dearcrowns

Magical Girl (Aspirational)

I'm still figuring this out uuuh read Lenin


sarahssowertty
@sarahssowertty

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Tetris The Grand Master (Arika, 1996).

UK
PSN
Switch

US
PSN
Switch

Arika's take on Tetris has a strong reputation behind it, with a grading system that updates as you play through the game and blocks that get pretty fast, although this first release doesn't go in quite as hard as the third game, TERROR INSTINCT. As explained in this interview, the Sega version of Tetris was an influence on this one, which is why it feels a little different from modern Tetris games that adhere to the Tetris Guidelines (this interview also mentions the one true Tetris game, Tetris with Cardcaptor Sakura: Eternal Heart, also by Arika).

This is a big one- until now the only home version of any of these games was Tetris The Grand Master Ace on Xbox 360, and that was a Japan-only release. I'm not a Tetris expert by any means, but as is my understanding Arika have been trying to do something with The Grand Master for quite a while (including a fourth game in the series) and I guess The Tetris Company had the final say on some things, so I'm glad they were willing to let this version come out again.

This game also has some pretty wild secret modes, so via Arcade-History, here they are, entered on the title screen after inserting a coin:
Big Mode (BIG PIECES) : Left(x4), Down, C, B, A
Mono Mode (Play in black and white) : Right(x3), Up, C, B, A
TLS Mode (Pieces will still have shadows beyond lvl100) : A, B, C(x2), B, A(x2), C, B
Uki Mode (Adds a laughtrack) : A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B(x2)
20G Mode (Pieces will drop 20 spaces per frame from the off) : Down(x8), C, B, A
Rev Mode (Play the game upside down as pieces rise instead of fall) : Down, Up(x2), Down, C, B, A

As this is the most recent hardware Hamster's ever dealt with for the Arcade Archives series, there are some unfortunately teething problems- Gosokkyu's got the info on Twitter of reports of freezes and graphics corruption on the Switch version in particular, but Hmaster are looking into it and they get patches done pretty quickly.


iiotenki
@iiotenki

As someone who owns an original arcade board of TGM1, I can confirm that there are some growing pains with this release, so if you're not a weirdo like me who's been desperate to throw money at someone just to tell the Tetris Company to just shut up about their guideline hangups and let Arika re-release these games at last so people have a legal way to play some of the finest Tetris ever made, you should probably hold off on at least the Switch version for a little while, though I'm also confident Hamster will get their house in order soon enough.

That said, as much as I think Arcade Archives releases tend to be on the pricey side for how much you actually get, honestly? For a game this iconic and mechanically sound, I think it's $8 well spent and still worth playing even if you've only seriously played more recent Tetris games. This is a game that came out before the Tetris Company had completely hammered out the founding principles of the guideline in terms of piece handling and systems they since deemed essential by way of Tetris Worlds in the early 2000s, so you'll definitely find a less kind game on the whole compared to even later TGM games (at least, in select ways). There are no hard drops or holds, for one thing, which is par for the course for a Tetris game of this vintage. But what will most likely prove hardest for newcomers to adjust to is the very brief window of time you're allotted before a piece locks in once you make contact with the board. It's a system that Tetris games struggled to hammer out for some time given its implications on score attack balance and while it's still a bigger window than some of the most famous older entries, including games that directly inspired TGM, people accustomed to playing Tetris Effect or Tetris 99 will probably be in for a rude awakening. To those players going into TGM1 for the first time, my single biggest piece of advice is to not count on that window being on your side to help course correct potential mistakes and that even more so than other games, you should always build your board with the next piece in mind.

TGM1 is the old hermit living on the mountain away from society among Tetris games. It's an austere, ornery game in a lot of respects and the 20G mode it pioneered is no joke. But the differences compared to those later games aren't as stark as you would find if, say, you went back from Tetris 99 and played the Game Boy game for the first time. All those hurdles it likes to throw up in terms of its rapidly escalating gravity and tight piece locking windows will hone your skills in ways that are pretty much universal to all other Tetris games that came after it. Be prepared to be humbled by it and you'll definitely come away thinking differently and more deeply about how you build up your board in other games. Because if you can hold your own in TGM1 for at least a little while, you'll go even farther in just about anything else; in that sense, it's still as rewarding now as it ever was back in 1998.


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in reply to @sarahssowertty's post:

Yeah, from what I understand, one of the big hurdles that's gotten in the way of a re-release until now is that TGM's implementation of the official rules is now outdated (however relatively) and the Tetris Company has historically been insistent to a fault on releases maintaining parity with the current guidelines in order to ostensibly prevent consumer confusion. It seems like they can be flexible on games having unique flourishes like what Tetris Effect has and whatnot, but if a game handles fundamentally differently in terms of how it handles different types of piece rotations, etc, that's when they put their foot down, and indeed, the original TGM is definitely the game that deviates the most by default purely by virtue of its age. Obviously they've made exceptions for Nintendo in re-releasing the Game Boy version, but it wasn't until G-Mode put out Tetris Diamond, a feature phone version, that it seemed like there was any real hope of TGM seeing the light of day on consoles, at least in my opinion. So as someone who owns the actual board like a total wacko and is relieved I won't have to hook up my supergun every time I want to play it, I for one am relieved to see this happen, Switch warts and all, ahaha.

Yeah, that's my rough understanding of things too. I can understand it to an extent, wanting to keep things consistent between releases, but the weirder implementations of Tetris are some of the most interesting too. In any case, seeing this get a rerelease is great so more people can enjoy it outside of emulation (and damn, you have an original PCB huh? Nice!)

Yeah, honestly I think the secret biggest boon to this re-release is that now people will finally have a way to record an emulated version of this game with Arika breathing down their necks about MAME being the death of TGM or whatever, ahaha. Always found it supremely ridiculous they've insisted on people posting statements about how they recorded on real boards. I know that probably stems from their dealings with the Tetris Company to at least some degree, but I couldn't help but roll my eyes whenever I saw it rear its head. (I want to say John Linneman lost like at least 100,000 views on his Tetris retrospective for DF Retro when he had to re-record TGM1 footage with help from the community so that the video would be above board, which, come on.)

But yeah, I got extremely lucky and picked up my TGM1 board back in 2015 for $30 before AGDQ put such a spotlight on it. As much as I love it and 3, I certainly wouldn't drop $1000 on it now, that's for sure, ahaha. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to finally find out it actually booted once I got my supergun and all the other necessary hardware together a few years ago. 😭

Oh yeah, I remember that thing about YouTube videos of the game in MAME getting in trouble, whoof!

BTW I'm still learning how cohost work so I didn't noticed before, but thanks for adding your perspective in the repost, very interesting!

You're fine! The admins here have been making tweaks to how notifications work so that they feel a little less addicting by design and whatnot, so there's never any pressure for anybody to read what I post. c: I don't think most people know that I'm something of a (casual) Tetris nerd who can actually going fairly in-depth about the mechanics of different games, so I just saw an opportunity to gab about a particular flavor that I love and I took it, ahaha.

Yeah, I'm still learning, but honestly it's nice there's an easy way to add more info to someone's post, I love learning more about the things I write about, it's helpful! And I wasn't aware about your Tetris knowledge either, so that's good to know too :3