Re: Tetris Battle Download Mac
Zee Badoni
This column is \u201CRe-release this,\u201D which will focus on games that aren\u2019t easily available, or even available at all, but should be once again. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.
What Tetris is, well, that\u2019s pretty well-established by now. There are variations, sure, loads and loads of little changes here and there that make each Tetris different than the last, that make quite a few of them unique pieces of the Tetris oeuvre. But they\u2019re all still Tetris. Some of the earliest Tetris sequels, however, were all over the place with their design. Not in a negative way, not by any means, but they were more vaguely akin to Tetris than Tetris themselves, as the ideas of what Tetris was and could be were still being considered.
Tetris 2 is the obvious example, given it introduced completely new tetromino shapes to clear, and also, you were clearing sets of three tiles at a time instead of whole lines. This truly was Tetris in name only, as it was just as much Dr. Mario as Tetris, but not quite that, either. Tetris Battle Gaiden, on the other hand, is very much Tetris: you\u2019re once again clearing full lines, the shapes are familiar, you can actually score a Tetris by wiping four lines from existence at once. However, it\u2019s not designed to be a score-based puzzle game, but is a head-to-head battle puzzler. And to hammer home the battle elements, Tetris Battle Gaiden introduces not just playable characters, but powers exclusive to them that you have to earn the right to deploy against your foes.
Tetris Battle Gaiden was developed by Bullet Proof Software, which was the studio founded by Henk Rogers, otherwise known as the person who helped bring Tetris to the world in a partnership with Nintendo. It was published by Bullet Proof Software, as well, and remained exclusive to Japan on the Super Famicom. A huge shame for a number of reasons, like the fact that Tetris was a worldwide phenomenon, and that while there was text in Tetris Battle Gaiden, it\u2019s not like it was a role-playing game with a lengthy script that needed an obscene amount of time for localizing. But also because there\u2019s nothing quite like this spin-off out there, as anyone who has played it can attest.
Tetris has competitive elements to it, for sure, especially post-Battle Gaiden, but at the time of its release, the emphasis was much more on scoring and besting your past self. Attempting to survive as long as possible, with the \u201Cclock\u201D of increasing speeds and heightened difficulty counting down to your inevitable demise. Tetris Battle Gaiden, though, made the focal point, well, battles. The game doesn\u2019t even keep track of your score, for one, with the emphasis being entirely on surviving for longer than your opponent, a fate you can attempt to ensure by constantly attacking them with the powers at your disposal.
Contests between evenly matched opponents can go on for some time, especially with the extra layer of strategy required by Battle Gaiden. Do you use crystals \u2014 which are collected by clearing the blocks containing them \u2014 as soon as possible to lower your own stack of lines, or do you keep saving up for the biggest powers that will cause the most damage? It\u2019s a constant back-and-forth that will require you\u2019re able to adjust as needed, while also playing like you actually have a plan if you intend to win.
Basically, you don\u2019t want to play the way you normally think of playing Tetris, or else you\u2019ll run into trouble: don\u2019t constantly try to make a big well to drop a long piece into to get a four-line Tetris at the expense of everything else, for instance. What you want to focus on instead is keeping your stack of blocks as low as possible, to weather whatever storms come your way with relative ease, and to clear as many lines that include crystals in them as you can, so you have a stockpile to call upon.
Whereas many head-to-head block-clearing games like Puyo Puyo focus on sending pieces to your opponent following a huge clear of lines or a combo, Tetris Battle Gaiden is more focused on planned attacks that will make a mess of your opponent\u2019s board, or defensive plays that\u2019ll make your own a little easier to deal with. So you don\u2019t need to make complicated structures you\u2019ll eventually toss long blocks into to clear four lines at once, as much as you just need to clear the right blocks to survive and build up a stash of crystals, which can then be used to ruin your friend\u2019s day.
That\u2019s not to say you should avoid trying to clear four lines at a time to score a Tetris, because it will impact your adversary\u2019s board if you do. It\u2019s just that this isn\u2019t the only way to do things, so don\u2019t fret, or don\u2019t force yourself to focus on just that. The crystals are probably more important, especially since your board could be rearranged one way or another at any time, in a way that undoes any structural planning you had going on. You\u2019re going to have a bad time if you\u2019re pinning all your hopes on scoring a Tetris or two, and then your opponent uses a power that turns your board into Swiss cheese: problems like that are going to take time to fix, and if you\u2019re stacking blocks up too high before tragedy strikes, you might not have the time to make the repairs you need to before you lose.
The powers\u2026 there are a whole bunch of them. There are eight different characters to choose from, each with their own four powers. They\u2019re meant to be well-balanced, though, so no character is necessarily \u201Cbetter\u201D than the others: the idea, as designer Norifumi Hara put it in an interview with the magazine Dengeki SFC in 1993, \u201C\u2026our main priority was making everyone equal and balanced against each other. People will probably be strongest with whichever character they play the most.\u201D It\u2019s key, then, to learn about the different powers each character has, in order to know what you have at your disposal, powers-wise. The first power, which uses just one crystal, is roughly the same for each character: the goal is to remove some blocks from your own side of the board, and fast. The rabbit-like creature, Mirurun, jumps up and down to squash four lines together and set them beneath the playing field. Aladdin takes a couple of rows from his side of the board, and slots them in underneath his opponent\u2019s current rows. Shaman splits his board vertically, which pushes everything to the side and then fills in the holes in the middle, giving you a great chance of clearing some lines while also erasing some gaps you or your opponents made in your field.
To balance out some powers like Shaman\u2019s easily abused level one power, though, comes a weak level four, which is theoretically supposed to be the strongest one for each character. Shaman will use another characters\u2019s level four power at random, and since you don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to be, it\u2019s tough to strategize around its deployment. See? Balance! Knowing this is the case lets you use more of the low-level powers for someone like Shaman without having to stockpile enough crystals for the level four power, but the opposite can also be true: some characters have weaker early powers, and game-dominating late ones. You have to survive long enough to save up the crystals to use those, though!
Some powers turn out the lights, so you can\u2019t see your board anymore, other than through the light that\u2019s coming out from under the piece you\u2019re currently playing with. Some poke holes in your existing playing field, which makes clearing those lines either exceptionally difficult or, without some power usage of your own, impossible. Some can steal crystals for themselves, or transport random pieces of blocks over. Some rearrange everything to make a board very top heavy \u2014 the bottom half will be mostly clear, but you have to survive long enough to get back to it for that to matter. Experiment with the various characters, as you\u2019ll eventually find one that fits your strategy, or you\u2019ll discover it\u2019s worth adapting your strategy to fit one of the characters.
In addition to the powers, there\u2019s another wrinkle to learn. The two players share the pool of incoming pieces in Tetris Battle Gaiden, and there is no button to press to automatically fling a piece to the bottom of your playing field as fast as possible. You\u2019re in a race to use \u2014 or not use \u2014 your current piece, in order to get the next piece that you want, with the next three always displayed, visual information that also includes whether or not they have crystals contained within them. Since this is an old-school Tetris where there\u2019s no \u201Cwall kick,\u201D no ability to spin a piece until it\u2019s just right before it\u2019s locked into place, and no ability to \u201Chold\u201D a piece until later, it\u2019s even more important that you keep an eye on what\u2019s next so it\u2019s something you can use. Pieces lock into place in a hurry, and you need space to rotate a piece in order to rotate it: ending up with a bunch of pieces you didn\u2019t need in a row, that are just going to make winning more difficult for you, is something to avoid... especially if they show up after you misplayed a couple of previous pieces thanks to the lack of kick and spin to help you maneuver. So, play as fast or as slow as necessary in order to secure the pieces you do want and need, but know that your opponent is doing that, too.
You can tell that Tetris Battle Gaiden started out as an idea for the Famicom not just because the game\u2019s developers have said as much, but because of the control scheme: it\u2019s designed as if you only had so many buttons to work with, which in the case of the Famicom, would have meant two face buttons and a directional pad. To use your powers in Battle Gaiden, you press Up on the Super Famicom\u2019s D-Pad, instead of by pressing one of the unused face buttons \u2014 Y and X (and the L and R shoulder buttons) didn\u2019t exist on the Famicom\u2019s pad, after all. This also isn\u2019t necessarily a criticism of Bullet Proof Software\u2019s process or decision: it might have been the right call to keep things the way they had in mind for the Famicom version of Tetris Battle Gaiden, to avoid accidental usage of a power when you mean to flip a piece. This sets it up so face button presses always mean flipping a piece, while powers are engaged with your other hand to avoid any in-the-moment confusion.
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