheap shots with the obstacles and timing-based hazards, and collision is really bad on the SMS too. Admittedly, sometimes it’s to your advantage. At one point, an RC car shot up at me and hit my sprite dead-on, but since I was in the middle of a jump kick, I survived. Even though I died the next time it happened. My Hero was a launch game for the Sega Master System in the United States that was meant to showcase quality gaming at a lower price point for consumers. Now I’m starting to understand why nobody wanted those stupid Sega Cards. Verdicts – My Hero in Arcades: YES! – My Hero on the Sega Master System: NO!
Flashgal Platform: Arcade Released November, 1985 Developed by Kyugo Published by Sega (JP) and Romstar (US) NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
I wonder if this was based on a certain woman?
Unlike My Hero, which was likely made not to ride the high tide of Kung-Fu Master but rather to be easy to adapt to the Master System, Flashgal was no doubt about it made to be Sega’s Kung-Fu Master. A faster, more action-oriented Kung-Fu Master with a female hero and lots of big action set-pieces. It’s an early example of a genre-mashup: a game with a Wonder Woman-like rip off (you think the sprite is bad? Look at the American marquee for it!) who auto-scrolls through a variety of simple set-pieces, sometimes punching and drop kicking, and other times riding vehicles or shooting guns. Hell, in one stage, you even get a sword. They really threw everything at the wall for this one, but nothing stuck. More like it oozed down the wall, probably staining it badly too.
The helicopter is the only typical side-scrolling shmup. Meanwhile, the motorcycle pictured above and the jet ski only allow you to shoot missiles at targets above you. For anything on the ground, instead of destroying it, you have to jump over it. Yes, this includes seemingly basic enemies. No shooting straight ahead. So frustrating. Also, she looks like she’s jumping over half a can of Coke. OR, maybe it’s really JOKE, the comical off brand of Coke that never fails to spray in your face.
Most jack of all trades, master of nothing games struggle to have any one aspect stand out, and Flashgal is no exception. The combat is okay, and the vehicle stuff is okay. The first thing that struck me about Flashgal was how strangely generous it is with health. If you take any damage, restoring it doesn’t take long. There’s no health refills to collect because slaying enemies does it. It wasn’t until the game showed its teeth near the end of the cycle of levels that I realized “oh, I get what’s supposed to make it hard now.” It’s the way enemies hit you. When you take damage, the knock-back is pretty violent, but you also don’t blink. Like, at all. More than once, a single hit during an especially crowded screen was enough to juggle me to my doom. It happened just enough times to verify it wasn’t some weird, unlucky fluke where the stars lined up perfectly. In later stages, the screen is so spammed with enemies that it’s clear Flashgal is going for the unadvertised one-shot KO. The vehicle sections aren’t as subtle about it. In those, one hit usually does result in a kill. I hate it when games do that. The rules are never consistent.
The gun, dropped every couple levels by an enemy, is one of the most overpowered weapons in gaming history. I don’t know if it’s possible to drop it, because once I had it, I was mowing down enemies and bosses with ease. It has unlimited ammo until the end of the stage and bullets quickly travel the full length of the screen. Hell, you can even be knocked down while carrying it and not immediately drop it. It didn’t take me long to figure out why this never got a home port. I bet arcade operators hated this one, and I bet gamers hated the instakill traps of the vehicle levels.
Most of my deaths happened when water mines or various other instakill hazards were spaced out perfectly during vehicle sections, which feature fixed-jumping. Those portions were so incredibly strict with the timing and jumping that they feel like traps designed to result in a game over by any underhanded means necessary. Granted, they don’t really start until you’ve gotten some decent time into Flashgal, but they feel like outright cheating on the designer’s part to force players off the machine. They look like this:
Or this:
And mind you, all the projectiles being dropped on you are also one-shot deaths. I’ve not seen many games that alternate between too easy and unfairly hard quite like Flashgal. And honestly, while I didn’t hate the experience by any stretch, I was often bored with it. The bosses especially are dumb. This fat gangster guy shoots you with a ray gun that freezes you like stone, so you really have to just kick him a bunch of times without letting him get a shot off. Since the bosses suffer knock back too, this usually means the fight ends with the villain dying out of frame. I *hate* that. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves with any game. It wasn’t just the ray gun guy, either. Nearly every boss I beat without seeing them die on the screen. Sigh.
Lots of violence against animals, too. Hell, when you kill these emus/peacocks, they turn into roast chicken.
I don’t think the “jeez, that’s really close to Wonder Woman” aspect is why this was vanished to gaming’s cornfield. I really think it’s just because it’s not that good. The punching/jump-kicking aspects and the helicopter section were as strong as it gets, but the combat lacks a nice snappiness to it and the helicopter section is a bare-bones space shooter painted as a helicopter game. Flashgal might be worth looking for a completely middle-of-the-road coin-op with serious tonal issues that, for whatever reason, never saw the light of day again. A weird historical curio for sure, but not one that’s worth playing deeply. Second game in this feature that is so close to a YES! it can taste it that ultimately came just short. See, this Definitive Review does make some sense. Verdict: NO!
Kung-Fu Master Platform: Commodore 64 Released November, 1985 Designed by Chris Hawley Developed by Irem (?) Published by Data East NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
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“Five levels of adjustable difficulty? Sweet!” Wrong. There’s one difficulty level. All the adjustable difficulty does is change which level you start on. Want a “harder” version? You have to beat Mr. X. So, Kung-Fu Master on the Commodore 64 is the game you all know and love, only much, much slower. It does a lot of things right. The Black Magician does his duplicate spell. You can stand up to kill a jumping Tom Tom. The scoring difference between punches and kicks is present. It also has graphics that do a pretty good job of feeling like the coin-op. Kung-Fu Master on the Commodore 64 is a seriously impressive effort for its era. Also, I think I made a little poo in my panties when I saw the size of the 3rd boss. There’s a ton to admire about this version of the arcade classic, but it’s just not really fun.
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The jump kick is far too floaty and covers too much distance to be effective against most basic enemies, and having to press a button to alternate between using punches and kicks is very frustrating. The bosses are all push-overs, especially the boomerang fighter since his weapon is so slow now. Okay, one time the Giant beat me in a couple seconds, as his shots seem to be vastly overpowered. Oh, and Mr. X isn’t easy, and in fact, I couldn’t beat him until I realized the rules had apparently been changed. He requires two kicks, two punches, and two jump-kicks to beat. He’ll block every type of shot after the second. It’s not the worst idea, but it doesn’t fit with any other Mr. X fight. There’s also a whole ton of downtime. The first time I played, I rewound the first level to count the amount of basic grippers I encountered. It was seven. And I simply walked past the jars on level 2 like they meant nothing, and since they fell so slowly, they really didn’t. Only the moths and Mr. X put up a challenge. The C64 build of Kung-Fu Master is proof that a game can be incredibly impressive for its time and still not hold up to the test of time even a little bit. Verdict: NO!
Lady Master of Kung Fu aka Nunchackun Platform: Arcade Released December, 1985 Developed by Kaneko Distributed by Taito (JP) Magic Electronics (US) NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
It’s like the opposite of Kung-Fu Master: fun basic enemies, boring bosses.
Sort of like Elevator Action meets Kung-Fu Master, Lady Master/Nunchackun had me sit up in my chair for most of the first level, totally ready to crow about finding a hidden gem. The object is to go up and down elevators and walk through hallways searching for doors that contain mini-bosses. Defeating them gives you an item. Once you collect all four items and locate the final door for the level, you move onto the next stage. The normal basic combat is a quick, snappy nunchuk smack that does manage to satisfy well enough. In the overworld, you can also attack enemies above and below you. And, that’s where the fun ends, because once you beat one level, the bosses become both spongy and experts at avoiding your attacks, while the damage they deal is multiplied and the damage you deal is significantly shrank. It’s clear the developers really only wanted players to last one level and didn’t care if they were obvious about it. They already got your quarter, after all!
They jump the full length of the room too, with one shot, while spamming attacks.
“One level is long enough. We’re not running a charity over here.”
Come on, next person put a quarter in. Money to be made!”
Kaneko has a loyal cult following, but it’s also not hard to see why they never made the leap to an elite developer with crap like this. I accept that some coin-ops play a little dirty with the difficulty scaling, but this isn’t a little dirty. This is flat-out bullsh*t. Even activating the 200+ life toggle didn’t do much to help me, because the health of the bosses resets between lives. I’m capable of having a high tolerance for cruel bosses if I have a good time while dying. But that’s not the case at all here, because these are not fun or exciting battles. They’re the embodiment of mind-numbing tedium that spam range attacks and force you to ping them to death while heel-toeing your way through battle. The only way to make any progress at all is to play Lady Master of Kung Fu as slowly and cautiously as possible. Nobody wants an action game like that. And now I understand why nobody bothered to port this to home PCs or consoles. Ever. Might be best to keep it that way. Verdict: NO!
Kung-Fu Master Platform: ZX Spectrum Released in 1986 Developed by Americana Published by US Gold NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
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I’m sorry, ZX fans, but Kung-Fu Master is too stripped-down on the classic European PC. The charm is gone. The violence is muffled and flyweight. It’s slow. It’s clucky. The ZX Spectrum is capable of running some outstanding games, but a snappy coin-op probably wouldn’t be my first choice. The game resembles a terrible version of the arcade game until the 4th level, which I couldn’t get past even with cheating. Remember the moths? Ever wonder what it would be like to fight them while Grippers, Knife Throwers, and Tom Toms attack you at once?
And they even spawn right on top of you too, so you’ll just see nothing but the impact sprite and your health tick down a bit. Dave, my unofficial curator of the Definitive Review game pool, declared this so badly programmed that it feels like deliberate sabotage.
I tried save states. I tried rewinding. I couldn’t get past this part. It’s hardly the only problem, either. The dragons can fire off one-hit kills, and the jars can drop in a way where you can’t possibly avoid them. I’m sure someone who had no other option could force themselves to finish this port of Kung-Fu Master, but this is the first version I didn’t finish in this feature. What drew me to the coin-op and NES game was the cathartic action. This is just interminably slow and clunky and one of the worst ports I’ve seen. Needless to say, I don’t recommend it. Verdict: NO!
Mr. Goemon Platform: Arcade Released May, 1986 Developed by Konami Sold Separately by Arcade Archives ($7.99)
This is the first game in the Ganbare Goemon franchise that’s better known in the US as “Mystical Ninja.” Thanks to Dave for cluing me in on the history of the person this is based on: the legendary Japanese bandit Ishikawa Goemon. “The real Ishikawa Goemon was a Robin Hood-style outlaw rather than a ninja; the enemy grappling makes sense as they’re trying to subdue and take him into custody. Folklore also greatly exaggerates his ‘ninja abilities’, the whole game knows this and is presented as a comedic kabuki theatre. (Boiling alive not depicted).” Yea, he was boiled alive for his crimes, along with his son. That’s awful. I mean, you can’t even make a stew out of two people. A broth, maybe. Like, a really thin broth. Oh and the whole Robin Hood thing explains him showering houses with money after every stage.
Think of Mr. Goemon as Kung-Fu Master meets Capcom’s Son Son (see my review of Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium for that). You have to hop up and down four channels of action while whacking up to four enemies at a time with your pipe. This was one of Dave’s recommendations for this feature, and it only took me about five seconds to figure out why. Like Spartan X, the enemies mostly attempt to grab you. Unlike Spartan X, you don’t have a life meter, and so when they tie you up with a hug, you only have a second or two to free yourself by wiggling the controller before a KO registers. While it’s fundamentally the same principle as Kung-Fu Master, the hugging feels more like sumo wrestling with a greater sense of urgency. Well, except for the fact that it seems a lot easier to free yourself in this game. Until the enemies gain projectiles in later stages, Mr. Goemon is a touch on the easy side, even on the normal setting. Even late in the game, I don’t remember ever dying from the jostling with enemies. I won’t say winning the shoving matches isn’t satisfying, but it’s perhaps too subdued.
There’s “bosses” that you can either throw projectiles at or just ignore until you reach the stage goal. I found these to be more like nuisances than actual boss-like enemies, and that’s all that kept Mr. Goemon’s YES! from being easy.
There’s also projectiles that are scattered throughout the stages that come in a wide variety of shapes, but they all function more or less the same: a straight shot that clears everything in front of it. There’s barrels that you can shove in front of you that also kill every enemy in their path, but because they move much slower, you can follow them down the screen for quite a ways before they leave the screen. Finally, golden mallets grant you star-like invincibility for a brief period, and any enemy you kill while flashing scores a lot more points than normal. Hard as it is to believe, this is even simpler than Kung-Fu Master. The strength of Mr. Goemon is largely that it cuts a peppy pace. This is an action game that doesn’t let up. Kill an enemy? You don’t have to wait long for one to take its place. It’s never boring, but it’s also not very exciting or deep. Frankly, I didn’t like Son Son, the game it shares the most DNA with, but this is fine. A lot of people think I’m hard to please, but really, sometimes an okay game is a-okay with me. I don’t know if I’d say it’s worth $7.99, but if it’s half off, eh, might be worth $3.99 Verdict: YES!
Black Belt aka Hokuto no Ken, aka Fist of the North Star Platform: Sega Master System Released July 20, 1986 Designed by Yuji Naka Developed by Sega Black Belt: NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED Hokuto no Ken: NO MODERN RELEASE*
Of all the games in Kung-Fu Master/Spartan X: The Definitive Review that aren’t part of that series, Black Belt/Fist of the North Star is easily the closest to that game. Oh and it’s by the creator of Sonic T. Hedgehog Esq. Cannon fodder enemies that you slay by throwing punches and kicks, ducking punches and sweeping kicks, and jump kicks. No jump punches, though. The combat is pretty basic, but the game makes up for it with a wide variety of mini-bosses. It also does a neat thing where the big bosses cut to different, larger sprites. So this:
Which is how it looks while you’re in the scrolling part of a level, changes when you enter the boss chamber into this:
I, for one, think that’s neat. And hell, the bosses aren’t just wildly throwing hands with reckless abandon. They usually have one specific pattern or weakness that you have to suss out. One boss can only be hit by a counter punch. Another requires a specific sequence of hits in order to drain their health. So, while it absolutely does copy the core gameplay of Spartan X, this is no run of the mill rip-off. This is a fresh experience that absolutely holds up. In fact, had this kept the Fist of the North Star license for North America, it’s arguable this would have been the first good licensed game on the Master System that wasn’t based on an arcade property.
And hell, it’s even cinematic. After draining a boss down to their final bit of health, the game takes over for a finishing maneuver, which is usually just an over-the-top series of repetitive strikes. But I get what they were aiming for, and it’s delightful in how campy it is.
Okay, so I’m not the biggest fan of anime or manga and I don’t have a clue about the property this is based on. But, I think that’s another point in the win column for Black Belt, because you don’t need to be a fan of Fist of the North Star to enjoy this. While it lacks the personality of Kung-Fu Master in terms of the character design and sprite work, the combat is pretty equal. I love how enemies break apart upon being punched. I love that there’s items to collect, which requires a high jump (you duck, then jump to do the screen-high jumps), and I love that you get a full slate of health for the boss fights. I love that there’s a ton of mini-bosses that are all unique. Hell, this is an under-the-radar contender for the best game in this entire feature. And to think, I almost missed it! I was this close to not including it because it just slipped everyone’s mind until the eleventh hour.
I think this is the only mini-boss that repeats, as you fight these twins twice. I might be wrong though. Really, the big bosses are where this game really shines.
Now, I do have to render two separate verdicts because the Japan and US versions aren’t merely a re-spriting. These two ports are very close, but not quite the same. If you’re an American, EU, or Brazilian gamer who LOVED Black Belt, boy, are you in for a treat with Hokuto no Ken. The challenge is much greater in the Japanese game, for one thing. The level design in Black Belt is really flat, with nothing but straight corridors like in Kung-Fu Master. In Fist of the North Star, there’s the occasional platform in the layout to add a little bit more interactivity and immersion. On the SMS, the second level looks like this:
Flat and boring. I’d say it’s North Dakota but it’s not THAT boring.
And here’s the same level in the Japanese game.
I did my best to measure out roughly the same spot, but it’s tricky to do so. I can’t say 100% for certain, but I think the Japanese game has longer levels. Perhaps a little too long, as the second level was the first time playing either game that I died fighting basic enemies just from the sheer volume of them.
The basic enemies are tougher too, but they have a little more personality to go along with it. As stated in the above caption, they even managed to kill me, whereas the American version’s basic baddies never really put up a fight. The bosses play differently as well, and in fact, I struggled greatly to beat the first level’s final mini-boss, which every gosh darn strategy guide claims is the easiest. Well, that’s humiliating. I couldn’t figure out how to hit him. Maybe he’s just spongy, but he was nothing compared to the third big boss. In the Japanese version, its jumping attack is a one-hit-kill.
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The crying shame is, unless Sega adapts Fist of the North Star to the United States, players will likely be forever denied the full experience, at least by a legal means. But even the unlicensed version never got a Virtual Console release in the United States. It did come out for Wii in Japan, but that hardly helps most of the world. There’s a lot of mediocre Kung-Fu Master ports out there. This isn’t mediocre. It’s actually one of the best of its breed, and it even does it twice! The Japanese version is a little more interesting than the US version, but this should really get a full international re-release. I had a lot of fun playing this. Probably as much fun as Kung-Fu Master. Further proof that the base formula Irem created is foolproof as long as you copy the right elements. And with this, the Sega Master System losing streak at IGC is over! Verdicts: YES! and YES!
Kung-Fu Master Platform: Amstrad CPC Released in 1987 Developed by U.S. Gold Never Released Outside of Europe NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
I didn’t ever manage to defeat Mr. X in this version, either. He blocks everything!
My first ever review for the Amstrad CPC, and at first glance, I figured this was a better, faster version of the Commodore 64 port of Kung-Fu Master. I was 50% right. Faster? Sure, and smoother too. The character models are nearly identical, including the jaw-dropping size of the Giant in level #3. But, this port has whole new problems. The collision detection is, simply put, awful. Especially for kicking, where the “sweet spot” where you can score a hit is actually just in front of the sprite, which means there’s zero OOMPH. What’s the point of playing a martial arts game without the violence feeling, you know, violent? Like many PC versions, you have to hit the spacebar to change whether you’re throwing punches or kicks. The knife guys are especially hard to kill thanks to this, because they back away constantly. Of course, that prevents the Grippers/Tom Toms from spawning in that direction. All the bosses were too easy until I got to Mr. X, who I landed one total shot against even when I reloaded save states. He blocks everything and seems to always land a shot when you attempt to give yourself enough space to throw an attack in the damage zone. You know, I never landed a single jumping attack against anything but a single jar in the entire playthrough. I’ll take the C64 version over this. Verdict: NO!
Kung-Fu Master Platform: Atari 2600 Released May 12, 1987 Designed by Dan Kitchen Published by Activision NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
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The Atari 2600 version of Kung-Fu Master is famous for packing a lot of the coin-op into a tiny, under-powered Atari cart. Maybe it was impressive for 1987 on the Atari 2600, but my review system doesn’t take technical achievements into consideration. All I want to know is, simply put, “is it fun?” And the answer is “nah.” The core gameplay might remain intact, but there’s only one boss who changes its attack. Arguably, only the second boss and the basic strategy of the fourth boss carries over from the coin-op. The first boss doesn’t have a stick. The third boss isn’t giant-sized. The fifth boss doesn’t block, or if it does, it didn’t block me. You can’t jump forward and there’s no jump kick. No jump kick means the moths are lame to fight. To punch you have to press the joystick and the button, which is required for the 4th boss. Standing up doesn’t kill the Tom Toms. You have to jump to do that. Enemies just blink out of existence with no death animation, muffling the exhilaration of the violence. I do think Dan Kitchen is underrated (and in the interest of full disclosure, I consider the Kitchens friends) as I enjoyed Bart vs. The World, along with Bartman Meets Radioactive Man and Swamp Thing, but this was just too tall a task for the 2600’s capabilities. It’s not hard to see how a kid stuck with an Atari 2600 in the late 80s could have enjoyed this, but it doesn’t hold up. Verdict: NO!
Kung Fu Kid aka Sapo Xulé O Mestre do Kung Fu (Brazil) Platform: Sega Master System Released May 17, 1987 Developed by Sega NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
This guy was the one I struggled the most to beat.
The direct sequel to Dragon Wang from above, only it doesn’t really feel anything like that game. Oh, it’s better for sure. A fairly basic My Hero-like kick-a-lot platformer where you traverse seven worlds, kicking basic enemies, throwing cards at others, and fighting bosses. There’s not a whole lot of depth or even meat on this one. It’s really simple, but it works. Eventually you do have to jump up gaps to reach above platforms like in Dragon Wang, and sometimes they’re so high up you have to do a wall jump. You can also use wall jumps to fight the bosses, but you’ll never need to. I didn’t.
The white card in front of me cuts through enemies. If you can find cards with a hint of red in them, they’re even better and fly across the full screen. The game probably drops too many of these, but they’re not effective against most bosses.
I won’t say the OOMPH is fantastic or anything, but it’s there. You know what? Let’s uncapitalize it and call it oomph, in lowercase. What’s most notable is you jump really high, and with that comes the ability to aim your jump kicks. Okay, so it’s not THAT exciting, but it puts the emphasis on that flying kick to do most of the work. Especially since you’re usually safer mid-air than you are on the ground. Like with Kung-Fu Master, basic enemies are one-shot kills. And also like Kung-Fu Master, it’s all about the boss fights. I think Sega grasped this too, since the sixth level is just a boss rush with five new bosses. So in a game with seven levels, there’s 11 bosses, all of which are decent fights. It never feels that connected to Dragon Wang, which was unquestionably a Kung-Fu Master rip-off. With the emphasis on high jumping, this kind of feels a little more like Legend of Kage (see Taito Milestones 2: The Definitive Review for my review of that), but hey, I like that game. In a guilty pleasure kind of way, but it counts! And I kind of liked Kung Fu Kid too. Not a fantastic game by any stretch, but a decent way to use-up half an hour. Verdict: YES!
China Warrior aka The Kung Fu Platform: TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine Released November 21, 1987 Developed by Hudson Soft NO MODERN RELEASE
Seriously, they’re throwing twigs at the hero? TWIGS? Throw a Twix instead and hope he’s a diabetic. I mean, why not?
First off, yes, I know about the 1986 arcade game Gladiator, which China Warrior more directly takes inspiration from than Kung-Fu Master. I thought about doing that too, but this feature was getting bloated enough. I imagine China Warrior, aka THE Kung Fu, was pretty impressive as a launch title in 1987 in Japan for the PC Engine. In fact, it released just three weeks after the console debuted there and wouldn’t have the Mega Drive (Sega Genesis) to compete with for nearly a full year. Hey, the Famicom didn’t do sprites this big. And that’s basically all China Warrior has going for it. It’s like a crappier version of Altered Beast if every molecule of personality was surgically removed from that iconic Sega game. Well, since this came out before the coin-op Altered Beast, perhaps Altered Beast is this with a personality transplant. You auto-scroll to the right and punch or kick whatever gets in your way. Mostly one enemy sprite that’s color-swapped for variety, along with twigs, rocks, fireballs, and knives. Then there’s three bosses in each of the four levels that are just about the most stiff fights of any of these games. Plus, they recycle the bosses multiple times, INCLUDING ones that use the hero’s sprite. See?
Do you know what China Warrior is? It’s an LCD game that wished upon a star and became a video game. Big sprites are only great if they’re animated great. These aren’t. Ideally you’d want a lot of OOMPH to go with the action, and while it’s not totally non-existent, it’s well below average. The real draw of the game, the boss fights, really have no finesse to them at all and feel like they come down to button mashing. I was really half-joking about the LCD thing. China Warrior was obviously meant to be a tech demo that could show off the graphic capabilities of the PCE. It’s one of those soulless, cynical games made only to look good in screenshots. It’s also one of the most critically lambasted games ever, and yea, it sort of deserves it. I’ve played a lot worse, but there’s something sinister feeling with this one. It wasn’t a legitimate attempt at making a cutting edge game. If it was any other company, I’d let it slide. But Hudson Soft in 1987 was better than making such a horribly boring game that really doesn’t do anything right INCLUDING the graphics. Ignore the big character sprites and it’s rather plain looking, ain’t it? That’s where my anger comes from, because do you know who wouldn’t look at these screenshots and have alarms go off? Well-meaning parents looking at the back of the box at a store, shopping for a game for their martial arts loving child. This is designed to stand out TO THEM, and not a kid who knows their games. And that’s just not cool. Verdict: NO!
Kuri Kinton Platform: Arcade Released in 1988 Designed by Kei Shimizu Developed by Taito Sold Separately on Arcade Archives ($7.99)
It really does have anime-like sprites. This looks ahead of its time.
Kuri Kinton is “let’s make Spartan X look like a cartoon!” And it does look good. While the character models are generic in a way where they look like no anime and every anime, they’re loaded with personality. So, why aren’t they fun to battle? The combat tries to be more fluid and fast-paced, but the decision to have spongy mini-bosses (functionally full bosses) give chase to you through the levels until you whittle their health away was foolhardy. The mini-bosses aren’t exactly the most thrilling fights, as whatever OOMPH the basic enemies had doesn’t carry over to them. The fights are just low-impact and drag out too long, all while basic enemies continue to spawn to cheap shot you from behind.
Oh hey, a cameo by Don Flamenco as a mini-boss! I mean, they wanted King Hippo but he already had a contract with DIC to star in Captain N: The Game Master.
The more of these Kung-Fu Master coattail riders fail, the more it becomes clear to me that having a snappiness to the action and non-spongy bosses with distinct personalities is what put that original game over-the-top. It seems like it should be an easy formula to copy. For the basic enemies, Kuri Kinton does a dang good job. The enemies go flying when you smack them. The bosses don’t go flying, but I could deal with that if the battles felt unique and satisfying. All but one of the bosses feel samey, and when they die, they feel more like they’re pausing to think over all the decisions that led to this moment. Kung-Fu Master’s bosses instantly enter an ultra-satisfying death sprite and fall off the screen in the same way the basic enemies do. Combined with excellent sound design, it makes for, you know, really fun and cathartic combat. As great as the sprites are in Kuri Kinton, the sound design is bad and the victory sprites don’t give that instant sense of closure or accomplishment.
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There’s five end of stage bosses, but only one of them stood out: the third, which clones itself like the Black Magician. Only it does so many more clones. It was a genuinely decent fight, but that’s really it. I guess the fourth boss looks kind of like Dr. Doom and the Mummy had a baby, but the fight itself is dull. You know, I just played through Kuri Kinton twice and I don’t know what to say. There’s no level design moments that I can recall besides a couple points where the ceiling is too low to jump forward. That tells me the designers caught on to the fact that most players will opt to jump ahead since it’s faster than running. The level design, while offering more variety than the flat corridors of Kung-Fu Master, feels arbitrary and bland. I found myself legging it for the exit and then fighting the mini-bosses next to the elevators. Any purely combative game where my instinct tells me to forget the combat seems like a game that fails. Mind you, Kuri Kinton isn’t putrid or anything. It controls well enough, looks great, and has a relatively fast pace. It’s just very, very bland. Some games are more than the sum of their parts, but this one is far less. Verdict: NO!
Vigilante Platform: Arcade Released in 1988 Developed by Irem Distributed by Data East (US) Sold Separately on Arcade Archives ($7.99)
How much fun does it sound to need to punch a downed boss that isn’t defending itself roughly eleven trillion times to defeat them? Because it sounds f*cking boring as all hell to me!
After so many spin-offs and wannabes, I thought it would be so refreshing to play the actual direct sequel to Kung-Fu Master. Hah. It even started development under the name “Super Kung-Fu Master” and then “Beyond Kung-Fu: Return of the Master” and made it to route testing before someone said “eh, this sucks” and the game was cancelled. It was then slightly retooled and turned into this absolute slog of an experience. My god, what a bore is Vigilante, which is basically Kung Fu, only spongy. Like, so insanely spongy that it feels like it’s trolling players. The combat is a near copy of Kung-Fu Master. You punch and kick, both of which can be done while jumping and ducking. You can even pick up nunchuks. So far, so good, but my enjoyment didn’t even last a fifth of the way through the first level. Enemies quickly go from taking single shots to kill to taking three, four, or even five shots. With the damn weapon, too! What was even the point of it? I was already bored and I hadn’t even reached the first boss yet.
Later on, enemies with weapons hit you just out of sync. The blond guy has a pipe while the other two have chains. There’s no invincibility frames, either. This is basically a slow-moving instakill.
First off, the bosses regain health. Second, the bosses actively run away from you, just like the knife guys from Kung-Fu Master. How far do they run away from you? The second boss is really two bosses, and after scrolling all the way to the right to reach them, the fight went all the way back to the left before wiggling a little bit to the right before I finally won the fight. I want to say the bosses were so successful in avoiding my attacks, but they didn’t actively block them or anything. My punches and kicks mostly just went right through their sprites. THEY get undeclared invincible frames. Ain’t that peachy keen? The only way I could get damage without taking an unsurvivable amount of counter damage was to employ a boring stick-and-move strategy that further slowed the action down. Then, by the time I won the fight, I only had eight seconds to get back to the end of the stage, but I didn’t of course. You know, because the fight went the full length of the level to the left, and the spongy normal enemies started spawning again as soon as the fight was over.
Maybe the worst boss fight in the history of gaming. Boring to such a degree that it’s practically a holistic lobotomy.
Do you know what’s fun about Vigilante? NOTHING! This is both one of the worst sequels and one of the worst coin-ops I’ve ever played. Want to see how much damage a shot with the weapon does to the 4th boss? Here’s the boss, with a single hit off its life bar.
And as a reminder, bosses get their health back. Oh, don’t worry. Eventually he gets down from that perch to walk backwards towards the start of the stage while two out of three of your attacks are shrugged off. All while he gets his health back. The one positive thing I can say about Vigilante is that Irem divorced it from Kung-Fu Master. It deserves no tie to that game’s legacy. Kung-Fu Master is fun and holds up. Vigilante is basically a scam game that doesn’t play fair and it absolutely doesn’t give a f*ck if anyone has fun playing it. The blistering pace of Kung-Fu Master is completely gone, replaced by a snail’s pace that literally erases progress as a boss strategy. Who wants to play a combat game where characters shrug off the majority of your attacks? That’s not fun. I can’t believe I even have to say that. I absolutely cannot believe this piece of crap gets good reviews. One of the worst games I’ve ever played in my life. Verdict: NO!
Splatterhouse Platform: Arcade Released in November, 1988 Directed by Shigeru Yokoyama Developed by Namco Sold Separately on Arcade Archives ($7.99) Included in Namco Museum (Nintendo Switch, $29.99)
Friday the 13th if sponsored by the hard working people at BALCO.
I was confused why Dave was so insistent that Splatterhouse be included in this feature. I’d never really put significant playtime into Splatterhouse, but I remember thinking in my limited sample of it that it was shallow and cynically gimmicky. It only took me about ten seconds into my latest play session with the game to get why Dave wanted it here. It’s clearly “Kung-Fu Master, if gory and gross.” Levels are short and based around simple attacks. Even less attacks than Kung-Fu Master, actually. There’s a punch or a swing/shot of the weapon you’re holding, a jump kick, a ducking kick, and a somewhat hard to pull off standing kick. That’s it. Despite being four years older, the gameplay is even more simple than the game that inspired it.
This is where you can tell the game is a work of fantasy. A dude that muscular wouldn’t be able to fit his finger over the trigger.
Splatterhouse has an emphasis on weapons, and as long as you remember to swing a little earlier than you think, you should be able to keep the oversized meat cleaver or the stick that you pick up. One level has a pair of shotguns to pick up that each have eight shots. It’s okay, I guess. Nice change of pace. I also got a kick out of how the board that you pick up splatters the enemies against the background wall. Odd as this word is to use in a game like this, there’s charm to Splatterhouse. The sprite work is first rate, especially as a pioneer for M-rated gaming.
Oh great. Go to all this trouble of rescuing your girlfriend only for her to start her period as soon as you reach her. Pssh, typical.
It’s actually not as bloody as you would think. This is more like HP Lovecraft or House on Haunted Hill more than Friday the 13th. But, I’m fine with that. Blood for the sake of blood is really just a strange form of pandering. The lack of blood actually gives Splatterhouse a sense of authenticity to it. They really did seem to want to make a spooky game and if they had to sacrifice the gore for it, so be it. They succeeded, too. There’s some genuinely creepy sh*t in this. But, there’s one thing I didn’t like. It’ll probably get me in trouble with fans of the franchise, but think the hockey mask thing is uninspired and desperate. Surely they could have come up with something more original for a hero, especially since they actually did pull out some cleverness many times.
For a 1988 game, this is a little more ambitious than meets the eye. See those gaps in the floor? They’re actually pseudo-branching paths. As a veteran of Ninja Turtle games, I figured they were either instakills or cost a hit point. No, actually they take you to different sections of the levels, adding replay value. Very nice.
The most clever aspect are the bosses, mostly because they’re often not bosses in the “big boss” sense. It turns out, when I played the NES cute-em-up Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (see my review in Namco Archives Vol. 1: The Definitive Review), it was following in the footsteps of the coin-op by having non-traditional bosses. The first boss is a series of worms that attack you. The second boss is a haunted room that shakes so violently that it probably should be listed at Able To Play, and you have to fight various furniture that’s thrown at you by a malevolent spirit. It’s different, but it’s a welcome change of pace because at least the battles are exciting. I’ll take a series of silly chairs and paintings being thrown at you over a monster as long as it’s more exciting every day.
The last boss I found to be uninspired in its design and a little too spongy.
That leads me to the biggest flaw with Splatterhouse, and nearly the fatal flaw: the collision detection is just awful. Not the worst I’ve seen (just wait until Spartan X 2) but it’s not even close to sprite-accurate, with your hit box a little bit wider than the already large character. Even after two full sessions, I never got a feel for the safe distance of enemies and projectiles because my brain just refused to make the adjustment. What’s especially frustrating is the enemies design seems tailored specifically to go for the fringe of the hit box. It completely deflates the game, and it’s such a kick in the ass because I want to love Splatterhouse. But the violence is significantly hurt by the lack of contact, and elite-level OOMPH can’t exist when it only works one way. If enemies aren’t actually hitting you, it still creates a sense of disconnect between the player and the action regardless of how accurate your own attacks have to be. With that said, I still liked Splatterhouse more than my previous sample of it led me to believe I would, but it’s just okay instead of as good as its legend suggests it should be. Verdict: YES!
Kung-Fu Master Platform: Atari 7800 Released in 1989 Developed by Imagineering Inc Published by Absolute Entertainment NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Starring Comic Book Guy as Boomerang Fighter
And featuring Moe Szyslak as Black Magician
The 7800 version of Kung-Fu Master is more like the 2600 with more accurate sprites and the actual bosses from the coin-op. Sadly, besides those improvements, all the same problems from the 2600 build are here. To punch, you have to lean forward into the punch. A standing punch requires you to press up diagonally towards the thing you’re punching. You can’t jump forward and, if a jump kick is possible, I never managed to even throw one. Enemies just poof out of existence, and I died more times from getting killed by the knife guys AFTER I’d beaten the boss but before I could walk off the screen to finish the level (three times) than I did the bosses themselves (zero times). The bosses are total wimps, while the knife guys usually throw their knives in pairs at a high velocity, especially if you don’t dodge the first one. So, there’s no charm, no OOMPH, and no version of the standard game’s most fun attack. Also, this came out a full five years after the NES version. Why would anyone want to play this in 1989, let alone 2025? Verdict: NO!
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu aka Jackie Chan (Japan) Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released December, 1990 Designed by Haruo Chatani Developed by Now Production Published by Hudson Soft NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
This was the final addition to this feature, and boy, am I happy I didn’t skip it!
I should make it a policy that whatever game I think should be skipped due to the redundancy is one I should probably do. I figured “well, I’m doing the TG-16 version of Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, so I really have no reason to do the NES version.” And that was wrong, because the NES version is one of the most underrated games on the platform. Seriously, how come nobody talks about this one? It’s delightful! A smooth-controlling action platformer with fun combat, fast-paced level design and fun bosses to battle with. Oh, and it’s loaded with personality. Probably the worst part of this is the fact that it’s Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, needlessly tying a licensing anchor around the game’s neck.
See, this is why I couldn’t give Hudson Soft a break earlier with China Warrior. They know what they’re doing, including the equal balance of combat and platforming. Especially important on the NES due to the limitations of the console.
The biggest weakness of the NES version is the lack of enemies. You usually only fight one or two at a time. While the scale is larger than most NES games, the game does have a tiny bit of an empty vibe to it, which prevents the higher stakes of something like, say, a Super Mario game. On the other hand, the combat is varied and satisfying. Smacking a frog causes it to spit-up a seemingly random special attack, usually some form of a spin-kick that does extra damage. You also get a limited supply of fireballs that you get from charging-up the attack button. The variety assures that the combat never gets boring, even if there aren’t quite enough baddies to dial-up the excitement.
The final level contains an extended stretch of one of my least favorite tropes: lights-out platforming. While there’s no instakill pits (thank God), there are some pretty hard to suss-out platform arrangements. This has never impressed me. It’s a lazy, desperate design mechanic that never has a sense of elegance. Thankfully, while the TG-16 build does this too, in that version the lights are merely dimmed, with platforms still visible.
One oddity of Action Kung Fu is that the levels are not even in size. The first level is one of the longest opening stages in any game. In fact, it’s so long that I was legitimately startled when I reached the second boss much more quickly. Action Kung Fu has a total lack of tempo. It’s as if the team didn’t quite know how long to pace out the stages. Later, there’s an extended rafting/platforming section that wears out its welcome, but that’s probably the only “down time” the game suffers. Well, besides the bonus stages that tend to drag a little bit as well. On the other hand, the bosses are all really fun to fight and are the highlights of the game, as any self-respecting boss fight should be. Well, okay so the last two bosses don’t stick the landing. Going off the TG-16 game, I think they WANTED bigger bosses and this is what they could settle for. Neither are particularly good fights, either, but the NES game is still 4 for 6 on fun bosses. That’s a win in my books.
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Also, I feel like I should remind you (and myself) that last bosses can only let you down if the ride there is a fun one. Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu has got to be one of gaming’s all-time underrated platformers. Simple as it is, it’s genuinely one of the most fun platformers I’ve played on the NES. I can’t stress enough how well it controls. This thing is Mario-like in its movement accuracy, intuitive jumping, and the collision detection. Even with the inconsistent pacing, I would have been good to go another five levels. When the biggest knock on a game is that it leaves you wanting more, hell, that’s a problem I wish more games had. It also is a little on the easy side, but that’s fine, and actually, this might be a good game to introduce a young child to combative platformers. It’s always preferable for a game to be too easy than too hard, because at least with too easy, everyone of all skill levels can experience the full game. In the case of Action Kung Fu, that’s a positive, because this is a game that everyone should experience. Konami needs to figure out the rights issues on this, and if they do, I’d strongly advise they bundle both the NES and the TG-16 version, which offers slightly more bite than this. Combined, they would make a hell of a retro release. This is a game that appears on a ton of hidden gem lists. It deserves it. Verdict: YES!
Kung Fu Master aka Spartan X Platform: Game Boy Released December 11, 1990 Developed by Irem NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
“Awww. How’d you know I like to get black-out drunk when I rescue my girlfriend?”
Despite having the same name as the arcade classic, the Game Boy version of Kung-Fu Master is a full-fledged sequel that’s FINALLY what I’ve been waiting twenty games to play. A legit evolution of Spartan X with the same basic combat, only with different bosses and better level design, and I’m there for it. This is a fantastic sequel that is also fantastically glitchy. Sometimes enemies shoot projectiles that don’t get drawn, be it bullets from a sniper or ninja stars thrown by a boss. I tried a couple different emulators and it’s present on all of them, so I guess it must be a thing. Fair trade because, in this version of Kung-Fu Master, you can do a MID-JUMP FLIP KICK! And it’s awesome!
That enemy looks like he’s standing on my floating lifeless body, but he’s about to become the lifeless body because I’m in the middle of my mid-air flip kick animation. Oh and this is the Japanese version, which you can tell because the US version has one big life bar and the Japanese version has segments.
The flip kick, combined with a ton of health refills and even throwable bombs, makes the Game Boy Spartan X even breezier than the NES game was. In fact, I only died once, during the third boss. He shoots bombs at you that can hit you multiple times before they hit the ground, at which point they blow up for additional hits. You don’t blink when you take damage, so it’s this one weirdly brief section where the difficulty radically spikes, but then returns to “could probably learn to beat this blindfolded” levels of cinchy.
This is him. What’s especially startling is the original Spartan X has some of the most pitch-perfect difficulty scaling in gaming history. That’s certainly not true of the Game Boy version. I literally couldn’t believe the last boss was the last boss.
Besides a few different sprites, the biggest difference between regions is the US version has a brief final stage, whereas the international version goes straight to the push-over final boss. Besides the occasional hidden projectiles (seemingly caused by the screen having too many moving sprites already), the biggest weakness is the bosses don’t have the personalities of the original game. A few are barely distinguishable for normal baddies. But, they’re not too spongy and fun to battle, just like the original game. The basic enemies are back to being satisfying and cathartic to fight. Every wrong from the failed would-be sequel Vigilante is righted here. It feels like the true sequel to Spartan X. Technically THAT sequel is still coming for the Famicom. Spoiler alert: that game really sucks. So, for all intents and purposes, this is the only good sequence to Kung-Fu Master, and what a sequel it is. For a second year Game Boy title, this ain’t bad at all. Verdict: YES!
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu Platform: TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine Released January 17, 1991 Designed by Haruo Chatani Developed by Now Production Published by Hudson Soft NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Same basic gameplay, but with bigger stakes.
The TG-16 build of Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu has more.. well, action! The biggest advantage the PC Engine offers over the NES is the ability to have more sprites on screen at once. That means more enemies, more challenge, and less downtime. The levels aren’t exactly the same, though the same uneven pacing and length of stages carries over from the NES. That’s fine, because all the positive aspects also carry over. A wide variety of enemies that are so satisfying to slay, along with solid level design and set pieces. Weirdly, a couple of those are dialed down from the NES. For example, the final level on Nintendo’s platform has a super-speedy auto-scrolling section near the final boss. The TG-16 build still auto-scrolls, but at a normal speed. Weird. Thankfully, for every baffling change there’s several positive ones, including plenty of segments not included in the NES game, like this:
This doesn’t appear on the NES. There’s plenty of reason to play both versions.
The enemies aren’t just increased in volume, but also in their strategies. The NES game’s limits means that enemies can mostly be dealt with one-on-one. Consequently, there’s no close calls. I never died once from combat in the NES game, and for the most part, my health was nearly always full. I don’t recall having to be careful with enemies at any point (except the Ninja Turtle-like baddies in the river). That certainly wasn’t the case with the TG-16 build. It’s much more intense, with not just enemies but set-pieces like the above dragon. It can’t be killed and has to be avoided. You can’t just plow through this game with reckless abandon like the NES game. While the platforming elements are more or less unchanged, the TG-16 game certainly has a greater emphasis on combat. But, with the near-perfect controls and enjoyable fighting mechanics returning from the NES game, it really is more of a good thing.
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The sublime boss fights also return, and they’re far more ambitious and grand than in the NES game. Even the final boss is slightly improved, and while I still think it’s lacking in the type of climatic feel you want from a last boss (it really feels tacked-on), it’s more enjoyable. I suppose it’s fitting that the difference between the two Action Kung Fu ports reminded me a lot of playing Bonk’s Adventure for the TurboGrafx-16 and NES. Hudson really knew how to play to a console’s strengths and lessen the impact of their weaknesses. Unfortunately, the Jackie Chan likeness, secured before he became a worldwide A-lister, probably makes this cost prohibitive for a re-release. So, like, file off the serial number, Konami! I’ll tell you what: give me a dollar, do a gender swap and call it Cathy Vice’s Action Kung Fu! Come on! My name even sounds like an action star! Verdict: YES!
Spartan X 2 aka Kung Fu 2 Platform: Famicom Released September 27, 1991 Developed by Tamtex Published by Irem Never Released Outside of Japan NO MODERN RELEASE
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I’M EMBARRASSED TO PRESENT.. THE WORST COLLISION DETECTION IN GAMING HISTORY!
Think I’m exaggerating? I’m not. This is the worst, at least in a way that benefits a player. Take a look:
Or how about this? By the way, this right here I think is legitimately a record.
And yes, even the last boss is affected by this.
Look at how far he is.
Magic!
Do I even need to continue the review? I mean, of course I do because I have too much dignity to phone it in. But holy hell, am I pissed at this Japanese-exclusive bastardization of one the Godfathers of OOMPH. Legitimately angry. HOW DARE A SEQUEL TO KUNG-FU MASTER HAVE THIS PATHETIC OF COLLISION? I’m so f*cking angry I could spit nails. It didn’t need to be this way, either. Just shrink the collision boxes! Why are they so big? It’s not like this would have been fantastic without the awful collision. Spartan X 2 is pretty generic, especially compared to the original game. Spartan X is dripping with charm. Spartan X 2 has the personality of drywall and some of the least memorable character sprites on the NES. This could be any game. It certainly doesn’t look like a sequel to Kung-Fu Master. It doesn’t look like it shares any connection at all, and even with the same basic attacks and enemies that take one hit to kill, it doesn’t feel like it either.
To the game’s credit, it seems to have gone all-in on the bosses, but the poor collision ruins them too.
Spartan X 2 does try to evolve the formula somewhat. If you duck for two seconds, the character begins to blink, Super Mario 2-style. Pressing punch once you’re blinking unleashes an uppercut, while UP plus punch at the same time throws a flying uppercut. This would be great, if not for the comically large collision boxes. With them, the uppercut makes bosses absurdly easy to beat since you don’t have to worry about actually connecting with what should be a high-risk timing-based attack. It’s really hard to get excited about a game where the OOMPH is so poor that it’s actually Dark OOMPH. It’s sort of like dark matter, only instead of annihilating normal matter that it comes in contact with, it annihilates the concept of fun without any contact required.
These guys rain continuously from the sky during this segment. No finesse or pattern to it. Just kill one, another falls.
The funny thing is, when I played Spartan X 2 a few years ago, I remember enjoying it. I have no idea what I was thinking. Perhaps it was the novelty of playing a Famicom exclusive based on a game I admired. Replaying this today, oh my God, what a piece of crap. Had the collision been better, I would have still liked the Game Boy version better, but this would have been a decently bland sequel. Instead, it feels like a game so poor that it killed the franchise for good. Like the original game, there’s only five levels that go by really quick. The whole thing takes under half-an-hour to finish. But, even though there’s set pieces and environmental traps, this feels like a rip-off of the original rather than a sequel. Sometimes the rest of the world is hosed by games staying exclusive to Japan. But with Spartan X 2, fans of the NES game dodged a bullet. Verdict: NO!
Splatterhouse 2 Platform: Sega Genesis Released July 3, 1992 Developed by Now Production Published by Namco Included in Sega Genesis Mini 2/Evercade’s Namco Collection 2
This has to be the most shallow franchise in classic gaming.
I wish I had a better game to end this feature on, but Splatterhouse 2 is just a total bore. Two straight games with absolutely no personality. What the hell? Even stranger is this from the same team that did Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (again, see Namco Archives Vol. 1: The Definitive Review for my coverage) You know, a game that was carried entirely by personality and charm. I guess they decided this had to be all ooze and no fun, because Splatterhouse 2 has all the charm of a sack of flour. No, wait. Flour can be thrown on someone, which is both silly AND makes them look silly. That sounds fun. This isn’t fun at all. This is a spoonful of flour. Just enough flour to make you question your life’s choices, but not enough flour for comedic purposes.
There’s significantly less weapons this go around. My favorites were probably these beakers, which are functionally bombs. And I probably only liked them because they perma-kill these mud creatures. Normally they come back to life, but not with the beakers. You also get a chainsaw for one boss, which is the closest this game ever comes to feeling like a sequel.
Splatterhouse 2 shouldn’t have a number attached to it. This feels like a glorified remake. In the 2020s, this would be DLC. Like, bad DLC. It offers nothing new and removes all the originality. Not that Splatterhouse had a ton of that to begin with. I mean, come on. But this has even less. It also has no OOMPH at all, but that’s not a collision thing this time. Actually, it’s a sound design issue. My longtime readers will note that I notoriously play most games muted. MOST, but not all. Music screws with my concentration because I’m tone deaf, but sound effects are a different beast. Those usually help with OOMPH, and in a combative game like Splatterhouse, I’ll put up with an irritating chip tune if the sound design will enhance the feeling of violence. This is missing a lot of sound effects. I even checked YouTube videos to make sure it wasn’t my emulator, and it wasn’t. The music isn’t really good anyway, so they should have focused on developing crunchy/smooshy sound effects to complement the violence and grossness. Instead, what’s here sounds like someone just picked whatever was available out of a sound library. It’s embarrassing. One of the worst sounding games of this type ever made.
This fight was so tedious. I was close to quitting after a few hits. I just wanted it to end.
When it comes to these older games, I usually wait until after I finish my play session before I see what contemporary critics had to say. My jaw literally hung loose when I saw some of the scores thrown at this thing. 5 out of 5 from Game Pro. 9 out of 10 from Game Informer. Are you f*cking kidding me? This is the exact same game from the first one, with nothing really new and every single good part gone. When it tries to straight-up copy the original, it feels muffled. The clever boss fights against several smaller enemies? It tries that (the above mentioned chainsaw bit) but it just doesn’t work this time. It’s not scary or spooky. Oddly, it doesn’t come across like it’s trying too hard, either. Instead, it feels like someone trying to copy a game they’re not passionate about. Maybe that’s what happened. Splatterhouse always has a touch of cynicism to it, but this one feels wholly cynical.
Props where it’s due: that’s creepy. Rest of the game blows, though.
The basic enemies are a bore. The bosses are a REAL bore. There’s not a single memorable design in any of them except the second boss, which is pictured above. Even that kind of sucks, because it’s fought in a black void, like the Genesis version of Altered Beast. I get why it’s like that. A boss that big has to remove the background or the Genesis can’t do it, but it also makes it hard for me to get emotionally invested in the setting. Also, unlike Altered Beast, Splatterhouse relies heavily on the setting for the chills. You can’t just take that away. The setting is the whole crux of the game! Of course, for the most part, this feels like the setting is the same as well. The two locations that feel new-ish, the library and the portal, both fail. The portal has you falling down a shaft, but your character’s walking animation stays the same. It looks incredibly silly.
Seriously, you’re supposed to be falling. Would it have REALLY killed them to do a different sprite in order to sell the falling aspect?
And the library does the “things in the foreground block you from seeing the baddies” shtick that I’ve never cared for.
I think I might have injured myself from rolling my eyes so much.
The sum total of entertainment for this sequel to Splatterhouse is one single decent boss fight. One. I have to assume that all the critics that were falling over backwards to heap praise on this thing were coming off of recent dental surgery or something. I’ve played worse games in this feature, but the sheer length of boredom that Splatterhouse 2 subjected me to makes it one of the worst in this feature. Hell, it only gives you one shotgun in the entire game and they didn’t even make a satisfying BANG noise for it. When a dude is jacked the way Rick is (that’s not-Jason’s name), punching something should feel impactful. Here, it feels like he’s punching a series of oversized novelty pillows. Splatterhouse 2 is a game that feels like it intends to coast on the first game’s reputation and notoriety, but like with Kung-Fu Master, it’s now clear the franchise died for a reason: because they didn’t have a clue what they had in the original. Okay Dave, now I get why you insisted I include these. Verdict: NO!
Is he peeing?
“Thanks for leaving me in hell for three months you bastard!”
Super Mario Land Platform: Game Boy First Released April 21, 1989 Directed by Satoru Okada Developed by Nintendo Included with Switch Online Subscription (Standard) Listing at Mario Wiki
I used the “Game Boy Pocket” screen filter in the NSO Game Boy app.
2025 is just starting and I’ve got Nintendo launch games on my brain. I can’t imagine why. Now that I’ve reviewed the Game Boy Tetris in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review, I wanted to look at the road not traveled. The game that was developed to be the pack-in for the Game Boy, until Henk Rogers and Bullet-Proof Software convinced Nintendo that Mario Land would make Game Boy a children’s product, while Tetris would make Game Boy an EVERYONE product. The end result? Tetris became a global mega hit, Game Boy went from black and white curio to genuine gaming powerhouse, and Mario Land did okay. And by “okay” I mean it’s the #2 selling original black and white Game Boy title that wasn’t a pack-in (only Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow’s combined sales are greater).
To the game’s credit, especially since the guys behind it weren’t exactly Nintendo’s varsity team, it looks great given the limitations. Nowhere near as silly as the Game Boy version of Batman: The Video Game looked.
In fact, Super Mario Land outsold Super Mario Bros. 3. Yep, really! It’s astonishing, isn’t it? This little, unassuming tech demo, the first Super Mario game made without Shiggy’s involvement, defeated a game that many would consider to have been the most anticipated sequel in gaming history, and certainly a game that actively reigns as one of the most cherished and beloved video games ever made. Is it really all those things just because it wasn’t packed-in with the Game Boy? I mean, duh, along with coming out the day Game Boy did as well. Mario Land is fine, but it’s not amazing. It’s not even so good that being one of the best selling games of all-time makes any sense outside the context of being a launch title for a relatively cheap, yet scorching-hot platform. I’d love to see what the attach rate was for the Game Boy and Mario Land through the first two years of Game Boy’s existence. It had to be in the high 90 percentile. It’s a strange game for someone of my era to look back on, because Mario Land is incredibly weak compared to other Super Mario games. Yet, I honestly don’t remember meeting anyone who was around for the Game Boy launch who had anything but glowing memories of it. Mario Land is as beloved as any other 80s Mario title. And it’s SO WEIRD.
I accidentally beat the third boss in about a second, before I even realized I was fighting a boss. Just one running jump, then walking off a platform onto a switch was all it took. I had been prepared to whine about this more, until I remembered that the Bowser encounters in the original Super Mario Bros. ended when you hit a switch at the end and weren’t exactly epics.
Mario Land is certainly the jankiest Super Mario game. It’s the movement physics that threw me off. There’s absolutely no sense of inertia at all. Whether running or landing from a jump, Mario stops on a dime. Hell, he stops on the rivets at the edge of the dime. You would think this would make platforming much easier, since it turns every jump from a calculated, athletic type of action that has to account for momentum into just a matter of raw distance. But, you do have to continue to hold the movement, because you can stop in mid-air too. My brain couldn’t adjust to this, I died just as much from screwing up otherwise basic jumps as I did misjudging enemies. I’m not trying to sound like an amazing gamer or anything, but I suffered the type of deaths playing Mario Land that I haven’t had playing a 2D platformer in a LONG time. I’m talking about screwing up some very basic stuff, and I felt so awkward when it happened. Like “jeez, I know that was on me, too. Yeesh.”
On the other hand, the lack of weight and momentum does make any interval-based enemies easier to get past. No worries about skidding INTO these fish. There’s no skidding! So, the physics engine isn’t totally challenge-creating. It’s just as often challenge reducing. Compare this game to the Cheep Cheep bridges in Super Mario 1, such as level 2-3. It’s not just that they fly out from the ground from underneath you, but it’s just as much your own momentum that makes those some of the hardest sections in Mario games. But, if the levels based around Cheep-Cheeps controlled like Mario Land does, I don’t think they’d be that hard at all.
Presumably, the lack of sliding was done to accommodate the motion blur issues in the early Game Boy screen. It’s also safe to assume that the length of the game was based around being a fraction of the OG Game Boy’s battery life, since there’s no means of saving. Not that you need it, as at only ten standard levels and two shmup levels, Super Mario Land is the shortest of any Super Mario game (at least when playing EVERY level, start-to-finish). Should take you 45 minutes, tops. When I first played Mario Land years ago, I didn’t like it at all. Now, eh, it’s fine. The ten normal Mario-style levels are decent enough. They’re a few steps above “basic” Super Mario gameplay, with things like hidden elevators or invisible floors that don’t really do all that much, but are fun to discover. And yet, outside of the question mark blocks and general hop ‘n bop gameplay, it never feels entirely like a Mario game. It feels like a Mario knock-off. But, like, a really decent, really flagrant knock-off.
You get to where I am by an invisible floor. If you’re not Little Mario, you have to deliberately take a hit, or you can’t go this way and have to fight the robots directly. There’s a couple areas like that in Mario Land.
I have two big problems with Mario Land. While I enjoyed the shmup stages well enough (hey, I like shmups!), ending the game on one was a massive downer. But, all credit where it’s due: this is the rare “let’s add a shmup to a platformer” game where the shump section doesn’t feel completely divorced from the rest of the game. They do a good job of making it feel like it’s the same character in the same world. The other big problem is the game is just too easy. Despite some pretty humiliating deaths, I never had to sweat a game over because there’s too many coins, extra lives, and short-cuts. I won’t say that it crosses the line or anything, because I did lose like six or seven lives along the way, including four to the final boss, but I still finished with around two dozen lives to spare. And when I threw on toruzz’s excellent Super Mario Land DX ROM (review up next), I finished the game with 58 lives. FIFTY-EIGHT! There’s only twelve levels, for Christ’s sake!
I don’t think ending a Mario game with a shmup boss is the wisest choice, but apparently this was the original intent by Miyamoto, who wanted something like this to be the finale for the original Super Mario Bros.
The best thing I can compare Mario Land to is watching the first season of The Simpsons. Everything is alright and certainly the product you’re familiar with, yet somehow also somehow so horribly wrong that it’s kind of a little spooky for it. Weirdly, it’s for the same reasons as the Simpsons, too: everything is off-model, including the locations, and very against the established canon. In the case of Mario Land, it’s full of one-off settings and enemies that never showed up in the franchise again and often feel like they belong to an entirely different franchise. Hell, the first three bosses can be defeated in the same way you beat Bowser in Super Mario 1, AND EVEN THEN, it never feels like they’re Mario villains, and the last boss sure as sh*t doesn’t. But ultimately, Mario Land doesn’t last long enough to bore, or even really to frustrate. I imagine a child in 1989 was probably thrilled that they had something that was a LOT better than the Super Mario Game & Watch for a portable Mario experience.
The most remarkable aspect of the game is it actually does make you feel like you’re in different worlds instead of against a static screen. It’s immersive, and in a way that holds up well in 2025. I didn’t expect that at all.
I played Mario Land twice in black & white and twice on DX (coming up), and I never shook the feeling that I was playing a glorified tech demo. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s the reality of a launch title. When I look back on those Mario games that served as springboards for new platforms, most are pretty rough. Even Super Mario 64 feels like the whole engine could collapse at any time. Which makes sense, because they had to cut a ton of content from the game to make the release date, and even then, Miyamoto kept asking for more time to polish it, until Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi told him the game was good enough. What strikes me most about Mario Land is, yea, it’s only twelve levels long, but there ain’t a stinker in the bunch. Every level is solid. Hell, you can’t even say that about every level in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe’s first world. So, maybe Super Mario Land hasn’t aged particularly gracefully in terms of its build. This is the roughest game in the entire franchise, and really there’s nothing even close to it in that regard. But, they still managed to show that the Mario formula is so airtight that it’s almost impossible to screw-up. Mario Land is solid, and as the Grand Marshal of the Game Boy, it’s hard to imagine getting the platform off to a better start. Verdict: YES!
Super Mario Land DX Platform: Game Boy Color Latest Release: April 20, 2022 Unauthorized ROM Hack of Super Mario Land Developed by toruzz Link to Patch at ROMHacking.net I use THIS tool to apply patches.
Super Mario Land DX isn’t merely a colorization of Mario Land, but that part certainly stands out the most. I’d previously played toruzz’s colored version of Super Mario Land 2 (which I will do a review for both the original and the DX version at some point in 2025), but Mario Land DX is equally impressive. The new sprites for Mario and enemies look great, and the whole game POPS as it never has before. It’s so visually pleasing that you really wish Nintendo would just buy this build and make it official. It’s beautiful, and Mario games should be beautiful, right? Plus the notorious slowdown in the hard mode (IE the replay of the game after you beat it) is gone too. I’m pretty sure the version on Nintendo Switch Online also corrects the slowdown issue but don’t quote me on that.
Yep, that’s Luigi. Yep, he controls kinda like you think he will. No, it’s not as cool as it sounds.
Mario Land DX’s big-big-big addition is Luigi, which is done in the same style as Luigi in the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka The Lost Levels). He moves looser and jumps higher. However, it’s just not as fun as it sounds. I think it’s too loose. It’s probably best to think of Luigi as “Mario Land if the controls weren’t as good.” Unlike Mario, Luigi does have a little momentum. It makes lining up with the tiny blocks pretty hard. There’s a few sections in the game where you can smash a block between other blocks to reveal a hidden elevator. It’s insane how long it took me to line up Luigi to get that. I also went back to skidding off platforms. Yea, I wasn’t building up 50 lives in this run. Nope, not happening. With Mario’s platform games, for me, what makes them stand out in the genre is precision controls and precision movement. Mario took off as a franchise because, above all else, they control the best. Turn those controls rotten and Mario games wouldn’t be the biggest franchise in the genre. There’s a reason why Alex Kidd isn’t an icon, folks.
This took FOREVER for me to get.
I’d only recommend the Luigi quest if you’re a REALLY big fan of Super Mario Land and want to experience it in a new way. I’ve never been a fan of games that use deliberately bad (or if not bad, difficult) controls for challenge. This is NOT made for me. But, it’s super easy to recommend Super Mario Land DX to anyone who wants to dip their toes in the wonderful world of ROM hacks because, golly, what an effort. And if you like color but really hate the new sprites (and some people do), you can toggle them off. There’s a few ROM hacks out there that change the levels, but I really sort of get the impression that the original design team already wrung every single drop of gameplay out of the limited Super Mario Land engine. I don’t really want to play more levels of it, especially when the only option left is to become trollish with the stage design. What toruzz has done here is EXACTLY what I want, and all I want, from a Mario Land ROM hack. Good job. Verdict: YES!
Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review took hundreds of hours of gameplay and writing. If you enjoy this and want to show your support, please consider a donation to your local food bank. If you’re in the United States, you can find your closest food bank using the tool provided by Feeding America. I’m also a big fan of Direct Relief and the Epilepsy Foundation. And just remember that there’s nothing that improves lives and costs nothing quite like kindness. Be kind to each-other.
Everything you need to know about Tetris can be summed up in the language used to describe its creation. Games are something that are usually “made” or “developed.” Super Mario was made. Minecraft was developed. But Tetris? It’s so ubiquitous that it was “invented” just like indoor plumbing or the light bulb. I’ve been really excited for this interactive documentary because I have much love for Tetris. What’s not to love? When the first chapter of Tetris Forever declares Tetris to be the “perfect game” it’s not hyperbole. It IS the perfect video game. Perfect for all ages, skill levels, and levels of interest or disinterest in video games. Even the shapes themselves are perfect. When other games (including ones that wear the Tetris label) try to tinker with the roster of seven blocks, the result is almost always disastrous. Not that the core gameplay by itself is perfect, as you’ll learn from my reviews of the actual games, including the bonus reviews of titles not included in Tetris Forever. But, the basics of Tetris are certainly the perfect foundation to build an amazing game on.
Tetris Plus might not be in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review, but only because I found so many amazing Tetris games that I have to do a Part Two with around 45 more bonus games. Tetris Plus WILL be in Part Two, along with games like Tetrisphere, Tetris DS, and more.
There’s not very many games that I would consider to be absolutely perfect. Tetris, Pac-Man, Portal, a strange NES one-off indie called Böbl, the pinball table Attack From Mars……. and that’s the list. Well, at least MY list, and only two of those are really perfect for everyone. If you don’t love pinball, AFM isn’t going to “do it” for you. Böbl is a one-and-done 30 minute experience, and let’s face it: Portal is perfect for gamers, but if my mother tried to play it, it wouldn’t be pretty. Tetris is clearly the most perfect, because I’ve met plenty of non-gamers who love it. That’s why it’s the ideal game for the Gold Master Series, because it’s not just the perfect game, but also a perfectly fascinating game. Who needs an in-game story when no other game has a legend quite like it? Or, to put it another way, Pac-Man is awesome, but it didn’t signal the end of the Cold War. Of course, as I found out playing the nineteen games in the collection, and the slew of extra games I added for funsies, Tetris as a concept is inherently perfect, but the execution matters a great deal more than I realized. This was probably my favorite review process ever, because I think I walked away with an understanding of what makes Tetris great.
Tetris Forever retails for $34.99 and therefore needs to create $35 in value to win my seal of approval. After I finished reviewing the games, I assigned extra value for the emulation quality and the quality of what would be called “extra content” or “bonus content” in most other collections. For Tetris Forever, that content is equal to the games themselves, but I’m still going to treat the games like they’re the reason people would buy this. I’m not setting fixed value on any YES! game, but I’m limiting the max value to 50% of the goal.
The guided tour menu that Digital Eclipse created for Atari 50 returns, and that’s fine with me because it’s pretty much the greatest interface in gaming history. Someone had to say it, and it might as well be me. This is perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Guys, it’s impossible to improve upon this. Don’t even try to. In 2094, when you do a Gold Master Series based around the first batch of games developed by heads in jars, so help me mother of God, you better be using the same menu or my jar is going to bubble so much at you.
What makes the story of Tetris so amazing is that these two are just about the most likable game developers out there. Alexey Pajitnov is like a big ‘ole friendly St. Bernard. This is shallow and superficial, but I’ve always thought that Pajitnov has the kindest eyes of any major gaming pioneer, and whenever he talks about the story of Tetris, even when I know his story and I know it has a happy ending, I find myself pulling for him as if it’s the first time I’ve heard it. His eyes are so soulful and deep, but above even that, his eyes are filled with gentle kindness. It’s in the eyes. It’s ALWAYS in the eyes. Then there’s Henk Rogers, who dresses like Willy Wonka crossed with Al Pacino, and I mean that in the most flattering way possible. He oozes charm and tells his story with such passion that I found myself saying “thank God the right guy found Pajitnov.” The story works because of them. Tetris will always be Tetris, but I don’t think the legend of Tetris would be what it is today without Rogers being the one who found it.
But, Tetris Forever isn’t just the Alexey Pajitnov story. It’s equally the story of Henk Rogers, who is also a fascinating character. He basically invented the JRPG with his bestseller The Black Onyx. Granted, the emergence of JRPGs was inevitable, but someone had to be first! Rogers transitioned to game producing, and proved to be a savvy, intelligent businessman with a keen eye for both talent and trends. He recognized the value in Tetris and he just so happened to have a direct pipeline to Nintendo thanks to his love of the game Go. Everything you need to know about how personable and friendly Rogers is can be summed up with his unlikely friendship and relationship with Nintendo’s famously private President, Hiroshi Yamauchi, which is touched upon in Tetris Forever. One important note that Rogers rarely got proper credit for before Tetris Forever: he’s basically the co-creator of Tetris as you and I know it, because the scoring system was totally different before Henk’s first builds. As you’ll see in the game review section, you originally didn’t score points for creating lines. Scoring was based entirely on speed (how fast you drop the blocks) and how high the stack was in the well. Tetris was a game based around efficiency, and consequently there was absolutely no risk/reward dynamic to it. The multipliers for doubles, triples, and Tetrises was Henk’s idea, and that’s what opens up Tetris as a proper video game. I honestly didn’t know that about Henk Rogers. So, there’s a lot new info to be found in Tetris Forever even for those familiar with the story.
When Henk Rogers says that Tetris is the video game that will outlast all other games, I believe it. It’s easy to imagine Mario, Link, etc. getting lost to time eventually, but people will still be playing Tetris in a thousand years.
Tetris Forever features more interviews than any previous Gold Master release, and, in my opinion, it has the BEST interviews they’ve ever done. Even if you lump-in Atari 50 (which isn’t TECHNICALLY a Gold Master Series release), the interactive documentary/museum aspect of Tetris Forever is far and away the best this emerging genre has seen. The full story is covered, from Tetris’ creation in Russia to the insane publishing rights fiasco up to the modern game of Tetris and how protective they are of what a Tetris game must be. The interviews are riveting, and I could honestly say that they make up nearly the entire value of Tetris Forever by themselves. Digital Eclipse has really figured out this format and realized their audience is made up of people like me, who want to hear the stories and not just get the broad picture of history.
I want to scream about that one damn hair that is so distracting. You’re very successful now, Digital Eclipse. Hire a mustache groomer for future Gold Master Series installments.
Tetris Forever discusses a LOT more than I thought it would, and I’m blown away by the pacing and the amount of people they get involved. Despite his heavy Russian accent, Pajitnov is a compelling speaker. We’re forty years removed from the creation of Tetris, but he still has this sincere humility, like he can’t believe that he made this thing that is so beloved the world over. Rogers and his daughter Maya are equally well spoken and clearly passionate about gaming and Tetris, and it just makes for a wonderful interactive museum. I found myself wiping tears frequently and at one point even openly weeping because this is the rare story where you can cheer almost every aspect of it.
I went bug-eyed when I saw that there were three versions of Hatris in this release, but then I found out each version plays differently enough that it really is like three different games. The PC Engine and Arcade versions of Hatris aren’t in Tetris Forever, but I reviewed them in the bonus section.
Tetris Forever features seemingly every single print advertisement of Tetris ever made, along with items like box art, instruction books, and more. To give you an idea of how far this went, among the treasure trove of box art and magazine ads, Tetris Forever includes the full instruction manual for a never-released Genesis port of Tetris. There’s also a video covering Tengen Tetris and the litigation surrounding it, which to be honest, I thought that would be so radioactive that Digital Eclipse, Atari, and the Tetris Company wouldn’t touch it. I’m happy to report I was wrong. As with Making of Karateka, if you have no interest in box art or advertisements, you can safely knock at least $5 off the value at the end of this section.
The Simpsons is nearly as old as Tetris. I’d be weird if they hadn’t mined it for a joke at some point.
What’s missing? The most obvious answer is “games” since the Game Boy version is cited in the feature itself as the most famous (and maybe the best) version of Tetris. This is one of those situations where you wish Nintendo would allow at least the Game Boy version of Tetris to appear in this, even if it’s going to be on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. I’m pretty sure the Nintendo “brand” wouldn’t have been damaged if they allowed a 35 year old port of a game that has appeared on over a hundred platforms to appear in an interactive documentary that celebrates two of their most important partners. Hell, what a flex that would have been! “Our brand is so strong that we can put one of our catalog titles on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam!” It would also do wonders towards building goodwill for a company that isn’t considered very fan-friendly at times. But, Nintendo stuff isn’t the only games missing. They have several Spectrum Holobyte games, but there’s no Faces, Super Tetris, etc. Hell, I would have wanted to try them, even if they sucked. I’m not deducting any value for missing games, but they’re the elephant in the room for sure.
Why didn’t Digital Eclipse/Atari include this? You cheap ass mother f*ckers! I paid my $30 and I want a twenty-nine story tall version of Tetris that has to be played a mile away from the site! I fine Tetris Forever one hundred bazillion dollars! Everyone bang their spoons on the table until they patch this is! Boooo!Boooooo! ATTICA! ATTICA!
Another aspect of the Tetris mythos that’s mostly ignored is Vladimir Pokhilko, for obvious reasons. I’m 100% totally fine with that part of the legend being left out. The story of Tetris is a feel-good story, and there’s nothing good about the ending of Vladimir Pokhilko, his wife and 12 year old son. I can tell you that I was 9 years old and lived just a few miles away from where those murders happened, and it was terrifying. People here still talk about it all the time. If it still leaves a scar on our community a quarter of a century later, yea, I don’t want it to scar the story of Tetris. Good call, Digital Eclipse/Atari. I would have also liked to have seen more games that Pajitnov designed that aren’t Tetris on here, which is why I opted for an extended bonus section for this review feature. He didn’t just make Tetris. He’s done a lot more games than people realized. Have you ever played Hexic on your Xbox 360? That was Pajitnov! Come on! Certainly Bullet-Proof Software, or “The Tetris Company” owns more than just Hatris. But, beyond that, this section is specifically about the feature, and I wish they had at least an interview on all the non-Tetris stuff he’s done. But, overall, Digital Eclipse really has outdone themselves with this format. For all the features of the interactive documentary, I’m awarding Tetris Forever $25 in value. If you’re really not into box art or old advertisements, knock $5 off that.
The Game Boy titles offer Super Game Boy enhancements, but you have to select it before starting the game. There’s also a variety of looks if you opt to play the Game Boy titles colorless.
EMULATION
Tetris Forever features a nearly full-powered Infinity Gauntlet of Emulation for most (but not all) games. Two gems are missing entirely from the gauntlet, though there’s a good reason for it. There’s no optional hardware enhancements, but this is Tetris we’re talking about. Overclocking would likely have unintended consequences, and it wasn’t ever really necessary anyway. There’s also no full gameplay videos with jump-in. Again, it’s Tetris, not a linear game, so that wouldn’t work even if they wanted to include it. All seventeen emulated games have screen filters and size options. Some of the games allow button remapping, including the infamous Famicom Tetris, though that’s a monkey’s paw “be careful what you wish for” type of deal that I’ll get to in that review. For all the emulation features, I’m awarding the max $10 in value to Tetris Forever. HOWEVER, The biggest problem with Tetris Forever is games that featured battery back-up, such as Tetris 2 + BomBliss/Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss, sometimes just plain didn’t save my progress. I thought it never did, but then I went back and played a couple games, and the save files were there. (Shrug) If you want to keep your progress, remember to use save states, and never hit “reset game” because I think that might have been my problem.
When the games have mapping, I appreciate that the menu is as clean as it gets. The menus are accessed by right-clicking, by the way. It took me a while to figure that out. My dear friend Elias didn’t tell me how to do it. Why would you think that? I found it all on my own.
GAME REVIEWS
For those not familiar with my way of thinking of how retro games should be reviewed, I take NO historical context into account, at least for the games themselves. I don’t care how important a game was to the industry, because that doesn’t make a game worth playing today. The test of time is the cruelest test of all, but every video game must face it. I might not be here if not for Pong’s success, but I wouldn’t want to play it today. Not when there’s better options. Therefore, when I review retro games, every game gets either a YES! or a NO!
YES! means the game is still fun and has actual gameplay value when played today and is worth seeking out.
NO! means the game didn’t age gracefully and is not worth seeking out, and certainly not worth spending money on.
Quick warning: there’s no translations for the Japanese games. Brush up on Japanese, or have a translator ready on your smart devices. Any games that have Japanese menus, there’s a walk-through in the menu (it’s titled “HOW TO PLAY”), so I don’t think you’ll ever need a translator outside of Tetris Battle Gaiden, which has some Japanese that appears in real time.
Special Note: I am NOT an expert at Tetris. Part of the reason this review took so long to finish wasn’t just the volume of games, but rather because I quickly realized that what makes or breaks Tetris isn’t the core gameplay. It’s the idiosyncrasies like rotation of blocks, whether you can perform “wall kicks” and the drop algorithm (literally called THE RANDOM GENERATOR or the 7-Bag, which is what I’ll call it from here out). I wanted to discover those things for myself through gameplay and not look them up. That takes time. I approached this feature the same way I did Pac-Man/maze chases or LCDs: I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m looking for, but I want to know those things. I did the best I could to familiarize myself with what is and isn’t expected of a Tetris game or a falling block game in general, and I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I hope you are too!
ALL 19 GAMES INCLUDED IN TETRIS FOREVER
Tetris (Electronika 60 recreation, 1984)
Tetris (MS-DOS Prototype, 1996)
Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku (Famicom, 1987)
Tetris (MS-DOS, 1988)
Tetris (Apple II, 1988)
Tetris (Famicom, 1988)
Welltris (MS-DOS, 1989)
Hatris (Famicom, 1990)
Hatris (Game Boy, 1991)
Hatris (NES, 1992)
Tetris 2 + BomBliss (Famicom, 1991)
Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss (Super Famicom, 1992)
Tetris Battle Gaiden (Super Famicom, 1993)
Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss Genteiban (Super Famicom, 1994)
Super Tetris 3 (Super Famicom, 1994)
Super BomBliss (Game Boy, 1995. Okay, I sort of skip this one.)
Super BomBliss DX (Game Boy Color, 1999)
Super BomBliss (Super Famicom, 1995)
Tetris Time Warp (2024)
IN ORDER OF RELEASE
Tetris Platform: Simulation of Electronika 60 Recreation Developed for Tetris Forever Originally Released June 6, 1984 Recreation Released November 12, 2024 Designed by Alexey Pajitnov Developed by Digital Eclipse
Can you tell that I forgot “hard drop” means “HARD DROP” and not “speed-up the fall?”
Much like how there’s really no emulated version of Pong in any collection, it’s impossible to directly play the real version of the original Tetris that started it all. But, a perfect recreation works fine. While the core gameplay is still Tetris in all its glory, the scoring and rules will be unfamiliar to anyone who played the more famous wide release versions. The most obvious example is that the idea of doubles, triples, and Tetrises scoring more points wouldn’t be invented for another four years after this. All this version of Tetris does is keep track of how many lines you’ve cleared, while “scoring” is based on how many hard drops you make. The higher up in the well the block is when you press the hard-drop, the more points you score. And it makes a BIG difference, fundamentally changing the feel of Tetris as you or I know it. It practically swaps genres and becomes a quick-draw type of game.
This incoming Tetris is worth nothing but a +4 to my line count and whatever the hard-drop scores. Huh.
Tetris without dynamic scoring is a game with almost no risk/reward factor. There’s no incentive at all to stack the well in any way but the most efficient, line-for-line manner. The one exception is that, the taller the stack is in the well, the more points hard drops score. It’s a lousy risk/reward element because of the figurative low ceiling for strategy the literal low ceiling creates. Trust me when I say, it’s something you have to experience to appreciate, especially if you’ve played a lot of Tetris over the years. My instinct told me in my first game to play Tetris the way I always have. Create a “dam” leaving a single-segment gap between the pile and the wall to slide the Tetris Makers into. It took me a couple games for my brain to not go straight to my Tetris muscle memory, but I wanted to play along. Without dynamic scoring, why bother to try for a Tetris? Since the points are awarded by quick drops, I tried to stack as flat as humanly possible. I was convinced I’d be bored. I wasn’t. It speaks volumes to how addictive Tetris is that, even with a completely inferior scoring system, my brain still went into Tetris mode. I would never want to play this version again, but as the first game in the collection, this really warmed me up for the better stuff yet to come. Verdict: YES! – $2 in Value added to Tetris Forever
Tetris Platform: MS-DOS Developed in 1986 Unreleased Nearly-Completed Prototype Designed by Alexey Pajitnov Ported by Vadim Gerasimov Developed by AcademySoft
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Ironically, what will likely be the worst game included in Tetris Forever (Cathy from the Future: HAH, wrong!) is also the version of Tetris we wouldn’t be here without. This port, made in less than a week by a teenager, spread like wildfire through Moscow and ultimately throughout the Soviet Bloc, where a version in Budapest caught the attention of a western game developer. We owe EVERYTHING to this version of Tetris, but I don’t factor history into my game reviews. And, as far as Tetris goes, this is one of the weakest builds I’ve ever played. The scoring system from the Electronika version returns, which is fun once, but only once. I’m too spoiled by modern Tetris scoring to get excited for it a second time. But, it all comes down to the lack of responsiveness. I’m one of those people who likes to start on level 0 and build up from there. Level 0 on this version of Tetris is ultra-laggy. Tetris with lag is unplayable. It just is, and that’s enough to earn this a NO! by itself. That’s before I get into the tiny little idiosyncrasies common to the Tetris I grew up with that aren’t here. Like having the walls of the well block rotation is tough. I was raised on Tetris with “wall kicks.” I can adjust to the lack of that, but it combines with the lag and the hard drop to make Tetris so much less intuitive than I’m used to. The lag is better on higher levels, but it’s never perfect. I’m very happy this version is included, because it’s an important stepping stone to Tetris becoming the game we all know and love. But, I wouldn’t want to ever play it again. Verdict: NO! But, I will be awarding bonus value following the Spectrum Holobyte version.
Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku Platform: Famicom Released April 14, 1987 Designed by Henk Rogers Developed by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
What the hell just happened? Did I win? Did I violate one of the 103,719,406,297 rules and/or etiquette of the game of Go? I have no clue! You mean to tell me Digital Eclipse, the greatest retro game compilation studio in the entire world, couldn’t do an English ROM hack of this?
The game above was my first game of Igo. I won before a single piece was captured. The computer just surrendered to me. That was nice of it, especially since I lost the next dozen or so matches. Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku is a simplified version of the game Go. For those unfamiliar, Go is the oldest continuously played recreational game in human history. There are older games, and tools like dice easily predate Go, but no specific game has an unbroken link of continued popularity. By the time Jesus was born, there was twice as big a gap between his birth and the creation of Go than your birth and the creation of the United States. So, it’s a pretty old game. Even more astonishing is that, in its 2,500+ year history, Go’s basic rules appear to have remained, more or less, unchanged. Most ancient games we lost the rules to, but Go’s popularity and the fact that it wasn’t something played exclusively by the ruling class (which was common practice for ancient board games) creates an uninterrupted connection from the ancient game to the modern day. It’s only the standard size of the board that has verifiably changed. Most ancient Go boards and writings confirm that it was played on a 17 x 17 grid. Today, Go’s standard playfield is a 19 x 19 grid. This Famicom game is the first console version of Go, and the grid is 9 x 9 because Go is so complex that the Famicom, at least at the time, couldn’t have hoped to calculate a 19 x 19 board. It’s included in Tetris Forever because it was Bullet-Proof Software’s foot in the door for Nintendo. And here’s the English instructions in their entirety:
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Even with the simplified 9 x 9 board, Digital Eclipse and Atari seem to be taking it on faith that anyone who boots up Igo will be familiar with Go, and there’s no logical reason to assume that. This is supposed to be an interactive museum, right? Educate us! I have no idea what the rules are, or if I’ve won or lost a game. Did I win this game?
I don’t know what a winning condition is. I don’t know how scoring works. Maybe Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku was an excellent teaching tool for a Japanese child in 1987. This is probably one of the best looking board game adaptations up to this point. The presentation is good. The ninjas are a fun touch, and the interface is clean and simple, but visually satisfying. I’m sure Henk Rogers, a competitive Go player, was very happy with this. But, I’m playing this on a collection of games in 2024. Not only do I have no clue what I’m doing, but there’s nothing in Tetris Forever that can help me to figure it out. If I want to learn this, I have to go somewhere else to figure out the rules. There’s a reason why people need teachers to learn Go! Because the written rules are so vast and complicated that, when I attempted to read them, my tear ducts started pouring blood. I expect better from Digital Eclipse. Verdict: NO!
Tetris aka “DOS Tetris” Platform: MS-DOS Released January 29, 1988 Directed by R. Anton Widjaja Developed by Spectrum Holobyte
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For 1988, and for the types of games that could be popular on computers during this era, I’m sure the first commercial Tetris was fine. The presentation is fantastic. There’s no music, but hey, I’m notorious for playing most games muted anyway (I’m tone deaf, literally. It’s called amusia, which is funny because there’s nothing amusing about the isolation that comes from not hearing most music the same way everyone else does). It’s like this version was made for me! The decision by Spectrum Holobyte to lean heavily into the Russian theme was indeed a wise one. But, with all that said, I’m still not feeling this build of Tetris. It lacks dynamic scoring, as your points are only based on both hard drops and how high in the well the drop is made. Granted, scoring multipliers based on doubles, triples, and Tetrises wasn’t the original intent by Pajitnov, but it opens up Tetris as an actual video game instead of a glorified fidget spinner. I’m going to repeat myself a lot in this feature, but that’s the nature of the beast, so I’ll say it again: there’s no incentive to go for Tetrises, because you are not rewarded for them in any way. It turns an intense game of quick decisions and calculating risk/reward into a game of efficient stacking, and nothing more.
I was constantly finishing in the 90 to 95 range, but in probably fifty or more rounds, I never got over the hump and got 100 lines. This game looks like it’s going to happen, but I was dead not long after this screenshot. Tetris is famously a game where good games go south quickly. MS-DOS Tetris really exemplifies that more than most.
I could still get behind that because the core Tetris gameplay is as rock solid as any foundation in gaming history. But, the rebuild of the original Electronika that led off the feature is the only game so far with one-to-one movement accuracy we all want from a game of Tetris. DOS Tetris isn’t quite there yet. MS-DOS Tetris has a speed issue that greatly affects the long game. Once the stack reaches a certain height in the center, there’s simply not enough time to rotate AND move. The point of no return is lower in the well than you really need to maximize excitement. One of my favorite aspects about the modern game of Tetris is close calls and last second saves. Well, that’s not really possible in this build because movement isn’t fast enough. There’s no 7 bag generator in this version, which is the algorithm that assures even distribution of the seven blocks. Multiple times I got situations like four or five squares in a row, or even four Tetris Makers in a row. This game of Tetris was certainly good enough to launch the craze in 1988, but it doesn’t hold up today. Verdict: NO! But, I’m awarding $1 in bonus value for including the MS-DOS games because of the extra effort (and headaches) I know Digital Eclipse and Atari had to jump through to get these games in the collection and make the story of Tetris as they are able to tell it that much more complete. Happy they’re here as bonus features. Doesn’t mean I want to play them.
Tetris aka “Apple Tetris” Platform: Apple II Released July, 1988 Programmed by Dan Geisler Developed by Spectrum Holobyte
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Jeez, and we think the Nintendo Switch has hung around for a spell. That’s nothing compared to the Apple ][, which was eleven years old when Tetris landed on it. Sadly, this port comes from the same company that did the MS-DOS version, and thus it has the same scoring as the previous game. No bonuses for lines, and no incentive to go for anything greater than a single. Scoring is based on hard drops and how high the stack is in the well. So, I hated Apple Tetris, right? Well, it’s a lot more complicated because the controls are much more responsive. You have more time to save a game at the top of the well. Even with graphics so blurry and bright that they made my eyes water (seriously, switch to the monochrome version), Apple II completely annihilates the MS-DOS build. I peaked at 90 to 96 lines in my best games on MS-DOS, but my scoring average was higher than that on the Apple II because I had enough time to cover for mistakes or make tight squeezes. I still think the scoring system is lame as all hell, but this is the best way to experience an authentic emulated (oxymoron) classic PC Tetris. Verdict: YES! – $1 in Value added to Tetris Forever
Tetris aka “Famicom Tetris” Platform: Famicom Released December 22, 1988 Programmed by Bob Rutherford Developed by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
Dynamic scoring! WOOO! And.. lives? What the f*ck?
The first ever console version of Tetris (assuming you don’t count MSX as a console) is also one of the weirdest builds of Tetris I’ve ever played. First thing’s first: I love how Digital Eclipse felt compelled to put a warning that the controls are so stupid that players will want to change them. It doesn’t say it like that, but it’s not wrong. In this Tetris, pressing DOWN rotates the blocks, while the buttons do hard drops. I assume they did it this way because people hit DOWN accidentally. I sure have, but I’d prefer doing that sometimes to how the controls are set up. It’s worse because the only remapping is via the emulator itself, and while it is an option, remember that changing what button is the hard drop means that new button, presumably DOWN, is now “enter” for the menus, and now you can only scroll one way when you enter your name. So awkward, but the weirdness of Famicom Tetris is just getting started.
Dad called this “Christmas Tetris” because of the color scheme.
So yes, dynamic scoring is here and players FINALLY have some measure of risk/reward to deal with instead of just stacking for efficiency. But, there’s a catch: this Tetris is played in 25 line intervals. There’s no uninterrupted marathon mode, and also I might have a concussion for banging my head on the desk. It’s honestly incredible how many versions of this game needed to happen before the Tetris we all love emerged. I’m six games into this feature, five of which are Tetris games, and I’ve still not reached a Tetris that feels like my Tetris. And the weirdness keeps coming in the form of lives. You get to fail three times, and when you die, you still get all the points you earned for this 25-line interval, but then you restart with a new 25 line target. You also don’t get to know how well you’re doing until the breaks, as the score isn’t tallied until you die or reach 25 lines. It’s like Game Boy Tetris’ B-Mode as a solo game.
My motto of “find the fun” took a little longer with Famicom Tetris. The 25 line or bust gameplay engine put up a fight. But then I realized, screw it, embrace it by jacking up the handicap to the max. And lo, the fun was found.
Not strange enough for you? If you play with handicap and clear 25 lines, whatever progress you’ve made is retained for the next 25 line batch. But if you die, you start from scratch with a fresh pile of garbage blocks on the playfield. I don’t recommend playing on level 0, as it’s just not fun. Even if you use handicap, start on at least level 5 for speed. This is one of the rare Tetris games where the garbage blocks are the best part of the game. Without a marathon and a much slower sense of progression, challenging tall stacks of garbage is the best thing Famicom Tetris has going for it. What stood out to me the most about Famicom Tetris is how everyone involved still had no idea what they had with Tetris. I appreciate that they realized what they were doing, and what Spectrum Holobyte had done, was certainly not maximizing its potential. This was a big step, and while they had a ways to go, I did manage to “find the fun” by treating this as a hybrid of a logic puzzler and Tetris. BUT, if you just hate the standard Tetris B-Mode, feel free to imagine this verdict flipped, because this is ALL B-Mode. Verdict: YES! – $2 in Value added to Tetris Forever
Welltris Platform: MS-DOS Released November, 1989 Concept by Alexey Pajitnov & Andrei Sgenov Designed by Dan KaufmanPublished by Spectrum Holobyte
It’s really hard to explain how the gravity works. The best way I can explain it is “imagine the bottom is a continuation of any wall.” So a block that enters the well from the left wall will slide all the way to the base of the right wall. It’s not intuitive and takes forever to get used to. Hey, maybe that’s why the set is called “Tetris Forever!”
It took me about ten seconds to figure out why Welltris didn’t “take” as heir to Tetris. Tetris conquered the world because it’s one of the few abstract game concepts that both offers instantly intuitive mechanics and instant gratification. Neither of those are true of Welltris. Movement, the drop mechanics, and how the well reacts to cleared lines? Not one single aspect of it is intuitive. It takes a long while to get the hang of Welltris, and even when you have it, jeez, this is one slow and clunky game. The idea is simple: the walls are where the blocks enter, but they’re not part of the playfield. The bottom is the only playfield. There’s no layers, and if a block is, ahem, blocked and gets stuck on the wall, you lose that wall for a few turns. Lose all four walls and it’s game over. Even after hours of playing, my brain refused to adjust to the transitions from wall-to-wall. I was constantly seeing blocks get hung-up on the corners. Of course, I was also doing things like changing the shapes of blocks in the corners as well, and the Digital Eclipse-provided “how to play” tab didn’t tell me why. I had to revert to prehistoric gaming and use the instruction manual like a savage, presumably read by whale blubber candlelight in my cave while the men hunt a woolly mammoth for supper. There, I learned how to use the corners to distort blocks. Like in this slide show, you can see me turn a “T” block into an “L” block.
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How’d that happen? I didn’t have a clue at the time, but it wasn’t intentional. Truth be told, I panicked! I wanted to stick the block in one of the corners and accept that I was going to lose another wall. But then, as the block entered the playfield, it seemed to warp and distort, and by the time I was out of my panic attack, the block suddenly had a different shape and fit perfectly in the spaces around the corner. What the fudge? Well, the manual describes it as “its segments go in a direction appropriate for the wall” which now I think I understand.
In other words, since each wall has a different “bottom of the well” on the playfield, having the blocks fall in the corners, with pieces on both sides, creates two simultaneous bottoms that essentially divides a single block into two or more pieces. It’s something I never got a real feel for. Also, when the blocks enter the playfield properly, the wall is capable of creating an overlapping situation, and in such an event, the extra block is just deleted from existence. Again, none of this is intuitive and I never quite got the hang of it. To be perfectly frank, even after many, many hours spent trying, I never could DELIBERATELY make the corner move work out as well as it did that first time, which was an accident. Actually, when I was trying to use that technique, I mostly ended up screwing things up worse. By the way, is anyone else getting a “it’s not a bug! It’s a feature!” vibe out of the whole corner thing? Because I sure am! I have a sixth sense about these things.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the Tetris game that introduced the strange shapes (like the Plus Block, the Staircase Block, etc.) to the franchise. I hate all the non-standard seven blocks. But, they’re fully optional.
Welltris has other problems. It doesn’t control smoothly at all, which combined with the speed increases that come through the progress AND the latency inherent to MS-DOS emulation, makes Welltris’ mid-to-late game pretty miserable. There’s a noticeable unresponsiveness in movement and especially in rotating the blocks (in fairness, most MS-DOS games in any Gold Master Series thus far have lag). It’s always there and it’s very frustrating. I also found the score sheet to be too conservative. The scoring is a mix of the original Tetris’ emphasis on fast drops and the later games’ emphasis on lines and combos. I’d love to play this with a more logical, elegant scoring system. Oh, and like many early Tetris games, this one charges a semi-hefty tax for having the “NEXT BLOCK” feature turned on. I think Pajitnov’s heart was in the right place with that idea, but all forms of Tetris are better mental exercises with the next block feature. Is Welltris any good? I think it could potentially be. The roughness of this build, with the latency in movement is what ultimately pushed my opinion into the NO! column. But, Pajitnov did right the wrongs here with the coin-op version (reviewed in the bonus section down below). Welltris MS-DOS is boring, but as a proof of concept for a better game, I’ve seen a lot worse. Verdict: NO!
Hatris (JP Version) Platform: Famicom Released July 6, 1990 Designed by Alexey Pajitnov and Vladimir Pokhilko Programmed by Akira Kobayashi Developed by Bullet-Proof Software
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If I didn’t know that Hatris was designed by Pajitnov, I’d have guessed it was one of the dozens of “gimme some of that cheddar” games that followed in Tetris’ wake. Jeez, can you imagine having to follow up Tetris? Whatever sequels followed in its immediate wake were certain to disappoint. In fact, the game is so different in every way but the well and gravity that they should have divorced it entirely from the franchise. “Hatris” sounds like a parody of Tetris, impossible to take seriously and certainly not a game one should expect to pay good money for. It’s an unfortunate name, because honestly, Hatris is decent as its own game. Well, actually some versions are, but not this one. The object is to create stacks of five hats. The hats enter the playfield in pairs and you have to sort them in a way where the pile doesn’t become too high. What complicates things is that, while matching hats take up minimal space, mismatches eat up space. The playfield is only six columns wide, so mismatches become inevitable. A final twist is that if one hat binds to any stack, the second hat can still be moved independently until it reaches another stack.
I tried to play on higher levels, with stacks of garbage blocks already on the playfield. I used this specific level ten times and the closest I got was six matches from the shop.
While the type of hats in the games changes in each separate version of Hatris, what really differentiates each port is how it handles special powers. The Famicom Hatris is the most conservative among the ports included in Tetris Forever. After collecting twenty five matches, you get to enter a shop and remove any one hat from the board entirely, but once a hat is chosen from the shop, you can never pick it again in future visits. While it does add a layer of strategy, it’s just not enough help. Once you reach the full variety of hats, there’s seemingly nothing resembling the modern Tetris’ “7 Bag” algorithm to assure that luck doesn’t completely screw you over. Six channels is not enough when you get no extra help until you pull-off 25 matches. And you know what? I think BPS and everyone involved agrees with me, because the Game Boy and American NES versions of Hatris give you many more options that open-up the gameplay beyond luck-based stacking. Good for them, too. Because what’s here isn’t completely abysmal, but you never shake the feeling that it’s entirely luck-based. Verdict: NO!
Hatris Platform: Game Boy Released May, 1991 Designed by Alexey Pajitnov & Vladimir Pokhilko Developed by Bullet-Proof Software
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Much like the trajectory of Tetris, Hatris needed time to figure out how to make the gameplay more dynamic and video-game-like instead of “Busy Work: The Game.” Game Boy Hatris’ addition of two gameplay mechanics opens-up a more arcade-like risk/reward feel. In the Famicom version, there’s no reward for creating two set matches from a single drop. On Game Boy, it earns you a fireball. The fireball can then be used to clear any one hat that’s on the top of a stack, with the exception of the fireproof crowns. If you build up a stockpile of three fireballs, they’re automatically used up to create a helmet that can crush an entire stack down to the bottom of the screen, with the exception of crowns. These two additions alone yank Hatris out of the cellar and make it a genuinely decent game.
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However, there’s a big catch to the helmets: they remain on the playfield and require four additional helmets to clear. Logically this means that having to (1) create, at the barest minimum, fifteen total fireballs (2) crush the same pile five times, since there’s no diagonal matching. It’s too big of a commitment, and the shame is, there’s multiple ways they could have changed this to work. Make special rules for the helmet that make it three to clear instead of five. If it was three helmets, the temptation of clearing a stack versus getting rid of the dead weight of the used helmets would be agonizing, and awesome. If Digital Eclipse is reading, what you guys could do is create a new Hatris that has a bigger playfield to accommodate wide screen TVs, and then use our space age, futuristic computing power to allow different match requirements for different hats. Hatris has so much potential thanks to the unusual way pieces stack into each-other. The concept has legs, but unlike Tetris, Hatris was abandoned before it ever reached its fullest potential. Flawed and limited as Hatris for Game Boy is, I put a lot more time into it than I figured I would. Verdict: YES! – $2 in Value added to Tetris Forever I’m going to go out of order and wrap-up Hatris for Tetris Forever. There’s two more Hatris games in this feature but they’re in the bonus section.
Hatris (US Version) Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released April, 1992 Programmed by Akira Kobayashi Developed by Bullet-Proof Software
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Unbelievably, Hatris for the NES regresses from the Game Boy version and goes back to the Famicom’s system of not giving bonuses for clearing matches with both pieces of a single drop. There’s no incentive at all to do anything besides stack and clear hats with as much efficiency as possible, and thus there’s no risk/reward. Which isn’t to say that this version of Hatris is the same as the Famicom, because it ain’t. The “clear all of one type of hat” bomb is replaced by the characters Alexey and Vladimir. Alexey allows you to remove any five hats from the playfield, with the only catch being the options are limited to the bottom of each stack. It’s still a very valuable power-up. Vladimir allows you to swap the positions of any two stacks, which is less valuable, but there’s one final bonus: if the current piece dropping is set to screw you thanks to the lack of matches, activating a helper removes it from the game. After the power is used, gameplay resumes with whatever was the next piece in line. I found myself using the helpers (especially Vladimir) just to junk the current piece as often as I was because I needed their powers.
My first game felt like it took hours to finish.
This is the Hatris that offers the most power-ups of any of the three Hatris games in Tetris Forever, and it’s not even close. Each character has specific hats that charge their meters. It only takes five matches of their hat types to score one use of a helper, and you can bank up to eight usages. Consequently, this is probably the easiest of the three versions of Hatris, as the long game is more survivable if you play your cards right and save-up your powers for the end game. Did I have fun? A little. More than enough to score a YES!, but I’m still pretty baffled by the lack of incentive to go for doubles. It’s such an obvious oversight, but oddly one that would be repeated in the coin-op and PC Engine ports. Without question there’s SOMETHING here with the Hatris formula. The varying sizes of the hats and how they interlock and stack is unique and novel. Yet, none of the versions I’ve played feel specifically optimized for maximum gaming pleasure. The same was true of early versions of Tetris, but lots of people kept working with it until they got it right. That ain’t happening with Hatris. I’ll still give the edge to the Game Boy version, even if the ideal Hatris is probably a mix of this version and it. Verdict: YES! – $2 in value added to Tetris Forever
Tetris 2 + BomBliss Platform: Famicom Released December 31, 1991 Directed by Koichi Nakamura Developed by Chunsoft Co., Ltd. Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
The “C” Mode debuts in Tetris 2, where garbage blocks rise up out of the ground in regular intervals. I was constantly dying at 60 – 70 lines on it. Once you get too close to the top, you’re likely to lose your ability to rotate the block. Whenever I died, it was almost always from a situation I would have survived in a modern Tetris game.
The “Tetris 2” in this title is not related to the Nintendo-developed game we call “Tetris 2” in the west, which is called “Tetris Flash” in Japan (reviewed below, in the bonus section). This sequel is labeled “Tetris 2” specifically in terms of the Famicom’s Tetris, and it’s a marked improvement over the original. This is the first Tetris game in the collection with left and right rotation instead of single-direction rotation. That alone makes a huge difference. But, I still wasn’t in love with this version of Tetris. Last second saves are hard because your ability to rotate is limited. The block must be entirely on the screen to be able to turn, and it must have clearance to turn. So obviously advanced moves like t-spins wouldn’t be possible in this build. The biggest innovation here is that blocks make a noise when they land, but they’re not locked in yet. You still have a grace period of being able to move then until they settle. Tetris 2 is actually okay, but Tetris still had a long way to go. You really can’t appreciate how much the 7-bag algorithm transforms the game of Tetris until you get a string of four square blocks followed by three more after a break of one other block. So, the only reason to play this is BomBliss.
I sure hope you enjoy BomBliss as much as I do. Otherwise, Tetris Forever’s lineup might not “do it” for you.
In the west, we know BomBliss better as “Tetris Blast.” Classic Nintendo consoles only ever got one version of it in the West, so it’s a bit startling that there’s six total versions of BomBliss in Tetris Forever. Six!! For those not familiar, it’s basically Tetris, only some of the individual segments are bombs. If you make a line, it doesn’t necessarily clear that line. But, if there’s bombs in that line, the amount of lines you clear at once increases the explosive powers of the bombs. You really don’t want to get just singles, as a single might leave behind garbage in the line you cleared. Only bombs clear the blocks, so you have to cluster them up in 2 x 2 squares to create bigger bombs and/or strategically align all the bombs to maximize explosive power. After a while, the game starts utilizing new shapes of blocks besides the standard seven block roster. I couldn’t put BombBliss down. I don’t recall ever playing Tetris Blast, and I figured there had to be a reason why this was such an uncommon game today. I have to assume it vanished due to oversaturation (six versions?! That’s more than Hatris WITH THE BONUS REVIEWS), because actually, I really liked this. I’ll get more into it in the next review. I wasn’t going to issue a verdict because the next game is essentially the same game, only in 16-bits. HOWEVER, the next game’s Tetris I don’t feel is entirely on the up-and-up, so.. Verdict: YES! – $2 in value added to Tetris Forever
Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss Platform: Super Famicom Released December 18, 1992 Directed by Masayoshi Takatori & Toshihiko Kitazawa Developed by Tose Co. Ltd Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
This was my best game because I kept things nice and flat. But I was done after just one screw-up soon after this pic was taken. Once things start flying, the rotation begins to feel unresponsive, and without wall kicks, it’s too easy for a block to get jammed by the stack and be unable to rotate.
Let’s get this out of the way first: I have never in my life seen the likes of a game of Tetris like. One that just refuses to spawn Tetris Makers like this version does. I’m convinced that some kind of rigging is going on. This is a Tetris game made before 7-bag. Tetris Forever talks about how 7-bag is required if you want to become a Tetris licensee (one of the video segment subjects is essentially about how protective of “the brand” they are). You can feel the lack of 7-bag in many of these early Tetris games, but it’s taken to a whole new level here. I had multiple instances where the game started me with two or three Tetris Makers in a row, at a point when I couldn’t possibly have made a Tetris, then never gave me another one. Ever. Now sure, the odds are theoretically 1-in-7 that any given block will be a Tetris Maker, but over the course of a game, even random chance should level out. That almost never happened. It was specifically Tetris Makers the game would not give out. Okay, so rotten luck, right? I shouldn’t be surprised, because having historically bad RNG is probably the biggest running gag in Indie Gamer Chick history. But, I’m not entirely sure it’s really legit 1-in-7 RNG. I think Super Tetris 2 is cooking the numbers a little bit.
This was basically the highlight of Tetris 2/Super Tetris 2 for me. This was the only Tetris I ever got this high up the well. That’s partially because Tetris Makers become impossible to rotate after a certain height.
Please note that everything I’m about to say absolutely can be chalked up to rotten luck, and not EVERY game had me get hosed. But, it did happen consistently enough to talk about. First, there’s just the obvious observation that it’s specifically Tetris Makers the game often refused to spit out. If I had perfect L-shaped gaps, the game gave them to me about the rate you would expect. No unexpectedly long gaps between the necessary fit. Same with perfect gaps for any other shape. No, it was only the Tetris Makers, and it wasn’t just one game that I filled the well to the top and never got them. It was several games. But thanks to the magic of rewind, I noticed one really peculiar quirk with those games. As long as I kept the gap open, the odds that I got a Tetris Maker were very slim.
But, with UNCANNY consistency, if I opted to clog the hole, creating a layout where a Tetris Maker was the least-optimal block for the current stack, suddenly the RNG wasn’t stingy with the Tetris Makers. Rewound again to unclog, and the game would go back to not passing out Tetris Makers. It didn’t happen every game, but it did happen a lot. This is in addition to a bad “random generator” that tended to do things like start games with twelve-straight Z/Reverse-Z blocks, or four Tetris Makers in a row. And hell, that’s not even talking about Super Tetris’ uncanny ability to give you the worst block for any situation. No place to fit a Z block? HERE’S FIVE OF THEM IN A ROW! Combine that with the lack of a wall kick and how bad the top of the stack plays in the late game and I gotta say, I didn’t care for Super Tetris 2 at all. Also, this is nitpicky but there’s no wrap-ups telling you how many Tetrises/Triples/etc. you got each round.
I was nearly as addicted to BomBliss as I’ve ever been to Tetris. This is a seriously underrated game.
Once again, Bombliss carries the day. There’s two ways to play it, though games have the same object: clear the screen entirely. In Mode A, there’s a starting pattern, and you’re given 100 randomly-assigned blocks to clear the field. Scoring is based around how quickly you’re able to clear the screen. The second mode is a puzzle mode where you have a limited supply of specific blocks spit out in a specific order. Both modes I found to be every bit as addictive and satisfying as the main Tetris. BomBliss is no second banana, but it does have a sharp learning curve to it. It took me a while to be able to judge how much damage and range any bombs bigger than singles would get me. It’s worth getting good at though. Realistically, you can skip the Famicom game and just play this one. It’s the same game, more or less. Combined, they’re worth about five bucks, so I’ll say.. Verdict: YES! – $3 in value added to Tetris Forever
Tetris Battle Gaiden Platform: Super Famicom Released December 24, 1993 Directed by Richard Rogers Developed by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
You’re going to have to trust me: this makes sense.
If I had to guess which review will be the most controversial among the Tetris Forever titles, it’s a sure-fire bet this is it. Because I really didn’t like Battle Gaiden at all. If you have people near you of roughly equal skill level, take this whole review with a grain of salt, because Tetris with local-only multiplayer isn’t worth much to me. Among other things, and this isn’t trying to sound like a flex but there’s nobody in my home who can possibly hope to take me. Dad and my nephew TJ, who have each both won exactly 0 games of Tetris 99, were told to practice specifically at this game. I annihilated both of them so fast their heads were spinning. Mind you, when they played each-other, it was exciting to watch as they were, more or less, evenly matched, and a couple of their bouts went pretty long. If one best of three series didn’t go fifteen minutes, I’d be stunned. That wasn’t the case with me, and although it gave me a tiny hit of self-esteem to hear my father mutter “holy crap” when I played the first match against TJ, the reality is I’m a 35 year old defeating an 11 year old who didn’t play his first game of Tetris until I basically paid him to last month. My best chance at giving Tetris Battle Gaiden a YES! was against the computer, but it quickly became clear a YES! was not happening.
At first, I thought if Tetris Battle Gaiden’s extracurricular ideas had a little more pep in their step, I’d probably have given it a YES! anyway. But the deeper I looked at the character roster, the more I realized where Tetris Gaiden REALLY goes wrong.
There’s four major problems with Tetris Battle Gaiden. The first is that the power-ups completely interrupt the gameplay. There’s too much non-gameplay graphics involved. If the powers worked with a quick, snappy effect, it would have been so much better. But the characters linger on the screen too long, and the effects they create can take too long to apply. This leads into the second problem: there’s just too many power crystals available. Instead of basing the power-ups on how well you play, the game comes down to waiting for blocks that have the crystals and entering into a series of staring contests with your opponent, trying to time it so you’re the one getting the blocks with the crystals. This is caused by the third problem: you both share one pool of blocks. Normally, this would be a good idea. Hell, a GREAT idea, but it doesn’t work with the crystal system. The superpowers they unleash are so potentially devastating that even a novice player knows to base their actions around trying to get blocks that have the crystals, which you get just by clearing single lines. You get them regardless of whether you create gaps in the stack. They’re far too common and far too easy to get, and their presence absolutely murders the flow of Tetris Battle Gaiden. The game never recovers. “Staring Contest” is wrong. It’s a game of chicken, but a slow one. Really slow.
Even on the default difficulty, I lost a lot of matches to the AI with some of the characters. But, with the Princess, I flew through the game undefeated, and never came close to losing a single match. I wouldn’t normally consider one overpowered character to be a deal breaker in a local-only multiplayer game, because anyone can make house rules (show of hands, who here has uttered the phrase “no Oddjob!” in their lives?). But Tetris Gaiden was already not a good game. This just seals it.
The three issues above would be enough to lock-in a NO! for Tetris Battle Gaiden. Where it becomes historically inept is in the characters themselves, and more specifically, their game-breaking superpowers. Each character has four unique powers that cost between 1 and 4 crystals to use, and the one good thing I can say about Tetris Gaiden is it doesn’t let you carry more than four crystals at a time. Hell, the actual Tetris playing would just stop if that were the case. I found one character specifically to be so overpowered that I told my family “you better ban me from using her.” It’s the Princess. Only her first power is balanced: clearing a 3-segment long column from the stack, basically creating a giant canyon in it. That’s fine. It’s the other three that are absurd. Her level 2 power is a shield that not only blocks the next use of a superpower by an opponent, but actually reverses it onto them. This was especially effective when playing humans, who might not glance over to your side of the screen to see you’ve used a power.
Hope you can read Japanese, because otherwise you won’t be able to read this curse by a boss. It randomized the buttons, so up might rotate, and left might use your superpower. There are NO English ROM hacks in Tetris Forever. Brush on your Japanese, folks. It’s fun!
Her third power is more useful than pretty much everyone else’s most expensive power. For the low cost of three crystals, you can prevent your opponent from being able to rotate pieces for the next three blocks. Her final power is the ability to turn your stack into an exact copy of your opponent’s stack. When a superpower is activated, both players lose their next block, and the player who activated the power gets whatever is the next piece in the chute. So if your opponent is about to hit a Tetris, not only do you block that from happening, but YOU GET THE TETRIS. It’s too much, but I already hated Tetris Battle Gaiden anyway. It takes away from Tetris gameplay instead of enhancing it, which makes it one of the worst versions of Tetris I’ve ever played. I take a lot of comfort from the fact that Alexey Pajitnov agreed, saying that they rushed this out without balancing it. Oh god, don’t tell me they were trying to beat the release before the Street Fighter II craze ended. Man, talk about misreading the moment. They completely misjudged who their market was on this. They were essentially creating a new genre, along with Puyo Puyo’s emergence as a multiplayer favorite. Crying shame. Verdict: NO! But good job on the instruction screens, Digital Eclipse. The best ones in Tetris Forever, in my opinion.
Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss Genteiban Platform: Super Famicom Released January 21, 1994 Directed by Shunichi Nanto & Shinichi Oguri Developed by Tose Co. Ltd Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
Same old rigged game of Tetris. Bleh.
This is a limited edition reprint of Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss. It’s the exact same crappy version of Tetris and the sublime BomBliss, only there’s new puzzles for BomBliss. I chose a couple random puzzles and each time the puzzle was different from its Tetris 2 + BomBliss counterpart, so that’s a good thing. Hey, I like BomBliss’ puzzle mode. I like it a lot! However, no improvements were made to Super Tetris 2. In my one and only game of it, the game started with three square pieces, and the stack was well over halfway full before I got my first Tetris Maker, then I didn’t get another until my stack was practically reaching the ceiling. If Digital Eclipse had included a list of which puzzles had been changed or added to BomBliss, or more importantly, what puzzles in this game ONLY appear in this game and none of the three versions of BomBliss still remaining in this collection, I’d been more inclined to play it more. I suspect some of these “limited edition” puzzles will be recycled in the coming games. Verdict: YES! – $1 in value added to Tetris Forever
Super Tetris 3 Platform: Super Famicom Released December 16, 1994 Directed by Shinichi Oguri & Tarou Matunaka Developed by Tose Co. Ltd Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
Look how big the stack is. Look how many blocks are clustered together. Folks, that Tetris Maker is the first Tetris Maker I got in that round. It spit out doubles of identical blocks six times leading up to that, including three squares back-to-back-back.
For games with “super” in them, the Super Famicom versions of Tetris sure are middling versions of the game. I’m not even sure why they bothered with Super Tetris 2 or Super Tetris 3. Like the two previous Super Famicom “Super Tetris” games, the Tetris game is mediocre at best, at least in comparison to other Tetris games. Boring look. Boring backgrounds. No advance moves, or 7-bag algorithm. The best thing I can say about it is at least the B-Mode (called “classic mode”) has a wrap-up between stages telling you how many Tetrises you got. Of course, it’s all based 100% on luck, assuming the game isn’t outright rigged. There’s a four player game of Tetris called Familiss that I barely got to play. It, along with a Tetris variation and a BomBliss variation, would barely be noteworthy as modern DLC, let alone starring in a full release.
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“Sparkliss” is just BomBliss, only if the bombs exploded very slightly differently. Instead of being explosions with a blast radius, the bomb blocks in Sparkliss explode more like bombs do in Bomberman games, in straight lines. In fairness, some of the stages and puzzles feature blocks that now require two blasts to destroy. I enjoyed this fine, but goddamn this is weird. A solo BomBliss game would release for the Super Famicom (and the Game Boy) almost exactly three months after this. Why wasn’t this game saved for that? It would have made sense in Super BomBliss. Magicaliss is probably the worst Tetris variation in Tetris Forever, or second worst, depending on how you feel about Tetris Battle Gaiden. The fact that anything can compete with that trash fire is sad, indeed. What an airball Magicaliss was.
Meh.
The idea is that there’s three colors of blocks: red, blue, and green. There’s also steel blocks that are made only of single, double, or triple segments instead of the standard seven blocks of Tetris. Steel blocks can contribute to a line, but they don’t shatter when you make a line. There’s also wildcard blocks, and the big twist is if you can make a line out of a solid color (including wildcards but excluding the steel blocks), that entire color is cleared from the board, then all the steel blocks are converted into the color that was vanished. It just doesn’t work, folks. It’s BORING. While the blocks come out random in colors, you can change them into the color you want by rotating them 360 degrees (or a single twist counter-clockwise). When I realized that, in my next game I cleared 300 lines. Even then, I never got a feel for the gravity. I’m pretty sure the stack falls after matching single-color lines, but I wasn’t 100% certain on that, and the English instructions Digital Eclipse included don’t mention cascading at all. Either way, this is a slow, boring version of Tetris. The standard 25-line B-Mode was closer to decent, keeping Battle Gaiden in Tetris Forever’s cellar, but it’s closer than it should be. Super Tetris 3 is the first game in Tetris Forever that screams “soulless cash grab.” I feel bad for people who bought this in 1994, but as a +1 to Tetris Forever, eh, at least Sparkliss has the same type of puzzle mode as BomBliss, with 100 unique puzzles to solve. Verdict: YES! – $1 in value added to Tetris Forever
Super BomBliss aka Tetris Blast Platform: Game Boy Released March 17, 1995 Directed by Shinichi Oguri Developed by Tose Co. Ltd Published by Bullet-Proof Software
There really is no reason to play the original Game Boy build of Super BomBliss. The DX version is identical to it, only it has more colors (the original has an optional Super Game Boy-style four-color mode) and a puzzle mode that’s copied, puzzle-for-puzzle, from the Super Famicom game. I make a lot of jokes about sets like Tetris Forever having games for the sake of a +1, but this really is a case of this being a meaningless +1. Verdict: NO!
And I’m going to go out of order again.
Super BomBliss DX Platform: Game Boy Color Released December 10, 1999 Directed by Shunichi Nanto & Takashi Tanaka Developed by Tose Co. Ltd Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
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There IS a reason to play the Game Boy Color versions of Super BomBliss. And really, the only actual difference between it and the Super Famicom game, besides the graphics, is what’s called “Fight Mode.” It’s actually a very clever idea that should have been a slam dunk YES!, but haphazard coding and one really bad idea complicates that. Fight mode is essentially “what if there were boss fights?” You fight eight different characters who are physically on the stack, trying to either win by blowing them up enough times to eliminate their health bar OR to completely clear the entire stack, which is an automatic win. This is a GREAT idea I’d love to see explored more, but there are issues. Mostly based around this guy:
Each of the eight characters has a variety of moves and attacks that complicate the game. They might raise the stack, drill through existing blocks, or eat bombs. That’s in addition to the starting configurations of the stacks never being optimized for creating lines, so those moves are challenging enough. But, the 7th boss has one additional ability that was absolutely infuriating. He has the ability to stun-lock your movement for several seconds. ONE SECOND would be brutal enough, but having to wait four or five seconds before you can move again, when the drop speed is already pretty fast (probably level 7 speed), meant the move often gave the thing an automatic win. I couldn’t even cheat to beat this f*cking thing and lost multiple times. I had quit, and it was only when I went to grab a better screenshot of the “haha you lose” move that I finally won. When it happened, it feels like the only reason I was able to win was the game randomly spit out the right blocks for me to not get clogged up immediately. That should have been the last boss, because I beat the actual finale on only my second attempt.
I think this guy must be my mascot Sweetie’s ex. She refused to look at the screen.
A problem with the Fight Mode in general is that scoring hits never feels entirely accurate. I only ever scored a hit with singles if it happened at the bottom of the well. Anywhere else, singles almost always missed, even if the blast radius was (apparently) in the center of the enemy’s body. Hell, this happened a lot even with doubles that blew up with larger blasts. The bombs could explode and cover 90% of the baddie’s body and still not register a hit. For a while, I thought maybe it was required that you stun-lock the enemies before blasting them. This is done by dropping a piece on them, at which point this turns into Dig Dug, where the baddies become a pair of eyeballs that migrate through solid surfaces to the top of the stack. While they’re easier to hit this way, it turns out that it’s not necessary. It’s just sloppy coding and inconsistent collision detection, as sometimes I could damage anywhere, and other times I couldn’t. That, along with the unoptimized starting stacks makes Fight Mode an extremely frustrating experience. And yet, there’s something here. I’d love to see this explored more with better collision and more characters. Because this game is SO MUCH better than the god awful Super Famicom version of Super BomBliss, I’m giving it more value that I probably should. Verdict: YES! – $2 in value added to Tetris Forever If you’re REALLY nostalgic for Game Boy’s look, add $0.50 in Value for Super BomBliss
Super BomBliss Platform: Super Famicom Released March 17, 1995 Developed by Tose Co. Ltd Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan
Very funny.
Super BomBliss’ only unique feature over the Game Boy Color release is that it replaces Fight Mode with a versus mode, including one where you fight the computer. What ruins it is the starting positions. They would be bad enough in single player, but as a competitive game, it’s awful. The computer moves at superhuman speeds, so you can’t really use the “next piece” to plan ahead since both players share the bag. But, against the computer especially, the starting stacks are some of the most trollish, counter-intuitive arrangements, like something out of a sadistic ROM hack. These starting stacks would be difficult enough to work with if you had the standard seven Tetris blocks, but there’s multiple gigantic pieces, and since it’s totally random, I found even the computer was unable to make more than single lines in the Jason Voorhees level. LOOK AT IT!
Kiss my f*cking ass, game.
Why even bother with a versus COM mode if you want to be a complete c*nt about it? Games of it are slow, boring, and usually end when the computer tops out even if you never do anything. Which you really can’t in most of the stages because they didn’t build starting levels around exciting gameplay. They built them to be as obnoxious as possible. The only time I ever did well was when I got lucky with the blocks it gave me. Some levels, that’s not possible on. How did I beat the Jason Voorhees level? I dunno. I never made a single line. The computer died because it dropped blocks faster, but it never was able to arrange a bomb in the right position to drop the stack. HORRIBLE! This was not a game designed to be fun. Super Bombliss is a game that’s actively hostile towards players. It’s reprehensible. Since all the puzzles are in the Game Boy Color game, there’s really no reason to recommend playing a game that seems to loath itself like Super BomBliss SFC does. Okay, this time for real: THIS is the worst game in Tetris Forever, and I’ve never said this before about a retro collection, but Digital Eclipse should patch it out and leave the space that occupied it blank. Stick with Super BomBliss DX. Verdict: NO!
Tetris Time Warp Exclusive to Tetris Forever Released November 11, 2024 Designed by Jason Cirillo
I imagine I saw this right before I was born.
I have much, much love for Jason Cirillo, designer of the best reason to own Atari 50: Neo Breakout. Knowing Jason, I suspect that doing a Tetris game was on his bucket list and getting the call to make this was a dream come true for him. With that said, Tetris Time Warp, made with the best of intentions, was just sort of alright for me. Oh, it wins “best in set” easily. That seems like a tradition with the Gold Master Series. The Digital Eclipse originals show these old games what’s what. Time Warp is the only MODERN Tetris in this collection, IE holds, ghost pieces, wall kicks, T-Spins, etc, etc. And it’s a pretty good version in terms of play mechanics. There’s enough time for me to spend a solid minute sh*tting my pants and holding on for dear life near the top of the stack during the end game, which is my personal favorite aspect of modern Tetris. I wish someone could make a game that was ONLY that. Call it “Tetris Crush” or something. All yours, whoever wants it! If it makes you a billionaire, kick some bucks to epilepsy research or something. But, let’s say you really wanted the old version of Tetris for the Game Boy. Jason built a tribute to that build with a 150 line marathon mode. It’s very convincing, and while it’s not exactly the game everyone was hoping for, it’s pretty close, you know?
For everyone complaining about the lack of Game Boy Tetris, this is “1989 Marathon” mode. One of four single-player modes in Tetris Forever. It’s the physics of the Game Boy game, but the blocks aren’t exact matches (notably the Tetris Makers), and cleared lines are swiped out instead of blinking out. But the music and sound effects are mostly accurate. Also, the game ends after 150 lines. There’s no other modes, so it’s NOT the Game Boy Tetris, as there’s no “B Mode.” But, it’s pretty close, and more importantly, it’s pretty good. I’m awarding $2.50 in bonus value just for this.
Time Warp mode is sort of like Tetris meets WarioWare. It’s a mostly a standard modern game of Tetris, with the twist being “time warp blocks.” Every time you reach ten lines, the next block will be a time warp block. These blocks cannot be held, but otherwise they function exactly like Tetris blocks. However, when you clear any one part of them, you “time warp” to one of three different eras: Electronika, some bomb-based Tetris that’s kind of like BomBliss, and the Game Boy release. You’re not just playing those eras like normal Tetris, either. There’s one specific goal for each. The Electronika version is always “get four lines.” The Game Boy version is always “score a double.” The bomb Tetris that isn’t quite BomBliss is always “detonate a big bomb.” You have twenty seconds to finish each of these goals, and completing them scores a lot of points. It’s a fun idea, but the problem is that you only can play all three modes if you drop the time warp block when it’s in its Electronika configuration. Drop it in the Game Boy configuration, and you get to play two. In the bomb configuration, and it’s only that one mode. My gut feeling is that, with only three destinations, this was an ambitious idea that didn’t quite pan out as the developer hoped. It’s just too limited, to the point that I began opting to use the gold part of the time warp blocks, which doesn’t “send you back in time” and instead creates a cascade that, more importantly, erases all the gaps you’ve left.
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Nearly every game I played of the marathon mode lasted roughly twenty minutes and ended around level 15. I just couldn’t get further than that. It becomes too hard to time the time warp blocks to get the gold side, but the crappy part is, the blocks go too fast to really play the Electronika version. By the time the game started, the first block had already dropped and screwed me up. A single half-second long grace period would probably fix this, and it would do wonders for the long game. It might very well save the endless version of the game. The best part of Tetris Time Warp for me was the three minute mode. With it, I found the potently addictive side of Time Warp that makes Tetris work. It’s not as fun to marathon the Time Warp mode as it should be. But, once everything became a race against the clock, suddenly Time Warp found its groove. Wisely, the primary timer pauses when you activate a time warp, so three minutes is really like four or five minutes, but that’s perfect for this format. I really hate to come across like I’m disappointed in Time Warp, because I really did enjoy it a lot. What a tall task Jason Cirillo had: not only paying tribute to Tetris’ past, but making a game that feels slick and modern while doing so. He certainly didn’t fail, but it’s not exactly a rousing success, either. Again, this is the best part of Tetris Forever’s game lineup. But I don’t think Time Warp will be a Tetris I come back to after this. Verdict: YES! – $5 in value added + $2.50 Bonus for the Game Boy rebuild – $7.50 Total
FINAL TALLY – NINETEEN GAMES (following 12-20-24 update) YES!: 11 games totaling $26.50 in overall value (including bonus value). NO!: 8 games. + $35 for Main Feature & Emulation GOAL: $35 in Value FINAL VALUE: $61.50 $29.74 (normally $34.99) fell down a well in the making of this review.
BONUS REVIEWS
THESE ARE NOT INCLUDED IN TETRIS FOREVER! THESE DO NOT AFFECT THE FINAL VERDICT! THIS IS JUST FOR FUNSIES! IN ORDER OF RELEASE
And I want to thank my friend Dave Sanders who acted as my special consultant for the bonus reviews. Meaning he found roughly 25% of the games featured here and shot me puppy dog eyes until I agreed to review them.
BONUS REVIEWS OF GAMES NOT INCLUDED IN TETRIS FOREVER
Tetris (MSX, 1988)
Tetris (Atari Games – Arcade, 1988)
Tetris (Sega – Arcade, 1988)
Tetris (Sega Mega Drive, Unreleased)
Tetris (Tengen – NES, 1989)
Tetris (Game Boy, 1989)
Flash Point (Arcade, 1989)
BlockOut (Arcade, 1989)
Tetris (Nintendo – NES, 1989)
BlockOut (NES, Unreleased)
Nintendo World Championships 1990 (NES, Competition Cartridge)
Pyramid (NES, 1990)
Tetris (Nintendo Game Watch, 1990)
Pipe Dream (Arcade, 1990)
Bloxeed (Arcade, 1990)
Klax (Arcade, 1990)
Klax (Atari Lynx, 1990)
Columns (Arcade, 1990)
Hatris (Arcade, 1990)
Klax (Atari 2600, 1990)
Knight Move (Famicom, 1990)
Klax (NES, 1990)
Dr. Mario (NES, 1990)
Dr. Mario (Game Boy, 1990)
Klax (TurboGrafx-16, 1990)
Columns II: The Voyage Through Time (Arcade, 1990)
Pipe Dream (NES, 1990)
Klax (Tengen – Sega Genesis, 1990)
Klax (Namco, Sega Genesis, 1990)
Welltris (Arcade, 1991)
Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen (Famicom, 1991)
Hatris (PC Engine, 1991)
Puyo Puyo (Famicom, 1991)
Yoshi (NES, 1991)
Wordtris (SNES, 1992)
Oh My God! (Arcade, 1992)
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine/Kirby’s Avalanche (Sega Genesis, 1993/SNES, 1995)
Poto Poto (Arcade, 1994)
Tetris 2 (SNES, 1994)
Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES, 1994)
Bust-a-Move (SNES, 1995)
Baku Baku Animal (Arcade, 1995)
V-Tetris (Virtual Boy, 1995)
Virtual Lab (Virtual Boy, 1995)
3D-Tetris (Virtual Boy, 1996)
Tetris Platform: MSX2 Released in 1988 Developed by Rowan Software Ltd. Published by Mirrorsoft NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
THAT is a damn good looking game of Tetris right there.
UPDATE: I messed up and credited this as an original MSX game, but this is, in fact, the MSX2 version of Tetris. I will try to include the original MSX Tetris in Part Two.
Now that MSX is starting to get some modern love, hey Digital Eclipse, Atari, and The Tetris Company: if you keep updating Tetris Forever with more games, or even if you just want a +1 for DLC, this version is absolutely worth a look. Okay, it’s just Tetris and a close cousin to the Famicom version, but judging purely by the look, this is the better game. Annoyingly, it has a similar control scheme to the Famicom Tetris. You press DOWN to rotate while the face buttons (or space bar) are hard drop. My brain couldn’t make the adjustment and so I kept clogging up the damn playfield. This is basically a more colorful version of the Famicom game where the “B-Mode” is the only mode. You’re clearing 25 lines per a round and you have lives. One slight idiosyncrasy: MSX Tetris appears to be a 10×22 grid, but the blocks spawn at the 3rd segment from the top, making this a more common 10×20 grid. The first two rows are inaccessible and will lead to you dying. So the top of the well is NOT the top of the well. Otherwise, if Tetris worked for you on the Famicom, you might want to give this version a try, because it’s more or less the same game but more beautiful, in my opinion. Verdict: YES!
Tetris Platform: Arcade Released in 1988 (?) or February, 1989 Designed by Ed Logg Distributed by Atari Games NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Don’t listen to anyone who says this is, more or less, the same as the NES game. It’s not. At all.
I almost skipped this, and in fact, I’m writing this review a few days after having played and reviewed Tengen Tetris for the NES (coming up soon). I barely liked Tengen Tetris and hung my YES! purely on its co-op mode. I decided, for the sake of thoroughness, I better boot-up Ed Logg’s coin-op original, just to make sure. Thank God I did. This thing has a lot more going for it, and in fact, is not just Tetris. The game is broken up into bite-sized chunks that end after X amount of lines. After just a few levels of normal Tetris B-Mode, twists start coming. Actually, one is there right from the start: this is the first Tetris to incentivize having the stack be as low to the floor as possible when you clear the final line, for bonus points and a celebratory Russian dance. Then, after a few levels, Atari Tetris becomes a more refined, quick and punchy version of Tetris’ B-Mode, with garbage blocks. Okay, so what? I’ve played that mode in over twenty different games now. Then, this happened:
I’ve circled the “magic garbage pixel.”
Brand new garbage pixels appear every few block drops. Just one at a time. Okay, THAT is a one-off twist that I’d like to see explored more. The placement of them does seem to be completely random. If I rewound and did it again, it would appear in a different spot, with the only rule seemingly being the pixel always appears on top of whatever is the highest block in a column. It’s a super small change, but as I learned when I reviewed From Below, tiny changes in Tetris can yield big gameplay results. What I liked about it was that the pixels can both help and hurt you, depending on blind luck. I might have had no “clean” area to place the Z block or even the square block that was next, but then the game randomly bailed me out by placing a pixel in a way that saves me from needing to create a gap. Sure, it screwed me sometimes, but I still totally dig this idea and would like to see more of it. In fact, that gimmick isn’t in this version of Tetris enough! It only happens in a few stages. Atari Arcade Tetris also has levels where the blocks rise up, and the garbage block patterns aren’t random. This is a strong, varied build of Tetris, and I really liked it.
FOUR Tetris Makers in a row. You absolute bastard.
Even the pace is better than most Tetris games. The Atari Games build gets some pep in its step much faster than its NES little brother. You’re going to see this regularly in this feature with arcade games. They need to make money, and players camping on them for hours on a single quarter isn’t a viable business strategy, so they have to kick you in the ass. My father and I placed bets on how long my average first game in arcades would be, no cheating allowed. I said twenty minutes. Dad said seven minutes. In this version of Tetris, I would have lost under Price is Right rules, as I lasted about thirteen minutes before the blocks started coming out too fast for me to work with. BUT, you can continue by ponying up another quarter. Good call that was. You’re reading this second in the bonus reviews, but I’m writing this part last: having gone through all these different Tetris games, Ed Logg’s arcade build scales the best of all the coin-ops, and maybe the best in all of Tetris. The only thing it’s missing is the usual stuff: missing 7-bag, left/right movement late in the game, shapes falling in clusters. At least the blocks are more colorful than the bland NES ones, and the cane coming out and grabbing the dancer cracked me up. I’m about to be pretty hard on the Tengen Tetris, or as hard on it as YES! games get. But for the coin-op, I didn’t even have to think about my verdict. All parties involved really need to figure out the rights situation with this, because this build deserves to be celebrated in the 2020s. Verdict: YES!
Tetris Platform: Arcade – Sega System 16 & Sega System E Released December, 1988 Developed by Esco Boueki NO MODERN RELEASE*
*Included in Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 28 for the PlayStation 2 exclusively in Japan
31 lines. Goddamn, Cathy. Yikes.
Yep, this is a hard version of Tetris. It’s also practically deified by Japanese Tetris players. There’s a LOT of lore surrounding Sega’s Tetris. For example: it’s one of the few Tetris games that players can form a concrete strategy for. Why’s that? Because it will give you the same order of bricks every time you turn it on. It’s called the Power-On Pattern. They have a list of the first 1,000 blocks you’ll get! Whoa! It’s also probably the first Tetris with “lock delay” meaning you get a grace period to move a landed block around before it fuses to the stack. No lock-delay = no ceiling crush, which is my favorite part of Tetris. So, you know, thanks Sega for accidentally inventing the part of Tetris I like most! But, I really don’t get the worship of this version of Tetris. Sorry, fans. Yea, I’m resigned to the fact that this is the review that’s going to get me skinned alive.
SPLIT DECISION – Sega System 16
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Again, this is the first version of Tetris that is basically “Tetris – Hard Mode.” Even on easy, the gravity feels heavy and sluggish with the lock delay, and the speed picks up very quickly. Too quickly, for my tastes, but then suddenly slows down, too. Weird. I like to start on level 0 and tapper-up gradually, but there’s none of that in Sega Tetris. Whether you’re using the legendary starting seed of blocks or not, I found this had one of the worst block algorithms. There’s just too many runs of nearly identical blocks, or large runs of only two types of blocks. Want to know why Tetris Time Warp scored $7.50 in value? In large part it’s due to the 7-bag algorithm. It quickly became apparent to me in the main Tetris Forever review that it was an invention almost equally as important as the game itself. Tetris before then could be pretty demoralizing, and I found Sega’s arcade Tetris, cherished and beloved by generations before me as perhaps THE iconic Tetris, to be not very fun. Verdict: NO!
SPLIT DECISION – Sega System E
The Sega System E version has the same rhythm and similar whiplash-like speed, only with much older-looking graphics. And it’s a better game of Tetris.
Sigh. Yea, this is going to get people mad at me, since I know the reputation is this is the “inferior” version of Sega Arcade Tetris. But, whereas I barely didn’t like the System 16 build, the System E build is a little more kinder and thus I liked it just enough to push it over the threshold. The punishing gravity takes a bit longer to kick in. Whereas I was constantly being wiped-out in 60 lines or under on the System 16, I could get to 70 or 80 consistently on this one. The problem is, by that point the blocks won’t even turn most of the time. Not EVERY time, which is weird. It makes me wonder if I broke something. It’s certainly a blander presentation, but actually I think I prefer the stark, colorful presentation of Tetris – System E to the photographic backdrops of the System 16 version. In my heart, it feels like the two versions are neck-and-neck, but the reality is I wouldn’t hate playing the System E version again, whereas I’m never playing the System 16 version, and that’s about as clear a win as it gets. Verdict: YES!
Tetris Platform: Sega Mega Drive Completed Unreleased* Prototype Intended for Release April 15, 1989 Programmed by Naoki Okabe Developed by Sega NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED**
*Less than ten copies are known to exist of Tetris for the Mega Drive. The carts on the collector’s market were created for press/media to evaluate and review for magazines ahead of release. Carts manufactured and distributed to press/media should not count as “released.” **The version of Tetris included in the Sega Genesis Mini is NOT the same game.
This was with “items turned on” though it doesn’t tell you what they do. It’s just a blinking block that randomly gives an effect if you make even a single line with it. By the time I got to around 260, I couldn’t really get full rotations. Thankfully this game gave me an absolute ton of reverse L blocks that I could lay down. Well, until I couldn’t rotate them even once.
Genesis/Mega Drive fans: if I were you, I’d save your $30,000. The holy grail for Sega collectors is this cancelled at the last possible moment version of Tetris that never got past the first push of the manufacturing button. I assume there’s a button and a machine with a speaker that plays Powerhouse. And if that’s not true, please don’t tell me. I need this to be true. Anyway, “under” ten copies are known to exist. The version that’s on the Sega Genesis Mini is NOT related to this. That version is basically a direct port of the System 16 coin-op I just reviewed. For all of this version’s problems, it IS a home port that scales properly instead of needing to knock you out in ten minutes or less. The only similarity that the holy grail version has to the Mini’s Tetris is that it uses the “Sega Rotation System.” That’s described on the Sega Retro page as “rigid” and I’d agree. MD Tetris has some of the most wildly imbalanced block drops I’ve experienced. One game I got so hosed on Tetris Makers that, even after 100 lines, the meter for it was nearly at the bottom. In the above game, the reverse-L blocks lapped the damn meter with plenty of room to spare. I found this Tetris to generally be unresponsive and poor with its rotation mechanics. Sega rushed this one through production, and it shows. The Tetris created for the Genny Mini is superior, for certain. Verdict: NO!
Tetris Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released May, 1989 Designed by Ed Logg Developed by Tengen (Atari Games) NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
In the game of Go, “Atari” roughly means “check” but my understanding is nobody actually says it except novices. I think it’s actually a social taboo to declare “Atari.” Rude, or something like that. Either way, Atari Games originally had been the arcade division of Nolan Bushnell’s Atari until Warner Bros. sold the company to Jack Tramiel. It’s really best to think of it as Warner split the company into two, selling the home video game and computer division to Tramiel while retaining the coin-op division, which was called “Atari Games” in arcades. But, they couldn’t call themselves that for home video games, so they needed a new label, and thus TENGEN was born. In keeping with the Go theme, Tengen is the center of the Go board. After he was fired from his own company, Nolan Bushnell started a new company named Sente, the equivalent of “checkmate” in Go.
Tengen Tetris is one of the most (in)famous games ever made, and one of the biggest casualties of the whole rights fiasco with Tetris. In a nutshell: Atari Games sure thought they had the rights to Tetris via a flow chart’s worth of sub-licensing. To this day, people who were at Atari Games at the time insist the Russians knowingly double-dipped, but the facts don’t back that up. It turned out, the guy who started this whole sub-licensing tragedy, Robert Stein, only *thought* he had the world-wide rights to Tetris. Why did he think that? Well, it’s because he had the “computer” rights. And, because technically all video games are computers, that essentially means Stein had all the rights, right? From there, Stein licensed the rights to Tetris to Mirrorsoft, who then sub-licensed portions of the rights all over the world. Often, those sub-licensors then ALSO sub-licensed their sub-license. For example, the Sega arcade Tetris came about from them getting the license from Atari, who believed they owned the worldwide arcade rights. The thing is, all Stein really had, in the most generous interpretation of it, is a letter of intent and not a contract like you or I would recognize as a standard contract. What he had, issued from Soviet Russia, would never have been considered legally binding in a million years. Whether or not Stein knew that isn’t entirely clear. Through all of this, the Russians had no idea about any sub-licensing or that Tetris was a hit, and possibly didn’t even realize that their royalties on Tetris were downright lousy. They needed more practice at capitalism. They were about to get it.
Stein comes across as a buffoon in the film, and even a villain if you just read the plain text of the story of Tetris. Like some kind of greedy miser who did nothing but sub-lease a game like a digital slumlord or something. From everything I’ve heard, nothing could be further from the truth. One of the best privileges I’ve had at Indie Gamer Chick is I’ve gotten to befriend a LOT of gaming legends, a few of whom crossed paths with Stein over the years, and they all really liked him. My friends who met him all said Robert Stein was a good man. And he did find Tetris.. for all of us. So, I’d like to ask everyone reading to take a moment and lift a glass to Robert Stein, who passed away in 2018. 🍺 Cheers to Robert Stein! Thank you for bringing Tetris to the world! 🍻
And then, Henk Rogers showed up in Russia to personally negotiate and secure the HANDHELD rights to Tetris for his partnership with Nintendo. See, Rogers had already been burned by Tetris, believing he had secured the arcade rights in Japan from Atari via Mirrorsoft via Stein (you really need a flow chart). But then Sega came in and, going over Atari’s head, undercut him with a bid to Mirrorsoft for Japanese arcade rights. Rogers had already started development of the arcade game, but it was dead. All he had was PC and console rights in Japan. Rogers wanted to ensure that couldn’t happen with Game Boy Tetris, so he would get the rights directly from the Soviets. By the way, you absolutely could NOT just go to Russia at the time to talk shop. You needed diplomatic permission and lots of other paperwork that he didn’t have. He knew he could have been arrested straight out of the airport and detained without trial, maybe even get accused of being a spy, but he went anyway. When Rogers dies, they’re going to need a forklift to stand-in as a pallbearer due to the weight of his massive balls. Once there, Rogers brought to the Soviets’ attention the existence of consoles and the differences between them and home computers.
YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARD OF A GAME! Seriously, how did it take Tetris so long for anyone to invent 7-bag?
This is where the story gets so insane that they made a movie about it: unknown to Rogers, Stein showed up the same day Rogers did in Russia, hoping to have the Russians clarify the terms of his contract, unaware Rogers was just a few rooms over. With help from Rogers, the Russians drew up a new contract on the fly that unambiguously defined the differences between computer, console, and arcade games, and then pressured Stein to sign it. They also changed a few of the numbers around, which is all Stein really focused on. He was pissed, but he needed this signed, sealed, and delivered. Everything depended on it, because he had already sub-licensed Tetris so many times, so he signed it. What Stein didn’t catch was the new definitions of what a computer game was, so when he signed the papers, he didn’t realize he’d essentially admitted the only rights he’d ever held were PC rights. With the stroke of his own pen, Stein invalidated nearly every sub-license he AND Mirrorsoft had ever sold. AND THEN, a third guy, Kevin Maxwell of Mirrorsoft, the #1 sub-licensor of Tetris, showed up AT THE SAME TIME, again without the other two being aware of it. He was trying to secure the handheld Tetris rights from Stein with the intent to then sub-license that sub-license to Atari for the Lynx. The Maxwells recognized Stein’s contract wasn’t legally binding, and Stein was already delinquent with the Russians on royalty payments because the Maxwells were broke and not making payments to him. Kevin Maxwell was there to grease the skids with the Soviets to make sure everything became official. Mirrorsoft was offering the Soviets $1,000,000 Maxwell didn’t have as their company was insolvent at the time and soon to be charged with massive fraud. The movie implies that the Soviets would understand the money would never come to them because capitalism = evil and it was really a trade of Tetris for the Russian publishing rights to Collier’s Encyclopedias. I mean, JESUS CHRIST, what a clusterf*ck!
How Tengen Tetris handles scoring is weird. You don’t get any consequential points during live gameplay for lines. But, in thirty-line intervals, you get a wrap-up bonus, then return to the stack you had. The problem is, as you level-up, the values for things like Tetrises don’t increase. It’s better than the old computer scoring systems, but not THAT much better.
When the Russians showed Maxwell a copy of Bullet-Proof Software’s Tetris for Famicom, he told them he didn’t authorize it or know about it and “it must be a bootleg!” With just that statement, Maxwell inadvertently proved to the Russians (1) that Mirrorsoft considered consoles separate from computers (2) that they had no clue what rights they or anyone else held to Tetris (3) had been offering licenses they never had in the first place (4) had very little product knowledge of the worldwide Tetris market and (5) were actively undercutting other good faith licensees, which even the Russians could grasp was bad for business. Because Henk Rogers brought this whole situation to Soviets’ attention and presented himself as an honest guy who genuinely knew and cared about the game, the Russians shocked him by offering him a chance to bid for the worldwide VIDEO GAME rights to Tetris, which he secured with an assist from Nintendo. And that was the end of the story. Oh, wait a second..
Uh oh.
Atari Games thought they already had the video game rights via Mirrorsoft via Stein, and had already essentially finished their own NES Tetris to be published under their Tengen label. Nintendo and Atari Games were already in court over Atari’s unauthorized NES carts when they had to go to court over Tetris as well. Nintendo wanted Atari to stop making their version, since they had the rights. One thing not mentioned in Tetris Forever is that Nintendo’s licensing agreement, straight from the Russians themselves, was so irrefutable that the judge took one look at the contract and immediately cancelled the entire trial, declaring Nintendo the sole owners of the Tetris license. Tengen Tetris had to be recalled, making it a cherished collectable today. The shame is, a lot of people considered Tengen’s build of Tetris to be superior to Nintendo’s.
I’m not among those people. In fact, I think this is one of the weaker console Tetris games. While it has a few bells and whistles, like telling you how many of each block you’ve gotten, there’s no 7-bag algorithm to keep it balanced. I was constantly getting clusters of the same blocks. It’s also one of the uglier games of Tetris. Just very bland on the presentation thanks to the limits of the NES forcing the stack to turn gray instead of the blocks remaining colorful after being locked, like in the coin-op. Worst of all, while this Tetris might offer more flexibility with its modes, the lack of progressive scoring hurts greatly in my opinion. A Tetris is worth 2,500 points whether the speed is at 1 or 9, and that just isn’t interesting for me. Neither is the versus mode. It’s really just two players doing their own games side-by-side, each interrupting the other whenever they reach the thirty line break period.
Now THIS got my attention.
Cooperative mode is the real treasure of Tengen Tetris. Both players control their own block as they place them in an extra-wide well. Actually, it’s 12 segments wide instead of 11, so one segment wider. I’m not sure if that counts as “extra wide” but it’s nice. You can play with the computer, but the AI is absolutely moronic, only going for singles and constantly getting in the way. But, with a second player? It’s an interesting experience to say the least, especially if you’re both game. If you don’t have a second player, I think Tengen Tetris is massively overrated. It comes with the pedigree of being made by the guy who made Asteroids and Centipede, but this is a very boring version of Tetris. Boring scoring. Boring presentation. It also takes FOREVER to get going. In my first game, I scored the most tedious 371 lines I’ve ever had in a game of Tetris. I genuinely can’t believe a lot of people consider this superior to Nintendo’s. I think people want to cheer for it, myself included, because of the story behind it. Everyone loves a plucky underdog, but gun to my head, I’d rather have the Nintendo version. Cooperative is the only aspect worth a look, but in fairness, it is worth a look so.. Verdict: YES!
Tetris Platform: Game Boy Released June 14, 1989 Designed by Masao Yamamoto Developed by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
7 Tetrises is enough for you. Die now.
It’s the most famous version of Tetris. It’s one of the most famous video games EVER. It’s likely the most played version of Tetris ever made. It’s Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov’s favorite version of his own game. It’s also the last game in this feature that’s older than me, by only 27 days. For many people, THIS is Tetris. And it’s one of the most frustrating versions to review, based on that towering history. Is it good? Sure. If this had been Tengen Tetris, with its ultra-bland presentation, nah. We wouldn’t be here today, talking about Tetris as one of the all-time greats. I’d be reviewing Tetris for the Game Gear or Lynx, saying it’s fine but nothing special. Nintendo was really the first studio to bring out the best in Tetris. That said “yea, blocks can have personality!” That it’s not just the Russian angle, but the kinetic energy of Tetris that makes it work. With that said, this certainly isn’t a perfect game of Tetris.
My best game, and note that I started this one on Level 9. The T block on the bottom right side was the end. My highest total of lines was 212. It’s worth noting that the world record is 441. HOW?!
I tried to play as many games of as many versions of Tetris as humanly possible for this feature, and the Game Boy Tetris was one of the absolute worst for simply not giving enough Tetris Makers. There are versions of Tetris where I walked away convinced that the game was rigged, and GB Tetris was worse about distribution than they were. I don’t think it’s rigged, though, because when I used rewind, I noticed that it gave the same blocks. It just doesn’t evenly distribute the blocks. Regardless of the game, Tetris Makers are just distributed less. This combines with some of the hardest left-right movement in the franchise. In my best game, I was very happy to keep the stack low, and after a certain point, I just couldn’t get the blocks down into the right wall, even if the stack was nearly empty. I got good enough that, with conservative play, I could reach 200 lines or close enough every time. 202. 208. 205. But, I never got more than 212. I don’t remember the left side ever giving me problems, but my trick of flipping the block to get it to the right side of the board stopped working, and as soon as I got an assortment of blocks that I would need to eat more than a couple gaps, the game was over.
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The first time I played the B-Mode on level 9-5, I thought “there’s no way I’m going to finish this.” I even wrote a note that I’d have a section in the review discussing it. But then I got both a favorable arrangement of garbage blocks AND the right assortment of blocks. Happened quickly too, on only my third game. But, make no mistake: I did get lucky. I’m convinced that 9-5 can spit out arrangements that are unbeatable. You just can’t move left/right fast enough. Really, that’s the Tetris Game Boy experience in a nutshell: you’re going to need luck. It brings all the best traits and worst traits for those early Tetris games. It has personality, with charming graphics and music, along with satisfying effects for line clears (my father says that the Tetris noise “sounds like an elephant stepping on a nail”). It’s also one of the few Tetris games in this feature that routinely saw me die at under 50 lines. I was convinced I’d never be that bad at Tetris again. If you only like the modern version of Tetris, you’ll probably hate this game. The blocks lock faster than any other version I’ve seen. It’s the cruelest of all those early versions. That’s why I think fans of modern Tetris should lift a glass to Game Boy Tetris. I have no doubt it inspired the modern game through the sheer volume of people whining about the same things I just did. That has to count for something! Verdict: YES!
Flash Point Platform: Arcade – Sega System 16 Released July 28, 1989 Developed by Esco Boueki Distributed by Sega NO MODERN RELEASE*
*Included in Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 28 for the PlayStation 2 exclusively in Japan
I was excited to play Flash Point in multiplayer, but it’s actually not head-to-head multiplayer. It’s just two separate games played side-by-side. Smart, I guess. It means one machine can accommodate two separate single players at the same time, though I imagine that was crowded. With that said, I gave my father a five minute head start and said I’d race him to level 10. I forgot how damn hard level 9 is.
You know what’s neat? This has a 1 in 31 chance of having been released on the day I was born. So much for that. Missed my birthday by 17 days. Anyway. I didn’t enjoy Sega’s legendary Tetris arcade game, but this spin-off that uses the same engine? I enjoyed it well enough, warts and all. Flash Point (and its sibling Bloxeed) is certainly one of the most underrated games in the Tetris “franchise” for lack of a better term. It shares a lot of DNA with Nintendo’s Tetris 2, aka Tetris Flash (review coming up), but with smarter patterns and the standard roster of seven blocks. Each level has a starting stack with two “flash points” and the object is to knock them out as fast as possible via traditional Tetris mechanics. I’m pretty sure that each level gives you the same blocks in the same order every time, as even when I died, the next virtual quarter I inserted led to the same blocks being spit out in the same order. That’s fine with me. This is a Tetris game where the emphasis is on puzzles. It’s also got a lot more personality than many early Tetris games, featuring cameos from Alex Kidd, Opa-Opa (the ship from Fantasy Zone), Flicky, and Ninja Princess. Hey, this might be the best game Alex Kidd was ever in.
I had played this stage for over four-and-a-half minutes before winning. I literally cheered when I finally got it. The next level I beat in 24 seconds. Flash Point’s difficulty curve is all over the place.
What I wasn’t fine with is Flash Point’s tendency to spit out strings of similar blocks. It’s one of the most prone to “block parades” in Tetris history. Since each level has blocks that come out in specific orders, I have to imagine it’s intentional. With that said, the biggest issue is probably the up-and-down nature of the difficulty. Granted, I didn’t always make the best decisions, but some levels took me quite a bit of work to dig myself enough space to create a line that could clear the flash points. It was uncanny how I could spend four minutes on one level and beat the next stage in a few seconds. But, it was always exhilarating either way. I have one more game in the trilogy of Sega Tetris games to go in this feature, but seriously, Flash Point is good enough that I want to appeal to my friends at Atari and Sega: call each-other, sit down, and figure this sh*t out, because Flash Point (and Sega’s contributions to the legend of Tetris in general) deserves to be celebrated. If it takes doing a $9.99 or even $14.99 DLC set that only has the three arcade games and the unreleased Genesis game, plus a couple Sega-based interviews, I think it’s worth it. Please, figure it out. Verdict: YES!
BlockOut Platform: Arcade Released October, 1989 Designed by Aleksander Ustaszewski & Mirosław Zabłocki Developed by California Dreams Distributed by American Technos Included in Technos Arcade 1 for Evercade
Man, the surprises keep coming with this feature. I would totally recommend anyone who’s skeptical that a Tetris/falling block marathon like I’m doing wouldn’t get old fast, try it for yourself! You’ll be stunned at how rewarding it is to feel the incremental evolution of not just Tetris, but all the games based around it. This is my favorite feature EVER in the history of Indie Gamer Chick. I’m just so happy I don’t know what to do with myself! There’s a reason why I kept adding games. It ain’t for you guys. It’s for me! I’m having the best time and I can’t believe it! LOOK AT ALL THE YES! VERDICTS IN THIS FEATURE! I’ve died and gone to gaming heaven.
At the beginning of this project, I was completely certain that no 3D Tetris would score a YES! And I’m not counting Tetrisphere as a 3D Tetris game. I mean this, Welltris, the Virtual Boy game, etc. Hey, I keep an open mind and give every game a clean slate, but my prior experiences with any attempts at 3D Tetris games was a total disaster of unintuitive controls and incomprehensible wire-frames. Well, here’s the first of its breed, beating even the first official 3D Tetris, Welltris, to the market. Barely, but barely counts. As both a high concept puzzler AND an early attempt at 3D gaming, I did not, would not, and could not believe that this could possibly hold up. And I was wrong, wrong, WRONG! BlockOut is fantastic, even with some of the more common problems of 3D falling block games. It’s hard to adjust to the controls. Even after a few hours, I *still* didn’t have an intuitive feel for the rotation, which is why I struggled on harder stages. The wire-frame problem also happens, and when BlockOut starts dishing-out twisty-turny blocks that poke in different directions in multiple dimensions, that’s when I really struggled. Tetris might be the perfect game, but BlockOut surely isn’t.
This is one of the twisty-turny blocks I’m talking about. I really think that if they had stuck to primary shapes and just increased the speed, BlockOut might be remembered as one of the all-time greats today.
Now, with that said, BlockOut is a very good video game. I think the secret sauce is in the wide variety of wells. Instead of one standardized playfield, there’s a huge variety of wells of different sizes and shapes, so any strategy you have doesn’t apply across the board. Despite being an arcade game, it doesn’t go for the throat immediately, like most of the coin-ops in this feature do. I wonder if this was unpopular among arcade operators, who tended not to like long plays, and I can’t imagine someone lasting under fifteen minutes once they get, at minimum, a feel for the controls. Hell, if the game becomes more instinctive for them than it does me, I could imagine a player lasting quite a while on a single quarter. Makes for a good game, but maybe not a good business model.
That’s nightmare fuel. My sister called it “The Lawnmower Man starring John Malkovich.”
BlockOut does bite off more than it can chew in later stages. A problem in general is that it’s hard to know where you’ve left gaps or not. Some kind of stain on the top block of a column to alert you of a gap would help. The limitations of the graphics are BlockOut’s weakness in general. They just aren’t detailed enough to pull off some of the more advanced shapes. The wire-frames are made of a single, solid color with no shading. A sense of depth only really happens via rotating, and it works fine when the blocks all have flat sides to them. When you remove those flat sides from the equation, it’s the death knell for BlockOut’s appeal. By the time those blocks are introduced to the game, the blocks are also dropping pretty dang fast, so rotating doesn’t help all that much. The best way to describe BlockOut’s place in history is “astonishing for its time, and tragically ahead of its time” Shading, almost by itself, would have fixed every problem with BlockOut, but the tech wasn’t there yet. It’s nothing short of miraculous that, for all its problems, it still manages to outclass many of the early 3D Tetris games that followed in its wake. Verdict: YES!
Tetris Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released December, 1989 Developed by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
I was happy to make it to 150 lines and astonished that I still got a Tetris. It would be my last one, as I was dead not long after this screen was taken. Looking at this screen, I realize I had remarkable luck with block balance.
The long game of NES Tetris is one of the shorter ones if you’re not using a classic NES controller and capable of doing one of the advanced controller methods, like “speed-tapping” or more recently “rolling” which is like using the controller as a reverse drum. See, Tetris on the NES is notorious for its slow left and right movement speed on the higher levels. Even a non-hardcore Tetris-head like me could literally feel the difference while playing it. I made it to 100 several times, but I didn’t get to 150 until I played very conservatively. Then I got bored with that and went back to trying to make Tetrises. Got one, but then I screwed up a single brick, and I did it in a way where I couldn’t possibly hope to get a brick over the right of it. The drop was faster than the horizontal movement speed, which was fine if I kept the stack low enough. This was no longer “low enough” and that was all she wrote. So, this is a tough cookie, especially compared to the wimpy Tengen version. I spent the better part of a day trying to get 25 lines in the notorious B-Mode’s level 9, height 5, and the biggest problem was simply getting the blocks against the walls when I needed it.
And this is why Nintendo would never in a million years let their version be on Tetris Forever. Though the Bowser, Link, and Donkey Kong in this look, well.. we’ll say “off-model.”
For a Tetris with no 7-bag, no wall kicks, and near instant brick locking, I’m surprised this is one of the most revered among Tetris fans. By the way, there IS a bag, but the bag has 224 pieces, an even mix of the seven blocks except for one less Tetris Maker. For the purposes of strategy, it’s like having no bag at all. I think it’s the stellar presentation combined with the necessity for unorthodox controller skills that makes this an elite game of Tetris for some. It’s probably the single most studied version of Tetris ever made. These days, it’s probably more famous for how the game begins to break on higher levels in ways the developers never intended, like turning the color contrast of the blocks down to being nearly invisible. This is one charming game of Tetris. But, I don’t think it’s the best 8-bit console game of Tetris out there. Hell, I think the Famicom sequel Tetris 2 + BomBliss is better. Not by much, and it’s certainly not as captivating, but it does ultimately play better, I think. It doesn’t matter much to me, because this isn’t my style of Tetris. But, even I admit this version oozes with charm, has one of the best Tetris themes on the planet (it’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy!) and cameos by Nintendo stars for clearing the B levels on level 9. Everything is polished here except the gameplay, but at least it’s endearing for it. Verdict: YES!
BlockOut Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Nearly Complete (?) Prototype Targeted for release in Winter, 1990 Developed by Technos BlockOut at Lost Levels NEVER BEEN RELEASED
Well, it wouldn’t be a Definitive Review without at least one unreleased completed prototype.
A few years back, someone shopping at a Goodwill found this never released prototype of the surprise arcade gem BlockOut. Wow! It was actually the second known prototype of BlockOut for the NES, but the first one was not complete. This one appears to be. The Goodwill buyer sold this to a game collector for a cool $2,000, and that guy, Steve Lin, immediately dumped this ROM, preserving it forever. Class act, right there. Thank you, Mr. Lin! Unfortunately, it’s clear why BlockOut was never released. This is a case of an arcade game with a technology weakness suffering further technological downgrades in the journey home. The coin-op also had three face buttons to control rotation and a fourth button (located on top of the joystick itself) to activate a hard drop. For whatever reason, the designers opted not to utilize select for the third rotational axis. Too much is sacrificed, and it’s actually remarkable how much quality game is left intact. Shocking, really.
Underutilized buttons is one of the worst gaming problems of the 90s. I constantly encounter games that have multiple actions mapped to two buttons on even the Genesis and SNES, leaving one or more buttons completely unused. Not even START or SELECT. Face buttons! I know so many developers from that era and I’ve still never met anyone who can explain how this kept happening in a rational way. Developers of the era (or at least their bosses) seem to assume that gamers were idiots. Like they think their players would have panic attacks if they had to use more than two face buttons. “Studies show even monkeys can use three buttons, even without opposable thumbs!” “Yea? Well give them $50 and see if they spend it on Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball.” “We already tried that, and they bought Super Metroid instead.” “I rest my case!”
BlockOut on the NES doesn’t scale remotely close to the coin-op, where the object is to get X amount of “faces” (completed floors). The game has two modes, each with three sets of maps and three block sets that the player chooses. Mode A is your typical marathon mode, while the object of Mode B is to have an all-clear, however long it takes. The A mode is fatally flawed thanks to the lack of buttons. It just takes too long to rotate the blocks using only two buttons, and once the stack gets to a certain height, that becomes impossible. Like in the arcade game, the blocks “clank” against the stack, and blocks that could be inserted into a gap in two rotations or less in the coin-op take a LOT of work on the NES. Why didn’t they just use select? Sigh.
The B-Mode works better.
It’s not a total wash, because I think the B-Mode is a little stronger. Trying to score an all-clear in this format is tougher than it sounds. Although I had a tiny bit of fun, I have to concede that it often comes down to luck of getting the right blocks when you need them. The best thing I can say about BlockOut in general is it’s easier to work with blocks you don’t need in a 3D space. There’s more room to stack and strategize to get rid of those blocks later. Honestly, I thought the two button set-up, even though it was slower, worked well to start. Strong enough that I thought “maybe they should have released this!” But as the game sped up, it became clear that this just wasn’t going to work. Good try.. really good try, actually. But cancelling BlockOut on the NES was the right call. Verdict: NO!
Nintendo World Championships 1990 aka “NWC 1990” Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released in 1990 Developed by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
COME ON YOU F*CKER!
Got five-to-six figures in cash lying around to spare? The Nintendo World Championship cartridges are the holy grail of game collectors. Personally, for six figures I’d rather buy ten brand new Stern pinball tables, but to each their own. I think when the Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition launched earlier this year, based on the name, most people were hoping for something more like this than NES Remix with all the non-speed running stuff removed. The Nintendo World Championships was part of a traveling Nintendo-themed convention, and for extra money you could try your luck to become the World Champion of Nintendo. I’m friends with the guy who won it, who has the greatest name of any of my friends: Thor Aackerlund. You hear that name and you feel like you can punch through a safe. Which is funny because Thor’s a sweetheart. As for the game, what can I say? You have to speed run through three games, one of which is so random that I honestly can’t believe it’s part of this.
I finished Super Mario 1 on this screen almost every time, unless I screwed-up earlier in the run. I was pretty much hosed when that happened and reset the game.
First, you have to collect fifty coins in Super Mario Bros. After this, you jump to Rad Racer, which.. huh? It’s not exactly a game that makes you think “iconic Nintendo game.” It’s not even developed by Nintendo. It’s a Square game that was only published by Nintendo in North America. Square handled it themselves in Japan, where the game is known as Highway Star. After you complete the first course, you jump to Tetris, which is where all the points are really scored due to the imbalanced scoring rules. Your Mario scores are whatever you get. Rad Racer’s scores are multiplied by 5, while Tetris’ score is multiplied by a whopping 25. The carts had arcade-like dip switches that set the timers, with the standard challenge being 6 minutes, 21 seconds. I don’t know how they came to that number. I thought maybe 21 seconds burned up from the buffer-screens, but they’re a lot longer than 21 seconds combined. Also, I found out I initially didn’t have the correct 6:21 timer. It was five minutes and a couple seconds, which hey, my 500K game feels a lot better now. Regardless of which setting you use, the sheer amount of downtime is beyond annoying. It eats up roughly a minute by itself. Here’s the complete list of unskippable down time.
The “GET READY” followed by the “PLAY SUPER MARIO” screens that start it.
The title screen of Super Mario Bros.
The “Level 1 – 1” title card.
The level wrap-up and point accumulation when you get the flag in Super Mario Bros., including fireworks if you touch the flagpole at the right time (in this case, at the wrong time).
The Level 1-2 title card.
Entering the pipe to actually get back to gameplay in level 1-2.
Playing the “Mario Victory Theme” when you reach 50 coins.
A screen saying “GOOD JOB!” with your score.
A screen that says “PLAY RAD RACER! COMPLETE THE COURSE!”
Rad Racer’s title screen.
Rad Racer’s course map.
The red light/green light countdown before you can actually start racing in Rad Racer.
The car slowly brakes and runs off all its momentum when you finish the course in Rad Racer.
A screen saying “GREAT RACING” with your score for Rad Racer.
A screen that says “PLAY TETRIS! (Type A) GET HIGH SCORE!”
Tetris’ title screen.
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That’s a hell of a lot of downtime. SIXTEEN separate stoppages that a player will encounter, and that’s not even factoring in how screwed you are if you lose a life playing Mario or crash the car in Rad Racer. I crashed so badly once in Rad Racer where it took about ten seconds for the car to finish tumbling, roll back over, then slowly move to the middle of the road. So agonizing. But, the biggest problem by far is how unoptimized NWC is. The first two segments are essentially a race, and then with all the time you have left, you have to score as much as you can on Tetris. Why not be more optimized? Have the game logos in the transition screens instead of showing them separately?
This was my best game. Not bad for five minutes instead of the standard 6:21.
I have two big issues. The first is that I found the version of Tetris on this specific build to not be as smooth as the normal Nintendo NES build. I thought something had gone wrong with my controller and swapped it a few times. I changed emulators. The problem was there every time: it was like there were invisible brakes being applied to the blocks. I have no clue what that’s about. A much bigger issue is that you’d think they’d rig it so everyone gets the same blocks, but it seems to change from game to game. I experimented with this, and I noticed the blocks came out the same every time as long as I rewound up to the Rad Racer-to-Tetris transition screens, but if I went to Rad Racer, the blocks would change. There’s no 7-bag, and during a few sessions, I simply didn’t get a favorable arrangement of blocks. There’s only once where I got hosed on Tetris Makers, but still, imagine paying money to compete in a world championship only to get hosed by the algorithm. Out of thousands upon thousands of participants, at least a few of them must have had bad luck. God, I can’t believe people pay six figures for this thing. Verdict: NO!
Pyramid aka Pyramid II* Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Both versions released in 1990 Designed by Ma Li-Cheang Developed by Sachen Pyramid Published by American Video Entertainment Inc. Pyramid II released only Asia NO MODERN RELEASE
*I’m not playing the adult-oriented “hacked” version. I still have SOME dignity.
Oh how I hated these C-shaped blocks. BUT, once I figured out how to build for them, it wasn’t THAT bad. Some dude on GameFAQs did an extensive mathematical theory based on this game, and it’s worth a read even if you’re not a math geek.
Pop quiz: which developer was the single most prolific maker of NES games during the natural lifetime of the Family Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System? Nintendo? Capcom? Konami? Well, obviously you can guess the answer based on why I’m asking it here. It’s Sachen, a company located in Taiwan that produced games at a high rate and sent them out into the market, often unfinished. While some games made it to the US, they were mostly either sold in flea markets or through non-traditional means, but others were published by companies who refused to cooperate with Nintendo. American Video Entertainment Inc. was one such company, and while Pyramid is not among their most famous games, it’s certainly the most interesting to me. This is a very original take on the Tetris concept, where all the blocks are, in some way, triangular. You’re still trying to make lines, but it’s significantly more complicated thanks to the wide variety of sizes and potential angles you can rotate each block.
This is Pyramid II, which I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the multiplayer for. The game doesn’t end when the other player tops out. It’s just a game two people can play, independent of each-other, on the same TV at the same time. It’s the same gameplay, but with more options and a couple more power-ups. Most importantly, it also seems to spit-out a lot less of the C-shaped blocks that annoyed the hell out of me.
I can’t give Pyramid a YES! because it’s such a sloppy mess. One of the most inelegant falling block games I’ve seen when it comes to how compatible the blocks are with one another. And yet, there’s something oddly satisfying when you do manage to fit the pieces together. You know how it feels when you carve out the perfect gap for an L-block in the stack on Tetris, and then you actually get the L-block? It’s SO SATISFYING! Well, Pyramid is full of moments like that. Seriously! Maybe it’s because, with all the different sizes and angles, actually finding the perfect spot for any given brick feels like a big moment. But, it takes quite a while to build up the lines (which are just normal Tetris-like lines even with the triangles). You do get a few missiles that can be used to break the stack if you leave a gap, which get refilled if you score the max amount of line clears possible with a single brick: two. In an hour of gameplay, I only pulled it off once, but thankfully the game starts you with five missiles. Once I figured out when to use them and when not to, I wasn’t bored with Pyramid. Don’t mistake that for liking it. It completely lacks excitement. Still, I think this game gets a bad rap, as most people talk about it like it’s one of the worst “Tetris Clones” (I hate that term) but I’ve played a lot worse. Clearly there’s SOMETHING here. Had this been a modern indie game, I would have begged the developers to keep working on it, because I think there’s not just a good game buried in this tomb, but maybe even a GREAT game. Shame that we’ll never know. Verdict: NO!
Tetris Platform: Nintendo Game Watch Released in 1990 Developed by Nelsonic Industries Published in Partnership with Nintendo Available to play at RetroFab
One of two Tetrises I got over the course of thirty minutes.
I’ve already reviewed one LCD Tetris, and a recreation of a never-released Game & Watch Tetris at that. Had that been released, a Tetris game with a clown theme would have been the final Game & Watch release, but Nintendo cancelled it. My hunch tells me it was because it was no good, with too short of a well. See Game & Watch: The Definitive Review for that review. This is the Nintendo-branded LCD Tetris that actually made it to shelves, and instead of having a wide but short well, this time it’s a tall well that’s narrow. In fact, you have to press a button in this wearable game of Tetris to see the top of the well. But, it’s a little more complicated than that. Even though the well is two screens tall, if you top-out on the bottom screen, you still game over, but it’s easy enough to swap screens.
Sigh.
Not that it matters. A six-segment-wide well is a very unplayable game of Tetris. The seven pieces work great, assuming you have 10 or 11 spaces to arrange them. Six spaces just isn’t enough. No 7-bag either, so runs of three or four Z blocks or square blocks are particularly destructive in such a narrow well. When I first booted this up, I thought “okay, well, I guess it’s kind of cool that kids could play Tetris on their wrists” but it became clear really quick this is one of the worst games of Tetris ever. It makes me appreciate the value of well width. Verdict: NO!
Pipe Dream Platform: Arcade Released in 1990 Directed by Jun-ichi Niwa Developed by Video System Distributed by LucasFilm Games NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
I wish I could lay pipe faster, because the game climaxes too quickly for my tastes.
I liked the coin-op Pipe Dream more than I thought I would. Whether it’s called Pipe Dream or Pipe Mania, I’ve not enjoyed my previous (albeit limited) experience with the series. I’m wondering now if I even realized you could throw a block on top of another block, destroying it. It eats up time to do it, but you don’t have to perfectly place every block you get. For the unwashed masses, Pipe Dream’s object is to connect a starting pipe to a finishing pipe. The catch is that there’s a minimum number of pipes, but in this arcade version, it’s called NORM here instead of MINIMUM. At first, I was confused about that and was really proud of myself when I finished the level more efficiently than normal. Nope, I died. You must use the minimum number of blocks, and that usually means using the cross-shaped sections that allow you to double back and zig-zag around the playfield. You get bonus points for every cross-shaped piece that is fully used vertically and horizontally, and then get penalized for any blocks you place on the playfield that aren’t part of the network of pipes the sludge passes through.
I literally cheered when I finally beat this one. Sadly, the game kept going.
Pipe Dream isn’t a falling block game, but it has the same problem those have: you’re completely at the mercy of the random assortment of blocks you get. Nearly every time I died, I had constructed an elaborate arrangement of pipes, but it never fed me a piece that I could connect to the finishing piece, or anything that could have eventually led to that piece even in a roundabout type of way. There’s nothing to rig the drawing to assure an equal mixture of pipes that go up, down, or sideways. I was stunned at how far back I could rewind and see how many elbows I would get that pointed down or sideways pipes, but nothing that pointed upward.
I’ve been playing video games daily since I was 7 to 9 years old, and Pipe Dreams exposes my weaknesses as a gamer just about worse than any other game.
That type of thing sucks in Tetris, but it’s ruinous in Pipe Dream. The late game is especially broken once it introduces one-way pipes, which is where the upward block drought I was given happened. This adds more blocks to an already bloated block roster. Before the one-way pipes, I think Pipe Dream wasn’t half-bad. I also fully concede that Pipe Dream is a game that doesn’t play to my strengths. I have a poor visual imagination, and Pipe Dream is a game where your ability to imagine something before it’s there is an absolute requirement. My father is a big fan and he told me that this plays better with a mouse. Noted. This was a tough call for me to make. I think a similar algorithm to 7-bag would make Pipe Dream not just a good game, but a great one. Verdict: NO!
Bloxeed Platform: Arcade – Sega System 18, Sega System E Released January, 1990 Designed by Esco Boueki (?) Distributed by Sega NO MODERN RE-RELEASE*
*Included in Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 28 for the PlayStation 2 exclusively in Japan
Unlike Flash Point, the final game in the Segatris Trilogy features competitive head-to-head play. Sadly, as a coin-op, there’s no handicap to even the odds between two players of varying skill. Also worth noting is, unlike Sega’s Tetris, the different arcade models don’t make any game play difference. Or at least that I noticed.
Man, did Sega stretch their Tetris license to the absolute breaking point. Realistically, both Flash Point and Bloxeed would be separate modes in a normal game. This is Tetris meets Arkanoid, with a very heavy emphasis on power-ups to complement the standard seven block roster, and I’m there for it. This is also one of the better head-to-head Tetris games. Not only do you send garbage blocks to the other side, but scoring a Tetris costs the other player whatever their current dropping block is. Unlike Tetris Battle Gaiden, this doesn’t slow the pace to a crawl, but enhances it. Instead of a staring contest, it creates multiple moments that feel like a race. That’s in addition to the power-ups, which can wildly swing momentum in games, but never in a way that feels overpowered, like Battle Gaiden. The power-ups are assigned frequently within the blocks themselves, and come out in regular intervals regardless of what you do.
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The sheer variety of power-ups surprised me, and they add so much excitement to Tetris’ mid-late game. The weakest is the bomb, which is still effective for digging to a gap that’s nearly the top of the stack. There’s a satellite that slowly falls towards the stack, but you can move it back and forth and shoot away any individual segments you want until it crashes. The opposite is a Flicky, star of the 1984 Sega coin-op, that behaves like the satellite, only it drops individual segments of blocks instead of shooting them. A sixteen ton anvil clears a three-column wide section of the playfield, while the final power-up just clears four lines in the stack at random. Again, it’s a Arknoid-meets-Tetris, and that’s a team-up I’m down for. Even with the power-ups, this is still Sega Tetris, which speeds up quickly, then weirdly slows down. The blocks are still a little too heavy, too. I’m giving the slight edge to Flash Point as the best of the Sega Tetris games, but Bloxeed is right behind it, and it’s EASILY the best competitive Tetris in this entire feature so far. Verdict: YES!
Klax Platform: Arcade Released February, 1990 Designed by Dave Akers & Mark Stephen Pierce Developed by Atari Games NO MODERN RELEASE
My God!!
Klax doesn’t get a lot of love, historically speaking, and part of me gets that and part of me doesn’t. It’s one of the best looking games of this breed in this era. It’s gorgeous. It’s also certainly the most intense of the games that followed in Tetris’ wake. It’s a coin-op and it’s the first of the arcade games on this list that feels like it doesn’t pretend like it’s just a kind-hearted little puzzle game. The arcade Tetris’ and Sega’s Trilogy do become intense. Like I noticed that I could last about ten minutes or so regularly on Sega’s games before the drop becomes super fast. But Klax? It goes for the throat sooner than I expected. You know the “next block” window in Tetris? Klax feels like the first game built around the concept of the next block. You watch the blocks flip down a conveyor belt, and you can hold five pieces at a time. In theory you can match three to five pieces vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. In practice, each level has specific conditions that must be met in order to move on. Some levels might be creating five diagonal matches. Others might be “deal with 50 blocks, by whatever means necessary.” That was probably wise, because that was the only thing that kept me going after the gameplay steps on the gas.
The scoring is incredibly imbalanced. You only get 50 points for a vertical match, 1,000 (20x the value) for a horizontal match, and 5,000 for a diagonal match (100x the value). Ridiculous, especially considering that you’re lucky to even get a vertical match in later rounds. If anything, vertical is the hardest to do. I was ACCIDENTALLY getting diagonal matches all the time, but you basically cannot accidentally get a vertical match. Klax, in my opinion, has the worst scoring of any “major” game in this genre.
I’m much more interested in the home versions of Klax, because the coin-up becomes out of control far too quickly. The paddle you move back and forth can store five blocks, and you drop them in reverse order from when you caught them, IE the latest block you caught is the first that you will drop off the stack. You really have to plan out moves ahead of time, and your only defensive option is the ability to throw the top most block halfway up the chute, but that’s just delaying a problem. I found that if I leaned too heavily on tossing blocks back, I almost certainly died from it. The blocks come out in a way where you can pretty much always catch them, but that ain’t the case with throwing one back. In fact, on later levels where the whole chute is covered in pieces, it all but assures two blocks will reach the end of the chute at the same time, forcing you to drop one. However, throwing blocks back was a highly effective way of making your final move. Plus, there’s only five channels that can be stacked five high. It’s just not a big enough playfield, especially since the game scales-up the amount of blocks to unimaginable levels. Klax coin-op has unlimited continues, and part of me thinks that the draw is rigged if you die and reload a quarter, because I noticed that I almost never needed more than one second chance to beat any level, no matter how badly I screwed the pooch in the first attempt. I think maybe only twice I died a second time. But, by the end, I was beating levels one at a time. But, the question isn’t “how hard is Klax” but “how much fun did I have?”
You’re kinda at the mercy of the random draw, but in the case of Klax, since you have so many options to clear the blocks, it doesn’t feel as luck-based as, say, getting a drought of Tetris Makers does.
And you know what? As crappy as Klax’s scoring system is (and it’s an F – people, as bad as scoring in a video game gets), the objectives were good enough to keep me interested. Klax is one of the most unsung games of the early 90s. Yea, the words “Klax” almost always appear alongside Tetris, but this bears little resemblance to Tetris. I talk a lot about “shared DNA” of games, and taking the analogy further, Klax shares DNA with Tetris in the same way humans do with shrews. It’s there, but pretty far down the line. Klax’s closest gaming relatives are actually the type of spinning plate games more commonly found in LCDs. It’s not enough to stack the blocks correctly. That’s actually the easy part. The challenge is that you’re managing the stack on your paddle while also keeping your options open in the playfield’s stack WHILE you also watch the blocks making their way down the chute. Again, no game in this field is more intense, but breaking Klax into bite-sized chunks makes it work. The funny thing is, Klax wasn’t even part of Midway Arcade Origins. In fact, it’s only gotten one official release since 2003, which was as part of Lego Dimensions of all things. Assuming that Digital Eclipse gets the Midway license, I would love for their Gold Master of Midway (which includes Williams and Atari Games) to focus on wide-screen remakes of classic games. I want to play Klax with a bigger playfield. I think it would be transformative. Verdict: YES!
Klax Platform: Atari Lynx Released in 1990 Designed by Greg Omi Developed by the Atari Corporation NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
This is played exclusively in the Lynx’s vertical configuration. I think, at least.
Atari Lynx fans, I haven’t forgotten about you, even if I really have no reason to include Lynx Klax in this feature. It doesn’t give me anything to complain about! It’s one of the best games on the Atari Lynx, and if it isn’t the platform’s single best coin-op port, I’d be floored. Klax is one of the most popular Lynx games, and for a good reason. The Lynx version of Klax is a remarkably arcade-accurate port, right down to the voice samples. It seems to have the same levels, the same scaling issues, and even the same phenomena of me only needing a single replay to beat most stages. Also, like the coin-op, you get unlimited continues. For the time and the platform, this is really well done. It’s colorful, controls well, and it shows off the vertical angle of the screen perfectly. What I really want to ask is “what if they could have packed the Lynx with this instead of California Games?” Not that I think Klax is as strong as Tetris. It’s just not, but it would make a hell of a pack-in. Of course, Klax came out about a year after Lynx, but the safe bet for Atari would have still been to swap out California Games for this, or even do what Sega did with Sonic The Hedgehog to great success: offer a free mail-in copy to Lynx owners who bought the Lynx before Klax. This was their best bet, and they didn’t take the bet. Now, the Lynx had a LOT of problems besides a weak pack-in, but still, it makes you wonder “what if?” Verdict: YES!
Columns Platform: Arcade – Sega System C Released March, 1990 Based on a Concept by Jay Geertsen Designed by Takosuke Developed by Sega Included as bonus game with Sega Ages: Columns II ($7.99)
The cascades often felt like dumb luck.
Columns is Sega’s answer to Tetris, and it has its fans. When I was younger, I thought this formula was hella boring. Now that I’m decrepit, hey, it’s okay. Three-segment-tall blocks fall into the well and you can only change the order of the colors. There’s no rotation at all, which makes planning for moves tough. While matches can happen in any direction, including diagonally, there’s not a whole lot of flexibility to plan for complicated chain reactions. I’m not amazing at well puzzlers, but I can hold my own. With Columns, every big combo I got was unplanned. I basically tried to keep colors somewhat close to each-other and hope for the best. Whenever I attempted to make any kind of plan, it fell apart. Six colors is quite a lot, and since you’re completely at the mercy of the random drop, all the best moments in Columns happen incidentally. With that said, Columns is fine. When the big chains happen, planned or otherwise, it’s always a thrill. This is right on the border of being decent or bland, and sometimes that goes against a game. This time, I’m giving it the faintest hint of an edge. I’m curious to see where the franchise goes from here. There’s a LOT of Columns games. How much can they squeeze out of this formula? I guess I’m about to find out. Verdict: YES!
Hatris Platform: Arcade Released June, 1990 Developed by Video System Distributed by LucasArts NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Blue fire makes all the difference.
I have no clue why the arcade and PC Engine builds of Hatris were left out of Tetris Forever. Weirdly, this is yet another version of the game with a tiny but profound change. Well, actually it just combines two power-ups from existing versions: the Game Boy’s fireball along with the Famicom’s “shop” that clears an entire type of hat every X amount of matches. Unlike with Game Boy Hatris, you don’t need to do something amazing to earn a fireball. They just appear randomly in the mix. Sometimes it’s stingy with them, and other times you get a run of having a heavy mix of them. The fireballs burn every matching hat in a stack until it reaches a new type of hat. But, there’s also now a blue fireball which is very rare. In my best game, I only got three of them. Again, I think it appears randomly, and it will burn the entire stack. Or, at least the stack until it reaches a crown, which is fireproof. Every problem inherent to the Hatris formula is still lingering, though you do get points for doubles. On the other hand, even after messing around with the dip switch settings, I struggled greatly with separating the dropping hats. I never got a feel for moving an individual hat after stacking the first. Honestly, Hatris is never going to be a fantastic game by any stretch, but this version was okay. Verdict: YES!
Klax Platform: Atari 2600 Released June 4, 1990 Designed by Steve DeFrisco Published by Atari Never Released Outside of Europe NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Thank you, Atari 2600 for laying the foundation for one of the greatest passions in my life. Cheers!
Behold: history! Klax was the final game ever released for the Atari 2600 during the console’s “natural lifecycle.” Technically the 2600 wouldn’t be discontinued for another two years, but Klax was the last game developed and released, and hell, it never even made it out in America. That’s a damn shame, too. Some of the later arcade adaptations for the VCS are pretty painful. Double Dragon, Rampage, etc. That’s why I’m nothing short of astonished that Klax is a damn good effort. I’m flabbergasted, really. So very little concessions had to be made. This plays just like the arcade game, with the same waves in the same order as the arcade game. You can toss blocks back onto the chute. You have unlimited continues when you die, and hell, “easier after death” seems to be present too, assuming that’s even meant to be a thing and I’m not imagining it.
What a hell of a game to turn the lights out on one of the most important consoles of all time.
The only change is as positive a change as any game can get: the scoring is improved. 50 for a vertical match, 100 for a horizontal, and 500 for a diagonal. SO much more balanced, creating proper risk/reward metrics instead of the outlandishly unbalanced arcade scoring. Thus, if you’re anything like me and you put a lot of stock in scoring systems, then you’re looking at the best version of Klax, even with simplified graphics and sound (no voice samples). The graphics look exactly like I imagined they would in my head, BUT, I imagined that blocks would just poof out of existence instantly from a match. No, they blink out with different sound effects, depending on the type of match it is, just like in the arcade. What Steve DeFrisco achieved here belongs in game design school. I was literally wiping away tears thinking about how fitting an ending this was for the Atari 2600. A console that blew up based on quality, albeit stripped-down ports of coin-ops, and destroyed by poorly made ports of coin-ops, ended with one the most accurate and incredible ports on the entire console. It’s unfathomable that a game like Klax would be this good on this platform, but it is. The fact that it didn’t get a global release sours it somewhat, but Klax is the perfect series finale for THE Atari. Verdict: YES!
Knight Move Platform: Famicom Disk System Released June 5, 1990 Designed by Alexey Pajitnov Developed by JV Dialog Published by Nintendo Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
“BOO!” indeed. I’m so frustrated right now I could spit nails.
If you’re curious which game I played the least in this feature, this is it. For all the wrong reasons. I’d never heard of Knight Move, a Famicom Disk exclusive by Alexey Pajitnov himself. When I was coming up with a pool of games for the bonus reviews, I thought “I have to include his non-Tetris games, and this one was published by Nintendo themselves!” But, it turns out this game is completely unplayable for me and probably anyone who is even a little photosensitive. That’s because this simple, otherwise charming high-concept puzzler is also possibly the single most strobe-heavy video game I’ve seen on the Famicom/NES, and that includes the Jetsons. I’m not exaggerating. If you play the game well, the flashing seen in this video (HUGE epilepsy warning) happens every.. single.. goddamned round.
That’s five uninterrupted seconds of an intense, violent strobe happening as often as every thirty or so seconds. This goes beyond epilepsy, because even people who don’t have seizures are at risk to get a headache or any number of side effects from this. The idea is, you’re a constantly hopping chess knight and you have to use the L-shaped movement of a knight to hop around a board until you land on a heart. If you land on a single tile on the floor three times, it breaks the tile and scores you points, but you die if you land on that space again in the same round. The knight has serious hang time, but its speed increases as you go along, and you have to aim the cursor to the right square. It seems like it’s going to be a really fun, quirky game. At first, I thought “oh my God! Now THIS is a hidden gem!” And then the strobes started, and they kept happening in increasingly faster intervals thanks to the game’s natural speed-up. I played this three or four minutes before my family yanked the controller away. My father played it for about ten and he complained about his eyes hurting. What were they thinking? Were they even thinking at all?
Whether you play the A-Mode or B-Mode, the insane strobing happens. It might happen a little less in the B mode, but it’s basically guaranteed that the strobes will happen every minute. Unreal.
Since breaking as many tiles as you can without dying is the object of the game and the only way to rack-up serious points (including combos for breaking two or more floor pieces in a row), you cannot avoid the strobe effects. It only takes breaking a single tile to trigger the end-of-round strobe effect. Rounds are short too, even in the B-Mode, so the strobing will repeat every few SECONDS, not minutes, and last a few seconds when it happens. The gameplay speeds up, but not the agonizingly slow and ultra-flashy round wrap-ups. Just, f*cking wow. I can’t believe Nintendo allowed this, even in 1990. I’ve never said this about any game, but in the case of Knight Move, I’m thrilled that it seems to have flopped in sales. It deserved it. Knight Move seems like the type of game I’d have a ton of fun with, and in case you can’t tell, I’m pretty angry that nobody put a stop to that insane strobe effect. Awesome job, developers. Just what everyone wants when they play simple, quirky little action puzzle games: a headache. And that’s at the very least. The best thing I can say about Knight Move is it reminded me how far we’ve come, because this sh*t wouldn’t fly today. Knight Move is beyond the f*cking pale and everyone involved in the production of it should be ashamed of themselves. Verdict: NO! and had this been in Tetris Forever unaltered, I would have been furious. Seriously, I’d love a remake of this that isn’t trying to kill me.
Klax Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released July, 1990 Designed by David O’Riva Developed by Tengen NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Wild how the Lynx version looks so much better than the NES one.
The NES version of Klax includes a game called “Blob Ball” for absolutely no reason. It’s a broken single player version of Pong, more or less. Not hidden or anything. It’s in the options menu. I’m not even sure why. Meanwhile, the version of Klax included is certainly one of the uglier versions of Klax I’ve played. I also found the timing of when to catch the blocks coming off the conveyor to be, for lack of a better term, off. I have no clue why I struggled in this specific version and not the coin-op or Lynx. Those had a learning curve, but I adjusted. I never got a feel for the NES drop. But, that one little niggling annoyance notwithstanding, this is still Klax. Klax is a good game. It was never a great game, but it’s enjoyable in spurts. What I find equal parts annoying and fascinating is that none of the home versions rebalanced the difficulty for the home game (except the 2600 build, go figure). It makes sense for the coin-op to become diamond-hard quickly. It’s trying to earn quarters. Why be so vicious with the home versions? A slower build-up would be preferable. Weirdly, you can disable difficulty ramping on the NES, but I think this takes it too far and nerfs the difficulty. Apparently, Klax is a hard game to balance. Verdict: YES!
Dr. Mario Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released July 27, 1990 Designed by Takahiro Harada Developed by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
They make me jack up my handicap. They wouldn’t play against me otherwise. So unfair.
Dr. Mario is one of the greatest concepts of all time. Match four segments of the same color, be it a pill or a virus, to score a clearing. There’s three color pills that match three viruses. It’s so simple, but genuinely one of the most elegant game designs in this entire genre. Dr. Mario started as a game called “Virus.” While Mario was still the pitcher and dressed like a doctor, the game had a lot less personality. But, the three-color scheme was apparently there from the start. Blind luck on Nintendo’s part? Because it can’t be self-evident. My problem with Columns was there’s too many colors. Six is too much. Hell, five would have been pushing it. It’s amazing Nintendo settled on three right from the start. Three colors gives you the flexibility to form strategies, but is still barely enough to assure that the luck of the draw and having to think on your feet still factors into the gameplay. Apparently, three was just the magic number. “I don’t think it’s serendipity,” my father said, “I think it’s because they knew Game Boy was coming and they could only create three shades for it.” Crap, I didn’t think of that. Anyway, Dr. Mario is one of the all-time greats. I have three more games to explain why. Verdict: YES!
Dr. Mario Platform: Game Boy Released July 27, 1990 Designed by Takahiro Harada Developed by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
Pretty good use of shading to create distinctive pills and viruses.
Pretty good use of shading to create distinctive pills and viruses.
I found Dr. Mario on the Game Boy to be a very impressive effort, at least in audio/visual terms. Oh, this is absolutely the worst game of Dr. Mario ever, period, end of story. Do not mistake this as being 100% identical to the NES game, because it’s certainly not. In addition to the timing feeling entirely different, there’s one tiny change that yields profound results: the playfield is shrunken. Barely, but that barely matters a great deal. Dr. Mario on the NES uses a 16×8 playfield. The Game Boy’s Dr. Mario is 15×8. I would never have even thought to count it out except I kept losing immediately on the high levels. Sometimes there’s not even enough room to fight the viruses at all. You absolutely feel the crunch, and for a good reason: despite having a smaller playfield, the game deals you the same amount of viruses as the NES on the max level, only you have one less row to fight them. Thank god, too. That justified my time put into this. Hooray, Dr. Mario on the Game Boy sucks, at least if you want the maximum possible challenge. Verdict: NO!
Klax Platform: TurboGrafx-16 Released August 10, 1990 Programmed by Jun Amanai Developed by Tengen NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
I could swear this is the most rigged version of Klax.
In true-to-the-arcade fashion, the TG-16 build of Klax is really stingy with giving you the colors you need. Every time I attempted to build a five-across anything, diagonal or horizontal, the game would stop giving me that color. It was uncanny. After finishing Columns and now Dr. Mario too, it got me thinking about Klax. Would the game be better with fewer colors? Klax becomes so overwhelming, so quickly. The TG-16 version seems fine, but I still think the Lynx version looks better. This one’s graphics just don’t POP like the coin-op or Lynx builds. The colors almost look muffled. But, it’s fine. The timing issues that plagued me on the NES aren’t present, and the “throw back” was easier and more intuitive to clock than any console version except the Atari 2600 build. Another solid Klax release. Verdict: YES!
Columns II: The Voyage Through Time Platform: Arcade – Sega System C Released September, 1990 Designed by Hisaki Nimiya Developed by Sega Sold Separately on Nintendo Switch ($7.99)
The three missing gems in the stack are actually there. They’re the target blocks.
Sigh. I probably shouldn’t have included so many sequels in this feature. It would have been less work for me, but it’s also fascinating to witness and, more importantly, feel the progression, even if it really is only incremental. Columns II didn’t even get its first release outside of Japan until 2019 on the Nintendo Switch. It offers two games: a super boring competitive game of Columns, and “Flash Columns” which is just Columns where you only have to eliminate the blinking jewels already on the stack. I literally told my friends that using target blocks is “as bullet-proof a sub-genre as there is in gaming.” Impossible to screw up, or so I thought. Columns II proved me wrong. It’s just not fun, dammit. Like with this:
I wish I could claim some kind of meticulous master plan that set that up, but it’s Columns! As always, I got lucky. All the limitations of the original formula are in full force, and having a goal in the form of the flash gems doesn’t improve that. If anything, it sort of makes the situation worse, since that means creating levels, which means having starting stacks of increasing size, and of course, increasing numbers of target gems. You can smoothly, logically escalate a game like Dr. Mario, with its three colors in a 16×8 well. Columns is a 12×6 playfield. Significantly smaller, but with twice as many colors, and as if that’s not bad enough, the game added randomly generated skull blocks. When matched, accidentally or intentionally, the skull blocks shrink the height of the playfield by raising the stack one story. An already too cramped, too luck-based game has its cruelty amplified, not its difficulty. I barely tolerated the first Columns. This one? Too hard and too reliant on stupid, blind luck for its own good. Verdict: NO!
Pipe Dream Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released September, 1990 Developed by Distinctive Software, Inc. Published by Bullet-Proof Software NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
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Pipe Dream on the NES really has no end point. It removes the goal entirely and instead challenges you to simply make as long a pipe as possible. As a (mostly) blank canvas game, I enjoyed it well enough. Even after the one-way pipes were introduced, which is where the arcade version started to lose me, I stuck it out with the NES. At the same time, it feels like a rudderless game concept that runs out of steam. Once you get the hang of the different pieces, all that’s left is being entirely at the mercy of the random draw. That’s because Pipe Dream really doesn’t give you a lot of time before the sludge starts flowing through the pipes. Even though you can see five pieces ahead of time, there’s really not enough time to move the pieces around the board, even if you have the type of visual imagination that Pipe Dream requires (and, as stated before, I do not). The NES version of Pipe Dream also includes this God awful drop-puzzle type of bonus round where you stack the pieces, but can’t destroy them. A dumb concept that fails in every imaginable way that’s thankfully just a bonus points thing. NES Pipe Dream is so stripped-down that I *want* to give a NO! to because it just doesn’t do anything. The same thing over and over again. But I also wanted to put an hour at most into Pipe Dream and I ended up playing a few hours. That blank slate-style of gameplay clearly works, dull as it sounds on paper. Verdict: YES!
Klax (Namco) Klax (Tengen) Platform: Sega Genesis Released Sept. 6 (Tengen) Sept. 7 (Namco) 1990 Developed by Namco and Tengen Namco Port Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Tengen Klax
Namco Klax
Goddammit, Klax!! You just had to go out of this feature being weird. This is one of the strangest cases I’ve come across since I started doing retro reviews. Two completely different versions of Klax, made completely independently from each-other, by two completely different companies, released on Sega Genesis in back-to-back days in 1990. What the f*ck?! It’s so weird! These are the final installments for Klax in this feature. While the fear that I’d run out of things to say pretty much came true, one other fear didn’t: I never got bored with Klax. Sure, the unbalanced scoring frustrated me. Something that Dave insisted I was just plain wrong about. “Klax’s scoring imbalance is entirely deliberate and there to prove a point. Go for the ‘safe’ option of nothing but verticals and you should get peanuts because you can’t achieve anything else with them, and can’t plan ahead to any real extent with a well only five tiles deep. This is especially true for the points stages; you should be dissuaded from trying or having to rely on verticals. It’s the default ‘ohcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap’ option when you’re in a panic, or refusing to play Street Fighter with anyone other than Ryu, you BORING BASTARD.”
Tengen’s version.
I absolutely don’t agree with him, because the game already incentivizes other match-options via the levels. Some levels force the diagonals. Some levels force you to simply deal with X amount of blocks. That’s all you need! Overloading the scoring system towards diagonals is overkill. My father offered a second theory: overvaluing the high-risk, harder-to-set-up diagonals provides insurance against skilled players. Klax is a coin-op, and coin-ops make no money if a professional parks on one too long. Forgoing balance and loading the points by several factors onto the diagonals goes a step beyond incentivizing high-risk gameplay. It makes it a virtual requirement. Fine, and I’ll accept that excuse for the coin-op. But for the home version? It’ll always irk me how unbalanced a scoresheet Klax has.
(Namco)
The strange case of Genesis Klax doesn’t have any weird twist of one version being lightyears ahead of the other. The Tengen version has more options. The Namco version has a versus mode that’s just a race, that nobody in my family could hope to touch me on even if we jacked-up the handicap. Personally, I thought the Tengen version’s timing was a little harder to clock than the Namco build’s, though it occurs to me that whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might want it to be harder to juggle the tiles as they come off the conveyor. Others might want the challenge to be focused on the stack and not the coming blocks. It’s kind of neat that the Genesis is the only console that offers both. So, while *I* give the edge to the Namco version, I totally understand why classic gaming fans often consider the Tengen build to be superior. Really, the winner is Klax fans, because it just ran the table. Seven total versions of it. Seven YES! verdicts. That’s damn impressive. Verdicts: YES! and YES!
Welltris Platform: Arcade Released in 1991 Directed (?) by Alexey Pajitnov & Andrei Snegov Developed Video System Distributed by Bullet-Proof Software NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
See, I knew Welltris had potential.
Unlike the MS-DOS original, the coin-operated Welltris is instantly, classically intuitive, just like Tetris should be. That’s why I totally recommend game design schools use Welltris in their courses. Show students the MS-DOS version, then show the coin-op. There is so much educational potential that can be learned from studying the two games. The coin-op retains nearly identical gameplay and objectives from the original build, yet it couldn’t feel more different. So, how did the coin-op pull off making Welltris an instantly understandable experience? The answer is so easy that I overthought it at first and needed my friend Andrew to set me straight. In the PC version, you cannot control the direction of the block once it leaves the wall and enters the playfield. However, you continue to steer the block in the coin-op even after the transition. It’s really that simple, and the reason it’s intuitive is because the player isn’t disconnected from the stack in the coin-op. They directly interact with it.
Hey hey! I scored a Tetris! I never came close on the MS-DOS build!
I could see this when I tested the MS-DOS and arcade versions on my family. I had them play games of both, with some playing the PC build first and others the arcade. The arcade players learned the game faster, and the PC players didn’t “get it” until they had their turn on the arcade. The only part that still made no sense to the new players was the corner warping/distorting. Which, as I stated in the MS-DOS review, gives me a “it’s not a bug! It’s a feature!” vibe. But, in Dad’s first game of Welltris on MS-DOS, he had seven lines. It was thirty-nine on the coin-op. Everyone enjoyed the arcade game. Nobody enjoyed the MS-DOS version.
As much fun as I had, it’s not hard to figure out why Welltris flopped in arcades. This really should have been on platforms like the SNES instead.
By the way, while the game does step on the gas a little too quickly, it’s one of the most shockingly generous coin-op puzzlers I’ve seen. There’s “bonus blocks” where making even a single line with them clears the entire playfield, essentially giving you a full reset, only with your score intact. The rules of screwing up are changed, as the segments that stay on the wall are deleted, and instead of losing whole walls when you screw up, you lose layers to the walls, giving you less room to maneuver blocks. It makes for an exciting, fast-paced game that’s IMMEDIATELY intuitive. Which is the literal complete opposite of the MS-DOS version. It’s FASCINATING!
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Assuming it was Pajitnov who directed this, then Welltris coin-op is where his bonafides as a game designer and not a one-hit wonder are proven. Welltris for arcades is one of the best arcade drop-puzzlers ever made. After spending an entire day with a bad build of Welltris, it was such a joy to play a good version of it. I have no idea why Atari/Digital Eclipse and the Tetris Company couldn’t include the arcade build in Tetris Forever. My friends, you need to figure this out, because EVERYONE should get to celebrate Welltris. I was absolutely convinced that Tetris as a 3D experience could never be fast or fun. Welltris is both, and one of the best games to wear the “Tris” name I’ve played. I have no problem eating crow if it’s served to me deliciously. Verdict: YES!
Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen Platform: Famicom Released April 12, 1991 Designed by Yukinori Taniguchi & Takashi Shibuya Developed by Compile Published by Tokuma Shoten Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Thanks, Dash! I had never heard of this game, and I almost didn’t include it in this feature. I’m really happy I did, because this is one of the strongest of the early high-concept falling block games that tried to ride Tetris’ coattails. Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen (Gorby’s Pipeline Mission) actually got diplomatic permission from the Soviet Union’s embassy to use the likeness of Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The USSR wasn’t long for this world by the time this was released, but if the story of Tetris is one of the power of video games as diplomatic tools, then this game deserves to be part of that story. And it helps that it’s a pretty dang great game, too! This hybrid of Tetris and Pipe Dream has players trying to simply connect a water supply from one side of the screen to the other, which is supposed to represent a pipeline from Japan to Russia. Two linked blocks fall at a time and can be rotated clockwise and counter-clockwise. There are no gaps allowed, so if you drop a block on the top of the stack in a way where the other block is hanging above the stack, it breaks free and you continue to control its descent and still rotate it. The right side only has one source of water which starts at the bottom corner. If at any point the pipe you’re working on is blocked, it becomes plugged and the next available source from the bottom becomes active. If the stack tops off, or if all available sources of water are lost, game over. To win, twice a level you have to do this:
It’s not just enough to make a line. You have to bring that line into one of the green pipes on the wall. There’s going to be a lot of garbage on the screen when you’re done. This is a game where I would be VERY impressed by anyone who can create pristine well conditions, like you can in Tetris. Good news is, you score a lot of points doing this. Any blocks that are underneath the pipe become blue blocks that score points after you finish the stage.
I don’t think Gorby does enough to help players clean up the playfield. I also think the game gives you too many elbows and not enough flat pieces. Based on rewinding, blocks are randomly generated, apparently including the valuable (and occasionally disastrous) items. The straight pieces (or the L/reverse L pipes) are more valuable but come out less frequently because there’s more ways to configure elbows. The items aren’t exactly balanced, either, nor is there any apparent way of triggering getting them. They just end up in the draw, every bit as randomly as the blocks do but with much less frequency. The drill allows you to remove one column from the stack. Mind you, if you choose a column that has your current pipe, that pipe will be cut in half and have to either be reconnected or abandoned for a new pipeline. A water bottle (which can only be used by smashing it directly in front of the front of the current pipe you’re building) fills the playfield under the pipe with water blocks that can’t be used and eats up a ton of the playfield. But, they score a lot of points when you complete the pipe. Finally, there’s what I call the “automatic win” item. It’s a drop of water, and if the pipeline is currently facing a wall with a pipe and you place the drop of water in front of the end of your pipeline, you not only get credit for a pipe but you get a mostly clean playfield. On the negative side, by using it, you don’t score as much as you could. But it will bail you out.. literally, and it saved me more than once. It’s too overpowered, in my opinion.
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Even without balance to the block distribution and one ridiculously overpowered item, I was completely hooked on Gorby. If you want to know why this feature took so f’n long, lost treasures like Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen are a big reason why. I didn’t originally have this as one of the 6, 20, 40, or 70+ games I had intended to cover in this review, but part way through my work, Dash really pushed hard for it to be included. Boy, I’m happy he did. This was fantastic! I intended to play Gorby for an hour or so and it cost me nearly an entire day. It’s almost every bit as potently addictive as Tetris is, and every bit as rewarding. It is such a thrill to see a particularly zig-zaggy pipe finally complete. Is it a bit janky? Sure, but not like Pyramid was. This is the “we’re onto something and we know it, we gotta get this out NOW” jank. They were trying to strike while the Tetris iron was hot, so it lacks the polish it would get today.
If you think this is a weird geopolitical game connection, just wait until you hear about Wordtris!
Also, had this come out today, Gorby would have no-doubt included some form of an algorithm and more balanced items, including more stuff to help clean up the playfield. With that said, wow, what a genuine hidden gem. If anyone from the Tetris Company is reading this feature, I would advise you to track down whoever owns the rights to this (presumably D4) and buy it. I’m sure you’re thinking “DLC” for Tetris Forever, and if you go the Atari 50 route for DLC, one of the bonus chapters has to be about all the wannabes that followed in Tetris’ wake. A lot of them were derivative and uninspired, and I expected that from Gorby. Hell, I LOVED this game, but even I concede the use of Gorbachev’s likeness feels like a desperate ploy to make the game more closely resemble Tetris’ heritage, as if being tied to Russia was the sweet sauce that made Tetris a global hit and not, you know, historically amazing gameplay. That’s cynical and I hate cynicism, but it’s so obviously true, too. Either way, Gorbachev isn’t the star of the game. Charming gameplay is, and I think it would be a great fit for a legitimate release in Tetris Forever’s DLC. I doubt it would be that expensive, and Pipeline could be a big franchise with today’s audiences. It never had a real chance, and that’s a bonafide gaming tragedy. Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen isn’t just a great game, but one of the best games in this entire feature and it deserves a second chance on the perfect stage for it. Verdict: YES!
Hatris Platform: PC Engine Released May 24, 1991 Developed by Micro Cabin Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Thank God. I’m finally done with Hatris.
I’ve played enough Hatris to last a lifetime and I’m never playing it again after this. Ever. Hatris is the absolute middle of the road falling block puzzler. Five f’n games and not one of them has been an outright GOODgame. As a series, it’s barely okay at best. The PC Engine version is basically the arcade version I reviewed above, with both the shop element and the red and blue fireballs. But, this version also is much easier to separate the hats after dropping one, so this is probably the best version of Hatris. That’s like being the best slice of Wonder Bread in the loaf. Even though I’ve now played Hatris to death, I was never really good at it. But, I must have practiced enough to become okay at it, because for the first time, I actually saw something resembling an “ending” once the crowns were introduced. Look! Here it is!
As far as accomplishments go, I was about as excited as I normally am when I treat my garbage can like a basketball hoop and make whatever I’m throwing the first time. Not elated. Not even a sense of accomplishment. Content, but only because I don’t have to bend over and pick up whatever I threw now. That’s really the closest analogue.
And I’m not even really sure *I* did it so much as I got lucky with the random drops. Dave told me “keep the big hats on the sides” as if it’s THAT easy. My main strategy was “when the crowns are in the playfield, keep them together, even if you ruin a stack of four doing it.” Like all other versions that use fire, the crowns can’t be burned. Since crowns stack the thickest out of all the hats, whatever damage I do to myself by wrecking any other stack will be nothing compared to the damage the crowns do by becoming garbage. It helps that it takes a while for PCE Hatris to get going. Hell, if you start at level 0, it doesn’t even add the fourth hat (the top hat) to the assortment until two visits to the shop. That can be adjusted, but I’m one of those people who like to start at the bottom and build-up from there. From that sense, Hatris might be the slowest-building game in the entire genre.
The blue fire is probably over-powered, but the PC Engine version is as stingy with it as the arcade game is. It’s 100% totally random. The red fire is generous enough. I don’t know how I feel about having this stuff be random, but at least it helps with the tempo.
I’ve played five versions of Hatris now, and not one of them is in the least bit exciting. Relaxing? Maybe. I suppose I did “zone out” playing Hatris every time I booted it up. But it never stops feeling like Busy Work: The Game. Its only contribution to the genre, the ability to separate blocks by breaking one off at a higher point on the playfield, is nice. But, that sort of feels like an inevitable evolutionary step. Before Tetris Forever, Hatris had sort of slipped through the cracks of history, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not dynamic. It’s not fast-paced. If you crank-up the speed, it feels artificially quick, but not “up-tempo.” The most remarkable thing about Hatris’ entire existence is that it IS just a boring idea that, through sheer force of will, was turned into a passable game. On one hand, I’m bummed that Digital Eclipse didn’t take a pass at remaking it. On the other hand, what could anyone possibly do to make this better? It’s not my job to answer that. All I’m supposed to do is say if a game is good or not. With that, the PC Engine build is, by the tiniest fraction of a unit of enjoyment, the best game of Hatris I’ve played. And it’s not in Tetris Forever, go figure. Verdict: YES!
Puyo Puyo Platform: Famicom Disk System Released October 25, 1991 Directed by Masanobu Tsukamoto Published by Compile Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER (?) BEEN RE-RELEASED
The personality was still being worked on.
Puyo Puyo is one of the most famous games in the entire genre, and that’s why I think its fans are going to have heart attacks when they find out I’m not the biggest fan. But, I wanted to include this original release because it’s such a neat story. In Japan, there was a magazine dedicated to the Famicom called “Famimaga” that periodically included free games. Famimaga published six total games between March of 1990 and December of 1992. I thought of including some of them in this, especially “Clocks.” Which is a drop puzzler with minute/hour hands.
I uh.. have no clue what I’m doing.
Clocks (or “Clox”, as it’s called both sometimes) was the 4th game in that series. Puyo Puyo was the fifth. Yep, one of the most famous puzzle franchises started life as a throw-in for a magazine. I still have a lot of indie developers who read IGC, and I tell them this: you never know. You can very much feel that this game is a prototype/low budget affair. Clearly Puyo Puyo was NEVER meant to be a big franchise, and to hammer that home, they weren’t even certain it was going to use slimes as blocks (taken from an RPG called Madō Monogatari) or humans who stood on shoulders and linked hands. Because, get this, that’s in this game!
Yikes!!
Now, Puyo Puyo is going to evolve A LOT over the coming years, with a heavy emphasis on the versus matches. Which I totally get after playing this Famicom Disk System game solo. I’m just not a fan. I think Puyo Puyo is really boring and I don’t get it at all. I think the well is too small, and I think the cascades aren’t as exciting as some people think. It’s not a total wash, because I really like how many options this comes with. You can change how many colors there are, and you can even change whether you want a giant slime as a bonus item (which crushes two columns) or if you want a Pikachu-looking thing that changes the colors in the stack to create a match. I also deeply admire the effort here. As a proof of concept that was never meant to be anything but an advertisement for your RPGs in a gaming magazine, jeez, this is a pretty amazing story, isn’t it? But it’s safe to say that the early versions of Puyo Puyo aren’t for me. Verdict: NO!
Yoshi Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released December 14, 1991 Directed by Satoshi Tajiri Developed by Game Freak Published by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
Do you know what strikes me most about Yoshi? This could have been the PERFECT falling block Game & Watch. I mean besides Tetris, which obviously was practically made for LCDs, but Yoshi isn’t too far behind. It requires very little animation (hell, the blocks here fall in a way that looks LCD-like) and not much in the way of graphics. It’d probably be a little hard to get four distinct characters + the eggs into cells, but see, I have faith someone could come up with it, and it’s basically idealized for the format.
I’ve reviewed two games already from Satoshi Tajiri and Game Freak. Mario & Wario, a Super Famicom-exclusive puzzler that used the SNES Mouse, was alright but certainly not some amazing hidden gem. His first game was his real masterpiece: Mendel Palace, a one-of-a-kind action arcade game, which I covered in Namco Museum Archives: Volume 2: The Definitive Review. I named it both “Best in Set” for Volume 2 and ranked it #1 among the twenty-two total games between the two collections. Plus, of course, Tajiri invented Pokémon. In fact, this is the game that bankrolled the development of Pokémon. Nintendo had passed on Mendel Palace, but they wanted to work with Tajiri and Game Freak, and they reached out saying “we need another puzzler, ASAP!” Sadly, the game isn’t as interesting as the story behind it.
It’s not a bad looking game, but I think I would have preferred a plain wall to a checkerboard one.
The concept, simply put, doesn’t work for the marathon mode. In Yoshi, players have to shuffle four different channels while icons featuring four enemies from the Mario franchise fall onto the playfield. Those are Goombas, Piranha Plants, Boos, and Bloopers, and while matches can only be made vertically, it only requires a pair to clear them from the stacks. The placement of where pieces fall is totally random, but there’s no limit to shuffling the stacks. The twist is that two halves of Yoshi eggs randomly fall alongside the blocks. The bottom halves will join the stacks (and can also be cleared with a simple match) while the top halves vanish if there’s no bottom half of an egg on the stack they land on. The object is essentially to make sandwiches with the eggs, and the more enemies you stack between the bottom and top pieces, the more points you score. The problem is, if the game doesn’t spit out the top halves of the eggs, you’re hosed. It’s totally random, and you’re at the mercy of pure random chance.
It makes for a frustrating marathon mode, and I thought this was going to be one of the easier NO! games in this feature. And then I played the B-Mode, and things got complicated. The B-Mode plays the same, only your goal is now to get an all-clear. It took a little while, but eventually it became clear to me that Yoshi works better as a level-based game. The same RNG problems plague B-Mode, but having a clear end-goal adds layers of strategy and, consequently, excitement. Especially on later levels, where it is genuinely thrilling to start with a large pile of debris on the playfield and whittle it down to nothing. I still found myself getting screwed by runs of non-matches or not spitting out the tops to the eggs. What I’d really like to see is this game redone as a widescreen game, with more channels. That could be said about a lot of games, but four just isn’t enough for Yoshi’s format. But either way, Yoshi still won me over. My motto is “find the fun” and I found the fun in the B-mode. Barely, but barely counts. What a turnaround, because I thought for sure after a couple marathons this was heading for a NO! See, it ain’t over till it’s over. Verdict: YES!
Wordtris Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released November, 1992 Designed by Sergei Utkin, Vyacheslav Tsoy, & Armen Sarkissian Developed by Sphere Published by Spectrum Holobyte NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
I totally meant to do that. Planned it out and everything. I didn’t fall ass-backwards into it. Why would you think that? I use “EIO” in conversation every day. I bring up Old McDonald a LOT. (nods)
Wordtris has a unique distinction: it’s the only video game co-developed by someone who went on to become a head of state. Armen Sarkissian was elected President of Armenia in 2018. Presumably this was done to keep him from making another game. Wordtris is, simply put, a bad idea that should never have been released. First off, the playfield is too small, and even though this is the only game in this entire feature that goes “below the stack” it’s still not enough room. Especially when there’s blocks for every single letter (including Z, X, V, Q, etc), plus items like bombs and dynamite. Also, the game is a bit of a prick about certain things. Like, I spelled “ZEBRA” for 425 points. Awesome, right? But the game insisted on giving me more Zs, and what can you do with a Z? So I spelt ZEBRAS with an S for a measly 240 points. Oh, come on!
Presumably I scored less because I used a ? block, though once you place one of those, it doesn’t remind you which one was originally a ? block. This game B-L-O-W-S.
Another problem is that the game automatically scores words. This might sound like a weird complaint, but there’s so many three-letter words. Thousands of them, actually, and bigger words are typically made of smaller words. Anyone who plays Scrabble knows this. To counter this, the game uses combos that allow words to be created when you make a word and the under-stack raises up. The amount of luck, three-dimensional planning, and the sheer EFFORT required isn’t worth it. And then you have things like words not counting. RUM doesn’t count, because I guess alcohol is offensive? But there’s other forms of rum, you know? Butter rum? That’s one of my favorite flavors of Life Savers. You know, a candy eaten by children? Rum cake? Rum doesn’t have to be devil’s brew, you know?
Look at that board. At this point, I went a LONG time between vowels. It had given me something like four Ps in seven drops. Wordtris isn’t the worst drop puzzler ever made, but it’s close.
Of all the games in this feature, I think Wordtris has the lowest overall potential. I’ve reviewed some pretty bad Tetris-inspired games, but I think most of them could have been tinkered with and made fun, or at least tolerable. I don’t think Wordtris could have ever been fun. I think the concept is dead on arrival. Maybe a widescreen format with a bigger well could have helped. Maybe a more consistent, predictable dictionary. Maybe a 7-bag style algorithm (which I presume there IS a method to the madness since I didn’t get difficult-to-work-with letters very often) that assures the ability to make words, or maybe not scoring a word until you manually hit a “score all words” button. Hell, it’s not my job to figure out how to fix games. I just care whether old games stand up to the test of time, and in the case of Wordtris, I can’t imagine anyone ever had F-U-N with this. I think it’s a terrible game. A-W-F-U-L. In a universe where there’s no Virtual Lab, this is the worst falling block game ever made. Verdict: NO!
Oh My God! Platform: Arcade Released in 1993 Directed by Kazutoshi Ueda Developed by Atlus Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Why did they pick that name? It’s a snake-based puzzler! They couldn’t come up with a name? Oh and that sign that’s displayed? If you slither the blocks like that, it activates a special move.
This is yet another Dave Sanders choice, and one of the rarest coin-ops out there. Only four copies are known to exist, all of them as circuit boards instead of dedicated units. There’s a reason for the rarity. Unlike a lot of the games Dave recommended, he knew this one was no good. Certainly not the trash fire I initially had it pegged as, but it’s pretty unintuitive, which is typically the death knell for any game like this, and Oh My God isn’t good enough to overcome that. Think of it as Puyo Puyo if the blocks had to be slithered across the screen, like a snake. Almost like a train of segments that you have to curve around. It’s also the puzzler that has the longest grace period before the blocks lock to the stack. Thank god for it, because there’s a HUGE learning curve to the movement. This is one of those games where managing the physical shape of the stack is every bit as important as matching the colors, since you can create a dead end that prevents you from being able to align the blocks.
My family didn’t want to play long enough to learn the movement. They just straight-up hated this game.
The biggest lesson I’ve taken away from Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review is that the quicker a game is able to be learned, the better it usually is. I had to play several games of Oh My God to get the hang of it, but once I did, I didn’t hate it as much as I initially did. I still didn’t like it, but I respected that they tried something better. I can also understand why some studios rolled the dice on anti-intuition games. How the hell do you stand out in THIS genre? Especially with these match three games! I mean, how many different ways can that be changed up? You have to create some kind of gimmick with the blocks, and you can’t really know if the gimmick works until the game is done. You don’t become one of the rarest games ever made by bombing in sales. You get there when the studio themselves recognizes that the game isn’t good. So, I admire that Atlus was willing to experiment. It didn’t work, but as far as failed experiments go, I’ve played alot worse. Verdict: NO!
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine aka Kirby’s Avalanche aka Super Puyo Puyo Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Genesis ver. Released December, 1993 SNES ver. Released February, 1995 SNES ver. Directed by Kazunori Ikeda Developed by Compile and Banpresto Published by Sega and Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
(Kirby’s Avalanche)
The first American version of Puyo Puyo is one of those games I’ll never understand the appeal of. The playfield is too small for the amount of garbage blocks that combos drop. The playfield is only 12×6, making Puyo Puyo both too short and too narrow. The first moderate-sized combo you make is going to essentially end the other player. The chances for comebacks are slim, since you still (1) need the game to give you the right colors (2) need to create whatever matches you can get around the garbage blocks (3) do all this before the other player, who has a full playfield, makes even a single chain or combo to further plug-up your efforts.
(Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine) I honestly think the SNES version looks better. More colorful. Sharper. It’s an overrated game either way.
Not that I think every single puzzle game needs the same ebb and flow, but whether it’s called Super Puyo Puyo, Kirby’s Avalanche or Mean Bean Machine, I find Puyo Puyo to be too small and too fast paced. The only way I can spin it in a way that makes sense is that the race to hit that knockout punch that’s nearly impossible to recover from holds appeal to some. I don’t get it, but I’m nowhere near a pro. I won my fair share of Tetris 99 games, but I’d get tuned by legit pros. With Kirby’s Avalanche (and later with Puyo Puyo Sun), I played with my family, just like I did with nearly every multiplayer game in this feature. To say the least, Puyo Puyo, in every form it took, was not among their favorite games. “Would you guys believe that, in Japan, this franchise is every bit as big as Tetris is?” Their reaction was universally “this?” I took some comfort from that. If you’re in disagreement, leave a comment and explain it, because I’m trying to figure it out. It can’t just be because it has Sonic characters, right? Verdict: NO!
Poto Poto Platform: Arcade – Sega System C2 Released March, 1994 Designed by Makoto Yamamoto Developed by Sega Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Sega could have sold a sponsorship to Spree. You know, the candy?
I’d never heard of this one. Chances are, if a game in this feature is really obscure, it was recommended to me by one of my best friends, pinball designer Dave Sanders. It’s almost a punch in the gut how many unique block puzzlers sit on the edge of oblivion. My instinct tells me to describe Poto Poto as a sort of reverse Bust-a-Move crossed with the Price is Right game Plinko, but that description doesn’t do the game justice. While the object is to match four same-colored hexagons, how you’re dealt the blocks is unlike pretty much any game ever. For better AND for worse. A character with a wheelbarrow walks back and forth and tosses the pieces onto the stack. You can slide a block across the stack, but as soon as it reaches an empty cell, it falls into the cell and locks into the stack, unless it’s part of a match-four, in which case it clears. If any other blocks aren’t attached to the stack or a wall, they collapse, attacking the opponent in a fashion that will feel very familiar to Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble fans.
You’ll want to do standard, no-frills clears in order to spawn bombs that blow-up the cell they’re above plus all the cells around them, potentially dropping a massive part of the stack on your opponent.
The twist.. well, actually this whole game is so weird it practically is a twist, but regardless.. is that the person throwing the pieces doesn’t wait for you to position one before throwing the next. There’s a chance you’ll have multiple pieces sliding on the playfield, and you only control the lowest one. It’s pretty hard to get the hang of Poto Poto. The sliding-based movement is certainly not elegant, and it’s really easy to accidentally have the piece you’re guiding end up in a cell you weren’t aiming for. It’s also one the strangest tempos for a versus-style puzzler. While games can turn on a dime, it’s too dramatic. I went from “in complete command” to “instantly dead before I knew what hit me” more than once. Other times, games were over in under a minute and totally one-sided. The big problem with Poto Poto is that exciting, give-and-take matches were very, very rare. This was one of the few puzzlers where I didn’t have an insurmountable advantage over my family thanks to having the most experience. I lost as many games as I won. The lack of excitement had nothing to do with the ability gap. Playing against the AI was the same thing: one-sided until the victory, or one-sided until the surprise instant loss. Poto Poto’s formula just doesn’t inherently lend itself to exciting competitive gaming. It’s either total domination or a complete blind-siding. And now I know Poto Poto fell into obscurity for a reason. Verdict: NO!
Tetris 2 aka Tetris Flash Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released July 8, 1994 Directed by Masao Yamamoto & Hitoshi Yamagami Developed by Tose Published by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
You know how I talk about gaming DNA? Well, Tetris 2 only shares DNA with Tetris in the same way a human being is technically a distant relative to the fungus that causes athlete’s foot. I originally put down that this is the bastard love child of Tetris and Dr. Mario, but that isn’t the case either. Tetris 2 is Dr. Mario’s offspring that he and Nurse Peach gave up for adoption to avoid triggering a scandal at the clinic. Lines do nothing for you here. You have to match three same-colored segments. Instead of taking out viruses, you have to take out personality-free target blocks. The catch is that, at the bottom of every stage, three of the target blocks, one of each color, shimmer. Breaking one of the shimmering blocks destroys all the blocks of that color. So in theory, the first to clear those three wins. In practice, it can be tough. Some of the blocks have disconnected segments that can be separated and moved independently. Depending on how congested the stack is, this can make even higher levels end in seconds. It should be hell of satisfying, but Tetris 2 is so subdued that this is the first Nintendo-published game that feels graphically comatose.
In the two player mode, in addition to matching blocks, you have to maintain a water level. In several games, only once did we feel the water level REALLY decided who won or lost. What a waste of a mechanic.
Nintendo really shot themselves in the foot by using the Tetris name and license for this, and why the hell would they invoke that game to begin with? Tetris 2 never feels like Tetris except only in the most vague sense. Like, a couple blocks are similar to Tetris blocks, but really, they should have just made this a Dr. Mario sequel. Dr. Mario was over three years old by the time the NES version of Tetris 2 came out. Just call it Dr. Mario 2! Granted, Dr. Mario is better than Tetris 2, but there’s legit value here. The multiplayer mode is a little misguided, especially with the water level concept. The instruction book promises it makes things “like a tug of war!” That’s code for “so back-and-forth that it’s basically useless.” But, Tetris 2 has quality puzzle mode to make up for the mediocre multiplayer game. It’s one of those BomBliss style puzzlers where you have X amount of blocks to clear the entire screen. I always dig those. Hell, they single-handedly carried BomBliss to a YES! more than once. Tetris 2 is fine. Nothing special, but still a damn shame about the Tetris license being a pair of concrete shoes weighing it down. Oh, and Debbie.. pastels? Verdict: YES!
Tetris & Dr. Mario Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released December 30, 1994 Developed by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
This is the closest Nintendo has ever come to a commercial release of the Nintendo World Championships from 1990.
Tetris & Dr. Mario is Tetris and Dr. Mario. I mean, duh. In North America, this was the only way to get Dr. Mario for the SNES. It was a solo release in Japan, both as a cart and as the final ever game broadcast on the Satellaview accessory. And, you know, it’s a good version of Dr. Mario with the standard 16×8 well. The version of Tetris included is also decent but unspectacular. It doesn’t have 7-bag, that’s for sure. During a two player mixed-match, the game seemed almost deliberately trollish, giving us somewhere around seven Z-blocks. In a row. The same block. I mean, come on. But, that’s not a rarity. It CONSTANTLY identical blocks in clusters. Maybe more than any other game. Otherwise, eh, it’s fine. But the real main event is mixed matches. They’re structured like the NWC 1990 trio. First, you do the B-Mode in Tetris, setting the amount of lines required to anywhere between 1 and 30. Then, you do Dr. Mario, and with all the time remaining, you just score as much as you can in Tetris. Unlike NWC, there’s no multipliers for the stages, and winning/losing is decided by your raw combined point total. The only penalty for dying on any stage is losing all the points you had and having to start that stage over. I couldn’t really experience a good match. Even when I jacked up my family’s handicap, I still whooped them. But, the concept is fine. I mean, in theory. Verdict: YES!
Bust-a-Move aka Puzzle Bobble Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released January 13, 1995 Directed by Shōji Takahashi Developed by Taito Sold Separately on Nintendo Switch
Whether it’s called Bust-a-Move or Puzzle Bobble, there’s so many different versions of it that it would put the overabundance of Klax ports to shame. So, I decided to focus on this first home port which is, you know, fine. Aim a pointer that fires bubbles that ricochet off walls. The bubbles stick to the stack, and a match-3 clears them. There’s a million sequels that are essentially the same game, only the developers slapped a progressively higher number on the title screen. Yea, yea, there’s more to it than that, which is why I have the sequel in coming in Part Two of this feature. But there’s not that much more to it. As a single player experience, there’s no doubt that there’s something serene about Bust-a-Move. It’s low-frills but satisfying enough. The special bubbles are what I found strange. Instead of matching them, you only have to shoot them. Something about that took the satisfaction away. Bust-a-Move is at its best when you have to twist the pointer to a really sharp angle to squeeze a matching shot in. Hitting those shots is gaming nirvana. It’s one of the most simple games on here, but in this genre, simple works. Verdict: YES!
Baku Baku Animal Platform: Arcade – Sega Titan Video Released April, 1995 Directed by Yasushi Watanabe & Yuri Usami (?) Developed by Sega NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Hey! A gimmicky puzzler that actually works! By the way, Sega Titan is basically a cartridge-based Sega Saturn. Why carts instead of discs? My father guessed heating issues, which Dave confirmed. “Cooling is an unnecessary expense. Baku Baku doesn’t require CD-quality music. It doesn’t require streamlined cutscenes. The system wasn’t powerful enough to need fans, and optical drives fail. It’s a puzzle game, not a technology showcase.”
In this feature, I’ve played some pretty high-concept puzzlers that were simply too complicated to be enjoyable. Baku Baku is the rare high-concept game that keeps things so simple and so peppy that you can’t help but like it. Blocks are dropped in random pairs. The twist is that sometimes a block is food and sometimes it’s an animal, and if an animal is linked to its food source, it eats the entire cluster. Baku Baku shares DNA with Pac-Attack, but unlike Pac-Attack, the eating is less restrictive. The food source doesn’t need to be in a straight line to be collected, like Pac-Attack. If the animal is touching a misshapen-but-touching cluster of their food, the whole cluster gets eaten. Smart, especially since it opens the door for ultra-satisfying cascade-style combos. I just wish that kind of thoughtful design was all over Baku Baku, but it’s not.
My father said “it looks like a cardboard juice commercial from 30 years ago.”
As far as YES! games go, few are as problematic as Baku Baku. There’s seemingly no 7-bag-style algorithm. Sometimes it was astonishing how long the game would go spawning food blocks for a specific animal without spawning the animal to eat them. One time I had just about the most elegant stack of blocks I’d done in Baku Baku. A mountain of bananas that would have given Donkey Kong heart palpitations, and I ended up dying because it never gave me the monkey the entire game. It also speeds up faster than any coin-op I can remember. By the fourth stage, the blocks are almost instantaneously on the floor, assuming you haven’t lost a match. If you die, the speed resets. I’m frustrated by Baku Baku Animal, because it’s such a clever idea, but the end result is just okay. The concept is so much more fun than the execution. It is fun enough to get a YES!, but not as enthusiastic a YES! as it should be. Baku Baku desperately needs an algorithm. Fingers crossed for the Game Gear version coming up. Verdict: YES!
blash
V-Tetris Platform: Virtual Boy Released August 25, 1995 Directed by Norifumi Hara Developed by Locomotive Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
With this Tetris, I finally did what I never thought I’d be able to do.
Of all the versions of Tetris for me to check off one of my gaming bucket list moments, it would be the one that gave me bloodshot eyes. Indeed, the Japanese-exclusive V-Tetris became the first ever game of Tetris where I maxed the scoreboard out. All 9’s, including 999 lines. It helps that the game never became impossibly fast, capping-out long before I was finished. Now, my eyes are killing me. Worth it. What’s really strange is that V-Tetris really is just run-of-the-mill Tetris. I guess when you clear lines, they pop out of the screen. Who the f*ck would want a normal Tetris on the Virtual Boy? Well, there is one slight variation that’s basically Tetris wrapped in a cylinder. The gag with it is you can create full lines that don’t get cleared if you rotate them off the screen before the line “settles” to the stack. When you rotate already completed lines onto the screen, they don’t disappear until you make at least one line.
Mode C
Mode C
It’s actually not as interesting as it sounds. In fact, it’s pretty boring. There is a twist to keep players from treading water: the game penalizes you for making singles. If you clear only a single line at any point, it drops a block on the opposite side of the stack, where it will likely create a giant gap in the stack. Of course, thanks to the cylinder, clearing gaps has never been easier. There’s almost always a place for the next block, which completely neutralizes the challenge of Tetris. Technically, V-Tetris is fine. It’s a boilerplate, completely pedestrian form for the game that has absolutely no reason to exist. I should have saved this version for last because my eyes are just on fire right now. This isn’t a comedy bit I’m doing over here. My eyes are legitimately f*cking throbbing. What the everloving hell were they thinking with the Virtual Boy? Thanks for letting me pop my perfect game cherry, V-Tetris, but I didn’t need to pop my eyes while I was at it. Verdict: NO!
Virtual Lab Platform: Virtual Boy Released December 8, 1995 Developed by Nacoty Published by J-Wing NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
This MIGHT have been okay if not for how the drops work. Three blocks at once? THREE? Why?
Virtual Lab is largely considered the worst Virtual Boy game. Now there’s a truly pitiful title. Okay, so I haven’t played every Virtual Boy game, but I’m still guessing the title is accurate, since this is also the worst game in this entire feature. Granted this is one of the only games in this feature that is essentially an underdeveloped prototype made in eight days that was sent to manufacturing without bug testing. I want to say “hey, a playable game in 8 days isn’t bad” but, well, I’m not sure I’d call this “playable.” What I assume are intestines fall from the sky that have between one and three openings. You have to keep building off them until you’re able to cap every end with the single-opening blocks, at which point they clear from the stack. The only kindness the game offers is that the floor and walls count as “caps.”
You can see that I had multiple large structures, but you have to deal with the blocks you’re given. By the way, what the HECK is even remotely 3D about this game? What the heck is this doing as a Virtual Boy game?
It’s actually a neat idea. Really! At least it’s different, but the concept is ruined by the game dropping two or three blocks that are often incompatible at a time. Even though you have the ability to shuffle the order of the blocks and rotate them, you have to move them together until one of them settles, and that almost always means permanently ending the “match” potential for some part of the stack. See, any opening that faces a non-opening of another block becomes essentially impossible to get rid of. This means that even perfect play can see you hosed by having three blocks spawn at once, since it could inevitably lead to a single blocked pathway, which is all it takes to ruin an entire structure you’re working on with no hope of recovery. And again, that’s assuming you make all the right moves, because on top of all this, the controls are the absolute loosest I’ve ever experienced in this genre. Calling Virtual Lab “broken” feels too generous. The worst game in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review? Yep, and it’s not even close, in fact. Could something be made from this idea? Well, yea. In fact, it already kind of happened. Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen for the Famicom or hell, any version of Pipe Dream is basically the same idea done better. This is just those games without any sense of fine tuning. Verdict: NO!
3-D Tetris Platform: Virtual Boy Released March 22, 1996 Developed by T&E Soft Published by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Those Tetris characters are nightmare fuel only made worse by the all-red color.
3D-Tetris is an eyesore, but it’s Virtual Boy so that goes without saying. It’s actually not all that different from BlockOut, to the point that it’s really best to think of 3D-Tetris as an evolution of that game. The only difference is this is a legit 3D game with a camera that automatically spins around the playfield. My big problem with Blockout was it wasn’t easy (if possible at all) to know where you screwed up and where the gaps were. The well itself had no sense of depth to it. That’s not the case here, as there’s five “maps” on the side of the screen that show the current stack’s layers. There’s also a wider variety of modes, including one where you have to build around the dead center of the well, because the stack is only cleared once you insert a block on top of that center square.
I’m pretty sure the absolute limit is a triple instead of a full Tetris. Which is fine because I never came close to it anyway.
My problem with 3D-Tetris is that it’s an unintuitive nightmare. Classical versions of Tetris work because it’s a concept that takes all of twenty seconds to “get.” Hell, if that! But, I played 3D-Tetris for several hours and still had no feel for rotation or block movement. And that’s before I get to the whole symmetry rule thing for the “center fill” version of the game, which is one of the most convoluted, confusing and overly complicated game mechanics in the history of video games. This is a prime example of developers who completely lose the plot. “Let’s take one of the most easy to understand video games ever created and give it rules that, when read out loud, makes it sound like the person is speaking in tongues.” Enjoy making sense of this sh*t:
I stuck to trying to simply craft lines. You know, that thing that people play Tetris for? On those terms, honestly it really is just a more complicated version of BlockOut. But, even with three different buttons to control the rotation (one of which would normally be a second D-pad, so you’ll want to tinker with your emulator mapping to find a comfy configuration), I never reached the point where manipulating the blocks felt natural. I don’t know if it’s because the camera is always slowly rotating around or because the blocks are wireframes, but it just felt like I was disconnected from the game. It doesn’t help that the blocks can take on some difficult-to-process shapes. This Tetris even has blocks that come out in pairs or even four small blocks at a time, but it’s really difficult to “separate them” like in games such as Hatris or Tetris 2. I wanted to break apart the single-blocks and slide them into the gaps, and I don’t think I pulled that off even once.
The closest 3D-Tetris comes to being “fun.”
Now, 3D-Tetris isn’t a total flop thanks to the “puzzle mode” which is the closest any Tetris game has come to mimicking the Tetromino Box-style puzzle that was Alexey Pajitnov’s direct inspiration for Tetris. The game presents you with a 3D shape and X amount of blocks to create that shape. There’s no easing players into it, either. It was a true brain-bender right from the start. Ironically for a game that was basically limited to one player shoving their face into an eyeball air-fryer, this was a game that I enjoyed playing with my family. We worked together to solve a few of the puzzles before everyone started complaining that the game was hurting their eyes. Jeez, if Virtual Boy games on a television cause eye strain, just imagine what it did to people who stuck the monitor next to their face. What were they thinking? I don’t think 3-D Tetris is worth playing in the 2020s, but there’s probably legs for the puzzle mode to be expanded upon. With colors besides red, hopefully. Verdict: NO!
I’M NOT DONE YET!
PART TWO WILL INCLUDE THESE GAMES!
Puzzle & Action: Tant-R (Arcade, 1993)
Yoshi’s Cookie (SNES, 1992)
Pac-Attack (SNES, 1993)
BreakThru! (SNES, 1994)
Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R (Arcade, 1994)
Taisen Puzzle-dama (Arcade, 1994)
Wario’s Woods (SNES, 1994)
Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber W (Super Famicom, 1995)
Panic Bomber (Virtual Boy, 1995)
Magical Drop (Super Famicom, 1995)
Tetris Attack (SNES, 1995)
Puzzle & Action: Treasure Hunt (Arcade, 1995)
Tecmo Stackers (PlayStation, 1995)
Baku Baku (Game Gear, 1996)
Tetris Plus (PlayStation, 1996)
Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition (PlayStation, 1996)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PlayStation, 1996)
Tetris Plus 2 (Arcade, 1997)
Columns ’97 (Arcade, 1997)
Money Puzzle Exchanger (Arcade, 1997)
Tetrisphere (Nintendo 64, 1997)
Puyo Puyo Sun (Nintendo 64, 1997)
Star Sweep (PlayStation, 1997)
Tetris: The Grand Master (Arcade, 1998)
Wrecking Crew ’98 (Super Famicom, 1998)
Kirby’s Super Star Stacker (Super Famicom, 1998)
Wetrix (Nintendo 64, 1998)
Tetris DX (Game Boy Color, 1998)
Magical Tetris Challenge (Nintendo 64, 1998)
Gunpey (Wonderswan, 1999)
The New Tetris (Nintendo 64, 1999)
The Next Tetris (PlayStation, 1999)
Tetris: The Grand Master 2 – The Absolute PLUS (Arcade, 2000)
Your favorite Atari games, only played with.. um.. popsicles? Paint brushes? Dip switches in the correct position?
My friend Ryan got the Atari 2600+ to try out. I’m waiting for one with more modern console-like features, especially built-in media capture/upload and digital stores. Besides, I’m sort of over carts. I took a “no plastic pledge” at the start of this generation (IE Nintendo Switch), which I didn’t completely stick to, but it’s not my fault. Most of the physical media I own was given to me as gifts. You can’t wrap digital data for Christmas or birthdays. I have hundreds upon hundreds of Switch games, but only around fifty physical games, and they’re mostly Nintendo ones or retro collections. It’s the same story with PlayStation and Xbox. Loaded with games, but very little in the way of physical ones. And it’s made no difference in my life. I only beat most games once, then put them away and they sit, occupying a shelf or sitting in a box somewhere. Who needs that? I get that people are upset about physical media coming to an end, but it’s something we probably all should get used to, and I’m getting ahead of the curve. With that said, I do have a lot of Evercade carts, BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT! So, what AM I playing?
That dinosaur died, and 65,000,000 years later, a beverage company found the fossilized remains and the CEO said “this dinosaur died via orange crush. Hey, wait a second, let’s call our soft drink.. Dr. Pepper!” Where did you think that story was going?
“Where the hell is Tetris Forever?” It’s done, but I’m adding bonus content and there’s so much I want to get to that I’m making it my Christmas feature this year. Last year, LCD Games IX and LCD Games X – Game & Watch Gallery: The Definitive Review did great, and reviewing EVERY Game & Watch is going to be tough to top. Then, I realized that the Tetris thing I’m already working on is better. That’s fine, as I have another collection to do: Taito Milestones 3. There will be no delay in it. The review will go live December 9 (I originally had the release date as December 8, but it’s actually December 10), no matter what. Bonus reviews are limited by time. There are a couple, but I’m only revealing one right now. It’s Parasol Stars, which you can also buy on all consoles. And hey, this means one Definitive Review will have the first three Bubble Bobble games, which I think everyone will enjoy. Unlike the games of Taito Milestones 3, I’ve already played Parasol Stars all the way. It was a surprise highlight for me in the TurboGrafx-16 mini. I *really* liked it. So, here’s the Taito Milestones 3 lineup.
The lineup, and before yesterday, I had never played any of the games on there, or at least the arcade versions, except Bubble Bobble.
There’s a pretty strong chance my time with one game, Runark (or Growl as it’s called in Taito 3 since that’s the American name) will be extremely limited due to epilepsy concerns. No matter what, there will be a review in the feature for Runark even if I can’t write it. Unlike Tetris, most of these games are sold separately via Arcade Archives for $7.99 each. Therefore, like Taito 1 and 2, I won’t assign different values to games. A YES! is worth exactly $8 in value to Taito Milestones 3. Three of its games (Dead Connection, Thunder Fox, and Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III) are exclusive to Taito Milestones 3. You cannot get them via Arcade Archives, but I’m keeping the value at $8 because they run off Arcade Archives’ interface. Based on my early sampling, my prediction is 5 YES!, 5 NO!, which is good enough for my Seal of Approval, but that is obviously not final. I’m not even really finished with the games I’ve written most of the review for. That’s because I haven’t gotten to co-op yet, and most of these are co-op. It’s Turkey Day in America, and to help my nieces and nephew, who will no doubt be bored waiting for dinner, I’m going to force them to play co-op with me ask politely for them to play co-op with me.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hug your loved ones. Tell them you love them.
Castlevania Chronicles
aka Akumajō Dracula Platform: PlayStation Released May 24, 2001 Directed by Masayuki Umasaki Developed by Konami NO MODERN RELEASE*
*Castlevania Chronicles appears to be fully delisted from all global PlayStation platforms, but I was unable to confirm this.
Hey, if the Simpsons can get away with Halloween in November, why can’t I?
I nearly did Castlevania Chronicles for Halloween, but I lost interest thinking it was little more than a remake of the first game. Hey, I have much love in my heart for the first Castlevania, but I’ve already reviewed it, so I chose to do Dracula X instead. Besides, I didn’t even have a PlayStation emulator up and running, so all I had was my Vita, wherever the hell it is. I bought Chronicles (or got it with PS+, I don’t remember which) but I don’t remember ever booting it up. Well, Chronicles has a lot in common with Dracula X. They’re both remakes of the original Castlevania. I know that Dracula X is supposed to technically be an alternative take on Rondo of Blood, but I mean.. come on. It’s a back-to-basics Castlevania, only with new level design and “fancy” graphics that are actually pretty damn bland. That sentence is about Dracula X, but it PERFECTLY describes Chronicles, except the bland part. This isn’t just a graphical overhaul along the lines of what Super Mario All-Stars did for the NES Mario games. This has new set pieces, new bosses, removes other bosses (or demotes them to one-off mini-bosses), and features seven entirely (or almost entirely) new levels. And that’s a real pain in my ass because I thought this would be a fun little quickie review to buy me time while I work on the bonus reviews for Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review and it turns out this is a whole new game that I’ve never played before. Well f*ck.
There’s something about fighting a normal Merlin-like wizard that feels completely out of place in a Castlevania game. This is like the type of boss you’d expect in one of the Game Boy Castlevanias, and in fact, this is apparently the same boss from Belmont’s Revenge. Hell, the thing in the center of the screen, which is just an attack by the wizard, should have been the boss.
Actually, it’s worse than that, because this game was first released in July of 1993 for the Sharp X68000 exclusively in Japan as Akumajō Dracula. Castlevania Chronicles is a remake/reimagining of a remake/reimagining of a game that’s then re-remade/re-reimagined a third time. You can play the “original” game from 1993, which I was certain was going to be a beat-for-beat remake of Castlevania 1. It’s not. Then you can play “Arrangement” which I figured would change up the level design. It doesn’t. Both games are, more or less, the same game, though Arrangement’s difficulty is rebalanced. The only other difference is your character’s appearance and the final boss’s appearance. They didn’t even change the backgrounds. Here’s nearly the same screenshot above, only it’s taken in the “normal” mode.
I played this version first, by the way.
Only a few special effects have been added. The giant bat you fight at the end of the first level plays identically, but now it has a spooky motion blur when it moves. I mean, sometimes, but not all the time. Oooooh. The arrange mode is a lot easier, too, though I’d be hard-pressed to explain why. The original game ate me for lunch so badly that I opted to play with save states instead of lives, but I ran through Arrange mode only losing one life the entire time. Maybe I was taking less damage, but if that’s the case, the effect is so subtle I didn’t instinctively notice. Apparently this mode has adjustable difficulty, but I have more Tetris to play and I really thought I was playing a remake of Castlevania 1 that I could knock out in a few hours, so I never experimented with the difficulty settings. Whatever was the default is what I played on. I know that I unlocked concept art when I finished, and there’s also an interview with producer Koji Igarashi, making this one of the first games with DVD-like extras (Digital Eclipse was doing this too with their Arcade’s Greatest Hits line).
If you think this is grainy, try imagining it on the Sega CD.
Only the first level and the final battle with Dracula resembles the original Castlevania, but besides those, only tiny chunks of stages show up. The “Infamous Hallway” leading to the Grim Reaper fight is here, only it takes place in front of a crumbling mural and other spooky paintings. Fun fact: the mural can be any of the four seasons, depending on the X68000’s internal clock. The original PlayStation doesn’t have a clock, but a code can change the date, which changes the mural. The section of the final level where you have to jump over pits while fighting and/or avoiding multiple giant bats that you fought as the first boss? That’s here. And.. actually, that’s about it. In fact, all the other levels feel completely different from the original game, and so do the bosses except Dracula. Medusa is no longer just a giant head. The mummies are gone completely. Frankenstein is a one-off set-piece mini-boss (I wanted to see how many hyphens I could get in a row). The Grim Reaper is a total push-over, and Dracula isn’t far behind him. Hell, the holy water isn’t the be-all, end-all to beat the game anymore. The boomerang is much more effective than it ever has been, as it does more damage than the whip, easily.
Calling “The Creature” a mini-boss is a little unfair. He might not have a life bar or the boss music, but he IS a boss that takes about the same hits (or maybe just a little less) than a normal boss. The timing of when the electrodes wake him up is totally off, though. You don’t see it come to life, but otherwise, this is functionally a mid-level boss battle that’s more exciting and intense than a couple of the real bosses, even including the Grim Reaper. There’s other mini-boss set-pieces. A stained-glass window shatters and comes to life, Young Sherlock-style (it’s so close that it’s a safe bet the producers of Chronicles were big fans of the film), and you fight a giant skeletal spider at one point.
The biggest problem with Chronicles is it has a massive tone problem. Yes, Castlevania is inherently silly, but what I think makes the original games work is they never say “oh, we know it’s ridiculous.” All those early games, including Super Castlevania IV, are totally sincere, so what should be an absurd farce actually does become genuinely scary at times. Castlevania never gets enough credit for that, but all that crap is out the window in Castlevania Chronicles. At one point you enter.. um.. what the hell is this?
Dracula’s day care center? I guess? A gigantic play room that sees you fighting dolls and toy soldiers. Dolls can be creepy, and the dolls in Chronicles are actually some of the tougher normal baddies to deal with in the entire game. But, stylistically, it didn’t work the way they dressed it up. It feels like a satire of Castlevania, but this isn’t the only part like that. In the second-to-last level, my jaw literally dropped when skeleton jump ropes appeared. Not just skeleton jump ropes, but DOUBLE DUTCH-STYLE skeleton jump ropes. Maybe these would have been fun and frisky set pieces for the early parts of the game, but they come in the last third of Chronicles, and they’re just too absurd to hold the mood Castlevania aims for. What was the pitch meeting the monsters made to Dracula for the jump rope? “Okay, we know that the Belmonts have defeated us for, like, century after century, but hear us out! We have a plan that will surely prevent this Simon character from ever making it to you. You know how nobody likes exercise, right? Well, what if..”
This was apparently not a fever dream I had. I double-checked and everything! This is real! That or I just uploaded a picture of a blank screen and my readers are checking with friends to make sure I’m okay.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think this game came out in the 2020s. It’s Castlevania based around subversion of expectations. Like you know the first piece of meat you find in the first Castlevania game? I gave that a whole paragraph in the Castlevania review because it was the perfect example of how to educate a player. They put a bat in front of it in order to assure players whipped the wall, revealing the meat and showing that Castlevania is a game with breakable walls. Well, that wall is back in Chronicles, only when you whip the wall, this happens now:
Since it’s hard to see them, yes, those are the jumping men. An endless stream of them, and that’s not an exaggeration. Tons of them keep spilling out until you leave the room.
That’s just a dick move extraordinaire right there. What’s frustrating about stuff like that is Castlevania Chronicles is, more often than not, pretty dang clever with its level design. This isn’t a half-hearted assortment of platforms and staircases, like Dracula X. Chronicles is solid from start to finish. I just beat it twice, and I could have kept going and challenged the time attack modes (unlocked after beating Arrangement) without being bored. It’s certainly not perfect. The difficulty curve is all over the place and some needless last pixel jumps somewhat spoil the fun. The new bosses are a little on the generic side, with the exception of the best werewolf fight in Castlevania. It takes place in front of a clock, and it actually throws the numbers off the face of the clock at you, then grabs the minute hand and uses it as a melee weapon when it’s down to its final ticks of health.
The remake of the original final battle with Dracula includes no real surprises, which was a bit disappointing. Hell, the final form doesn’t even have a different sprite in Arrangement, like the first does. However, I love how big the boss is, so I’ll let it slide.
I won’t say that Chronicles has a bad reputation, as contemporary reviews I think were more middling thanks to the timing of release. People wanted new in 2001, not old. The PlayStation 2 was already out by the time Chronicles was released, and the GameCube and Xbox were literally just about to come out, but Castlevania wasn’t so old that it qualified as “retro.” Had this come out today, in 2024, I honestly think it’d get 9s and 10s from critics. Instead of a “bad reputation” I’d argue that Chronicles has the WRONG reputation. It’s just not a remake, period, end of story. Try to imagine it as the REAL Castlevania II that happened just before Dracula’s Curse. On those terms, Chronicles is actually kind of the perfect sequel.
It also makes a lot of bone-headed decisions, like having the skeleton spider, a one-off set piece, be obscured by the status bar. We might reach the remake singularity, but screw it: someone really ought to remake this again, because this is easily the most underrated of the linear Castlevanias.
If this had an entirely different first level, they could have done exactly that, retconning Simon’s Quest out of existence and substituting Chronicles as “Castlevania II: Simon’s Chronicles” or something like that. There’s more levels (eight instead of six), better combat (you can whip downward and down-diagonal when you jump) and bigger set-pieces, but there’s still a direct line between the first game and this one. A subtly of evolution that makes it succeed in a way the Dracula X could never have hoped for. I wanted a little review to buy me time while I work on Tetris, and instead, I found one of my favorite Castlevania games. Chronicles isn’t just underrated, but CRIMINALLY underrated, and worth a look, even if it’s too silly for its own good. Verdict: YES!
Banzai Run has been confirmed as the next Williams table for Pinball FX. With this announcement, every Pat Lawlor table from the arcade era of pinball is now in Pinball FX. There’s still one table left to be announced, and the only hint is it’s from 1989. No other hints were given and if I were to spoil it, Zen Studios would no doubt call the POLICE on me, but that’s fine, hopefully we don’t have to wait 2000 years for the PARTY (monsters) to start. I know I’m doing a scattershot of potential table teases. What can I say? I’m a BAD CAT. So, what am I playing?
GODDAMNIT LET ME YANK THAT F*CKING THING OUT!
Oh, for the want of a pair of tweezers. I’m totally digging Tetris Forever except for one hugely distracting lip hair on Henk Rogers. It’s like gravity reversed on his face, but only for one specific hair follicle. I’m told a patch is coming to fix this, and they hired the same guys who took out Superman’s mustache in the Justice League movie so you know that no expense is being spared.
“Tell me Henk.. do you tweeze? Well you will!”
Otherwise, yea, Tetris Forever is fantastic. Mostly. The lack of English ROM translations is a pain in the ass, especially for the included game of Go by Bullet-Proof Software. It’s called Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku, and I hope you know how to play Go and/or read fluent Japanese. If neither of those apply to you, this is not going to help you learn the game.
It’s hard to say I’m disappointed because there’s 18 games, but this is one of those bad habits I don’t want Digital Eclipse/Atari to get too deeply into. Up to this point, language barriers haven’t factored into any of the games in the Gold Master Series. That’s certainly not the case with Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku. Even a totally unnecessary +1 to a game collection becomes a drag on the whole package if it feels like the extra effort wasn’t there. Part of me wonders if the language barrier is why Black Onyx wasn’t included. I’m grateful it wasn’t. The time I could spend doing a JRPG I can instead put towards the growing list of bonus reviews I’m including. So, I’m going to go until this Tuesday, a week after Tetris Forever was released. If I have more time, more bonus games will be added. Remember, I can’t include EVERY version of Tetris, including your favorites. In addition to the eighteen games included Tetris Forever, all of which get a full review, here are the twelve bonus reviews included in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review.
Tetris Platform: Arcade Released December, 1988 Developed by Sega NO MODERN RE-RELEASE*
*The version in the Genesis Mini doesn’t count.
Tetris Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released May, 1989 Designed by Ed Logg Developed by Tengen (Atari Games) NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Tetris Platform: Game Boy Released June 14, 1989 Designed by Masao Yamamoto Developed by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
Tetris Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System Released December, 1989 Developed by Nintendo Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)
Hatris Platform: PC Engine Released May 24, 1991 Developed by Micro Cabin Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Tetris 2 Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released July 8, 1994 Directed by Masao Yamamoto & Hitoshi Yamagami Developed by Tose Published by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Tetris & Dr. Mario Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Released December 30, 1994 Developed by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
V-Tetris Platform: Virtual Boy Released August 25, 1995 Directed by Norifumi Hara Developed by Locomotive Published by Bullet-Proof Software Never Released Outside of Japan NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
3D-Tetris Platform: Virtual Boy Released March 22, 1996 Developed by T&E Soft Published by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Tetrisphere Platform: Nintendo 64 Released August 11, 1997 Designed by Steve Shatford Developed by H2O Entertainment Published by Nintendo NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Magical Tetris Challenge Platform: Nintendo 64 Released November 20, 1998 Directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi Published by Capcom NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED
Hexic HD Platform: Xbox 360 Released November 22, 2005 Designed by Alexey Pajitnov Published by Microsoft
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Mickey to Donald: Magical Adventure 3
The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie
The Great Circus Mystery
Super Mario RPG
Kung-Fu Master (Arcade, 1984) aka Spartan X
Black Belt (Sega Master System, 1986) aka Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star
Kung-Fu Master
Kung Fu Master
Seiken Achoo
Knuckle Joe
Shao-Lin’s Road
Kung Fu
Dragon Wang
My Hero
Flashgal
Kung-Fu Master
Lady Master of Kung Fu
Kung-Fu Master
Mr. Goemon
Black Belt
Kung-Fu Master
Kung-Fu Master
Kung Fu Kid
China Warrior
Kuri Kinton
Vigilante
Splatterhouse
Kung-Fu Master
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu
Kung Fu Master
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu
Spartan X 2
Splatterhouse 2
Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land DX
Tetris
Tetris
Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku
Tetris
Tetris
Tetris
Welltris
Hatris (JP Version)
Hatris
Hatris (US Version)
Tetris 2 + BomBliss
Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss
Tetris Battle Gaiden
Super Tetris 2 + BomBliss Genteiban
Super Tetris 3
Super BomBliss
Super BomBliss DX
Super BomBliss
Tetris Time Warp
FINAL TALLY – NINETEEN GAMES (following 12-20-24 update)
Tetris
Tetris
Tetris
Tetris
Tetris
Tetris
Flash Point
BlockOut
Tetris
BlockOut
Nintendo World Championships 1990
Pyramid
Tetris
Pipe Dream
Bloxeed
Klax
Klax
Columns
Hatris
Klax
Knight Move
Klax
Dr. Mario
Dr. Mario
Klax
Columns II: The Voyage Through Time
Pipe Dream
Klax (Namco)
Welltris
Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen
Hatris
Puyo Puyo
Yoshi
Wordtris
Oh My God!
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
Poto Poto
Tetris 2
Tetris & Dr. Mario
Bust-a-Move
Baku Baku Animal
V-Tetris
Virtual Lab
3-D Tetris
Castlevania Chronicles
Tetrisphere
Magical Tetris Challenge
Hexic HD
Indie Gamer Chick 
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