Game:

Tetris Attack (1995)

Duration: 2:37:17

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0

Originally recorded: February 22, 2024
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And so, I'm finally at the last game of this batch. Most Westerners refer to this one as "Ganbare Goemon 4", but it's went with an elaborate subtitle for its official title instead. Honestly, that's not that uncommon for late-stage Super Famicom games, especially stuff that didn't come out internationally. KI remembered liking this one more than the second on their initial playthrough, but considering how they just ended up shelving their attempt at a replay before I started this stream because they accidentally deleted their save, well, it's not a good sign.

My first impressions of the game weren't exactly super-favorable either. The level design is honestly the main issue in my case. There are probably more cases where I've had to shuffle to the very edge of a platform in order to jump to the next one -- even with the run button -- than the previous two games combined already... and I'm only on my first session!

The non-linear nature of the game almost makes things worse. You can essentially play through the first four worlds in any order... with each world tied to a specific character. On the plus side, that annoying weapon downgrade mechanic is indeed still gone and you only have to unlock two power-ups: the charge projectile and each character's special traversal technique. Each world has two towns though, which can be a bit annoying. And if you want the best chance of finishing the game, you'll have to cycle between worlds partway through in order to find hints necessary to progress.

As it turns out, the elephant statues were checkpoints in the second game... and that's what they are here too. Cat statues provide health upgrades as well, though there are only three per world. The downside is that you need to collect all three from that specific world to unlock that additional hit point. Worse yet, each heart represents a single hitpoint in this game and that's a consistent rule across the board. It also seems like in order to grab the third, golden cat statue in each world, you need to use one of the characters that aren't associated with the level by default to grab it. I'm not sure how to do that just yet, but I'm beginning to think that only unlocks after clearing all four of them.

I did manage to finish Yae's area tonight -- which is the fourth area, ironically enough. But instead of a standard boss fight, each world's castle seems to be capped off with a mini-game. World 4 had a puzzle game along the lines of Puyo Puyo... which honestly sounded like a fun prospect. The problem lies with the controls. They just aren't as responsive as they should be. KI blamed the game for not being a Tetris Attack clone instead, but when I pointed out that the controls felt unresponsive, they pointed out that some games have a tendency to "screw those up on purpose" when they switch genres to avoid making the challenge too easy. Personally, it wouldn't surprise me.

I've got my doubts that I'll be able to finish up the game next time, since it'll be Sunday. But if I play my cards right, I think I'll manage to hit my minimum prediction of eight streams for the whole set. Wish me luck.