I considered it for this chat. Both games games are near perfect enough to get the full [10] from me I reckon. First game is a smidge better but the sequel has a top notch co-op mode too.

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Tetris reached a point where it was just as easy for casuals but facilitated an obscene level of skill.

There are now a handful of modes that are almost considered mandatory for a Tetris game - 40 line sprint mode and time attack aka Ultra modes usually sit alongside the classic marathon mode. And some sort of 2P versus add a considerable amount of gameplay to the basic formula keeping it pure.

There is now a specification for Tetris games called "Tetris Guideline" that has standardised official ports.

Even though they stray from the guideline, the Tetris Grandmaster (TGM) games are a strong candidate for that point in the game's history where it really become perfect. There isn't any aspect of that game that is left to chance. The piece colours are used by elite level players to recognise in peripheral vision in the preview piece area enabling planned moves. These games enable inhuman displays of skill (check the GDQ demonstrations) including an invisible stack.

The delayed auto shift, lock down delay, the rotation scheme, gravity system, ghost piece, bag randomiser and hard drop features all improve the game and reward increasing skills all without polluting the pureness of the original game. TGM is perhaps slightly too difficult for its own good though. I've only been able to play TGM1 using emulation so far and it's been an arcade game in the main (though I believe it got a release on 360 in Japan).

Other games have more user friendly features such as a hold piece and show more preview pieces. Tetris Party Dx does that as well as supporting 4 players.

Tetris new Century is a Sega Tetris update by M2 that is another candidate. It adds all the modern features to Sega Tetris making it play beautifully in marathon, sprint and time attack. And it's friendlier to casual players. It has the piece hold and a 3 piece preview queue which is a good balance between Tetris Party's longer queue (which admittedly can be tweaked in the options). This isn't easy to get hold of though as it's a J-PS2 exclusive still which is a pity.

I haven't dived into Tetris Effect long enough to judge but it's certainly a crowd pleaser.

With respect to handheld Tetris which some might argue is the best way to play it, I haven't played it enough yet, and I can't find the damn cart, but Tetris DS is a strong candidate too.




And then some might Puyo Puyo is better.

I now understand why Cinty loves Danganronpa so much

It’s place in history a given but sitting in the year 2022, Tetris really is the most simplistic, overrated pile of pixels.

davyK wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The genius thing that Tetris Effect added to the formula (AFAIK), which sounds daft when written down, is that the game sometimes gets slower as well as faster. It really changes the whole feel of the game.

There are some older games that do that too. Sega Tetris does it.  And classic mode in Tetris Plus does it too. It feels like a reward for getting over a difficulty peak - yeah it's a nice feature.

Fair enough, wasn’t aware of those.

Syph79 wrote:

It’s Daley Thompson’s Decathlon on the C64.

That 1500m race was an awful experience iirc.

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

I now understand why Cinty loves Danganronpa so much

I don't think it belongs in a 'objective' list (or better still, the 'objective' list possibly shouldn't exist), but it does that strange thing that makes a simple narrative game feel like so much more than what it is at it's root.

Others are Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Half Life, Persona 4... What was that Commander Shepherd shit again? Never played it.

It's super Mario World

Sister was round today, with her fam.

Somewhat coincidentally Tetris came up, so I gave her a go on the GB version (on my Pocket). Much joy was had. That music...

And meanwhile her kids and mine were playing 4P MK8 on the WiiU, mix of steering efforts on Wii controllers, and normal pads. Another pretty pure form of fun.

Many smiles throughout.

Unlikely wrote:

When you say "sight reading" do you mean he's never played this before and is seeing the music for the first time?

I think that is what is meant.

Unlikely wrote:

When you say "sight reading" do you mean he's never played this before and is seeing the music for the first time?

Yeah that's what sight reading is.