Tetris Plus 2 Game Sample - Arcade
68Now, here's a bit of an oddity...there are many people who comment on my videos for Tetris Plus, speaking very fondly of it...some folks even got a rush of nostalgia and old memories flooding their minds...but it may surprise you a great deal that most have absolutely NO CLUE that a sequel to Tetris Plus actually exists. That is to be expected, because Tetris Plus 2 NEVER received any kind of home release/port, from my understanding...it was never in any game compilation, not on a digital service (outside of emulation), and not even in some sort of "Plug-N-Play" sort of doodad. It was in arcades only, with a very limited "world" release. Given how much people in my comments seem to love Tetris Plus, discovering this game, with pretty much zero discussion or buzz...I was left scratching my head. However, as I began to ponder, things became clearer...
Despite being a "Greatest Hits" release on the Sony Playstation (1), magazines as a whole did NOT see Tetris Plus in a positive light. When the Playstation and Sega Saturn were out, magazines tended to have this sort of "ravenous obsession" with 3D...it was the "hip, IN thing". As such, things that were 2D tended to be viewed as products that were clinging to the past, or not making good use of the new polygon-pushing hardware. What I say isn't true in all senses, surely, but there was a strange kind of bias with some reviewers that 3D was the future...or, think of it as "might is right". Of course, fast forward to NOW, and most 3D aged poorly, with 2D games still being (mostly) nice to look at, even if the 2D in question wasn't particularly striking. Whatever the case may be, in Tetris Plus' case, those reviews possibly translated into a Tetris Plus 2 port being a bit of a risky venture...but there is another reason I feel the game wasn't ported.
Having played the game now, playing Tetris Plus 2 felt just like playing Tetris Plus...the game felt TOO much of the same. If ported, one might have even wondered what the point of buying TP2 would have been when playing TP1 alongside it. I assume that a console port of TP2 would have included an "Edit Mode" and "Options Mode", like TP1 (since those features probably aren't in an arcade version for numerous reasons), but if they were added, "Endless" in TP2 is essentially just "Classic" mode of TP1. Puzzle is still puzzle. Versus is still versus...the big distinction in Endless mode? Anime women/girls and boobs...with a scant few guys??? Those could have been in the background of TP1, but they weren't, unless that is a Japanese arcade thing, lol...but let me elaborate a bit more on those anime women/girls. Endless mode adds a little feature where you can unlock pictures by either:
1) Doing Double, Single, or Tetris matches to fill up a bar to clear the stage...
2) Doing line matches with special blocks that have letters on them. The special blocks have letters that spell the names of the "characters" you are revealing. For example, our video thumb shows "Devil", so periodically, blocks with the letters D-E-V-I-L will appear. If you successfully match to completely eliminate the special block, you get that letter. Once you get the letter, it won't continue to fall and only the letters you still need will fall. The characters you reveal, as you may notice, are related to "The Tarot".
The characters you play are completely random, it seems...and generally, the smaller a character's name is, the easier that stage will be. By that generalization, "Sun" is the easiest to reveal. "Priestess", then, is a harder stage. Devil and Fool, would be middle difficulty. Characters with long names will have some of their letters collected, by default. Going between "chapters", your line speed at that point can go down, an act that serves as a tiny bit of mercy for players who have difficulty moving the blocks when they begin to fall as if they were 10,000 ton lead weights.
I had to spend a lot of time providing some of my thoughts and explaining Endless in more detail, because really, everything else is the same, to my recollection, as Tetris Plus. Actually, because the arcade mode LACKS Edit Mode, it is generally LESS of a game than Tetris Plus, which is pretty disappointing. The visuals aren't better in any real way...which isn't a bad thing, but it really makes the game feel like it was a quick afterthought, utilizing the "sweet power of anime stills", to get some quick extra cash. The music is still good. Gameplay is fine. I stumbled upon this game and wanted to add it to the archives. The end of the video is just a showing of some of the illustrations that I liked, but not all of them (showing them all would pretty much kill any reason to play this game, if I say so myself).
- ADDITION -
Like Us On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegamingsanctuary
Follow Us On Twitter: https://twitter.com/GS_Vyse_and_Bel
Visit Us At: http://www.gamingsanctuary.com