TETRIS ATTACK

Tetris Attack is, despite the name, not at all a Tetris game. It's actually Panel De Pon, a Japanese puzzle game that has a history of being localized funny in America. The first game on Super Famicom became Tetris Attack, and instead of the games own original characters, Yoshi's Island characters are added. The second game for the N64 became Pokémon Puzzle League in the states, which never got re-ported to Japan, making it the only Pokémon game to not get a Japanese release. After that, Panel de Pon would be Puzzle League in the states, getting GBA and DS releases. But forget those, Tetris Attack!

The premise of the game is simple, you match three or more tiles of the same shape and color to pop them, and tiles will fall down from the top to fill the empty space, allowing you to make combos. pops of four or more, or combos, or pops with special exclamation mark tiles, will send garbage to your opponent in the form of blocks (They look like thwomps from Mario to me,) popping tiles adjacent to the garbage converts it to normal tiles, which also fall down and more combos ensue. The thing that really seals the game for me as an all-timer is that when you get a really good combo, a little trumpet flair plays which feels oh-so satisfying.

When you pop tiles, they don't immediately disappear, they slowly indicate as popped one by one, and you can move and swap tiles during that whole time. So you can set up for a better combo in real time. When you pop a giant brick, maybe four high, you have all that time to think and set up combos for the falling bricks. The game also has a unique timer for when you top out your board, you have some time to move and try and dig your way out before your board drops and you die. All of this makes this game incredibly competitive, and so much fun to master.

The SNES original game is a classic for me, and one I play pretty often. Thankfully, there's also a Game Boy port for play on the go! The game has five modes: Endless, Time Trial, Stage Clear, Puzzle and VS. Com. Endless adds endless tiles until you die or get bored, Time Trial sets a time limit to try and rack up a high score. Stage Clear puts a goal line far down, and you have to make combos and raise the board from the bottom until all blocks are below the goal line, at which point you move on to the next stage, of which there are many. Puzzle gives you a board and a strict move limit, you have to clear the board by finding good combos in the tiles without going over the move limit. This is a sort of tutorial for how to spot good combos in a crowded board at higher levels, it's satisfying!

Vs. Com is the arcade mode, similar to Puyo Puyo's arcade mode. You fight seven enemies and friends from Yoshi's Island, then go against a series of bosses with your newfound friends acting as extra lives. Easy mode is, well very easy, but the hard difficulty is no joke. I couldn't make it past the second stage on hard, but breezed through normal with only one continue... On the SNES. On game boy, i got stuck hard at hookbill koopa and couldn't go on. You have unlimited continues, but the game does count them. In the SNES version of the game, the screen is wide enough to see the enemies board and your own at the same time. Here, the Game Boy's square display can only show your board, and a health bar for your opponent. I do miss seeing the fruits of my labor when a giant pile of garbage sends my opponent into a panic, but hey what can you do.

Because the tiles are so large and each color is associated with a glyph, this game is incredibly easy to see on a Game Boy screen. All of the graphics, in fact, are really well drawn, with nice large sprites and pretty backgrounds. The music is very well adapted from the SNES port, but enemy sound clips are converted to beeps and boops so no 'attack' and 'caw!' and 'aaughh!' from your opponents. Unless you're playing with another person via link cable, you'll hear their moans of anguish. This is an incredible port of the SNES game, and one of my favorite puzzlers period. Of all the games I've played so far for this collection, tile falling games especially, I could see myself practicing this one until I'm ready to compete professionally. Me, a pro gamer, imagine!