This week's Arcade Archives release is... Tetris The Absolute The Grand Master 2 PLUS (Arika, 2000)
Mouthful of a title, huh? This is an upgrade to a follow-up to Tetris The Grand Master which came out on Arcade Archives last year, and this too has never been ported before. New features include a slightly easier Normal Mode, two players being able to play separately at once, a hard drop that doesn't lock in place (TGM1 had no hard drop at all!) and a modified grading system, with the Plus version also adding TGM+ Mode where garbage blocks appear from the bottom of the screen, a Doubles Mode where two players work together in a larger pit and T.A, Death Mode which is exactly what you think it is. I am, of course, a complete Tetris scrub so I checked a lot of this on the HardDrop Wiki. You might also want to check out this Arika interviewfor more on their Tetris games in general.
So this is another pretty significant rerelease, as again this is its first home port, just like the first game. Apparently the first TGM rerelease was popular which makes sense, it's Tetris after all and in a form not many people may have seen before, but more importantly these rereleases are being used to determine if a new TGM game can be made which Arika have been trying to do for decades at this point. Maybe they'll finally release 4 or just skip it and go straight to 5, who knows~ But Arika Tetris fans are eating pretty well in any case.
One final bonus also from the HardDrop Wiki are some cheat codes to modify your game! Enter these on the title screen and select either Normal or Master Mode:
20G Mode - Forces maximum gravity, good luck
Down x 8, C, B, A
Big Mode - Makes all the tetrominos huge
Left x 4, Down, C, B, A
LLLLDCBA
TLS Mode - You can still see the ghost piece after reaching Level 100
A, B, C, C, B, A, A, C, B
Item Mode - This one works in Master or TGM+ Mode and adds items to a single player game... Except they get used on you!
Once you select your mode, hold B and C and press Start while READY is still on-screen
-
hold Start on both controllers while entering versus to disable items
-
hold Start+A+B on both controllers while entering versus mode to disable garbage ("Cement Mode")
Both of these modes tend to be used for TAP tournaments in Japan—the Arika-sanctioned EVO Japan tournament was played without items, to give a recent example:
