Title: Tetris Forever
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $34.99
Release Date: 11/12/2024

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Story

The third entry in the Gold Master series is here, this time focused on the popular puzzle franchise Tetris! With a whole lot of puzzling action on offer, this collection includes a documentary style recap of the classic Tetris origin story, and how BPS/Henk Rogers managed to get the rights. Unfortunately, if you heard the story once, this is pretty much the same stuff, with no major deep secrets or new surprises unveiled during the video content. Still a pretty solid starting point for newcomers interested in the story, though!

That being said, I really do wish some parts of the documentary stuff had more personal behind the scenes info discussed, or other people involved with some of the games getting interviewed. Chunsoft made Tetris 2 + Bombliss, but that hardly gets noted in the video footage outside of bringing to attention how a lot of big gaming people helped Chunsoft people make it. Why were no Chunsoft people interviewed? They’re still around, and that would be a great way to reveal unknown to the public details.

Same for the BPS Tetris SNES games, which don’t really have a story in the documentary at all besides the fact they exist and Tetris Battle Gaiden is a cult favorite. Super Bombliss DX is just completely ignored even in the history timeline, making the existence of that game still a complete mystery.

Alas, while Forever does a solid job at telling the simple, done to death Tetris story, the documentary really doesn’t get that much interesting again until it goes over the modern Tetris games and how stuff like the Tetris guideline got made. They even got a cool interview from the lead behind Tetris Effect! So really that just leaves the 90s as this weird empty void in the documentary, which was rather disappointing for me as a fan of the 90s Tetris games taking up space in the set.

Presentation

Similar presentation to prior Gold Master compilations, with a fancy, chaptered timeline showcasing tons and tons of scanned posters, boxes, and manual content. Pretty much the same sort of goodness from Atari 50, Karateka, etc, and not much new to note on this front.

The video content is much more enjoyable and more coherent than The Jeff Minter Story, since that was mostly footage taken for a documentary in the works, but this video footage was all shot for the collection, and you get a whole bunch of really rad B-Roll from the 80s as Henk Rogers did things such as going to Nintendo of America and even entering the USSR, allowing you to see a surprisingly detailed glimpse at a country pretty much walled off from the rest of the world at that point in time. Easily the coolest part of the documentary right there, and despite my earlier thoughts on the story gap in the 90s, what you do get is well shot and well done; I just wish there was an option to play all the footage in sequence without having to bounce around the timeline, since these clips do connect into each other more than the clips in the prior Gold Master titles.

For how the games perform and their emulation, you have a bunch of various consoles and PCs on offer here. The Electronika 60 version of Tetris may be a recreation from footage and info from Alexey himself, but outside of one odd aspect with the gameplay, the recreation is shockingly accurate; matching the footage provided in the documentary almost to a T, and even offering a translated version for the sake of being able to read the UI. Runs just like it should, and looks as crisp as a computer that only displayed text possibly could.

There are a few DOS/Apple II ports as well, and they mostly look crisp. All emulated games in the set have a nice assortment of border and filter options, and they look particularly great on the handheld and computer versions. Apple II Tetris is a bit blurry/weird looking, but turn on that CRT filter and the border and the blurry text looks much, much better. Likewise the handheld games you get here let you play with various Game Boy screen colors, and they all use a cool border that replicates the Game Boy/Color in the most legally distinct way possible. You can even use the awful GBC palette for the older games, if you wish!

It ends up being the Console games which have the weirder presentational quirks. The three NES/Famicom games look crisp, sound fine, and scale nicely, so not much to complain about for those games, but the Super Famicom titles act very peculiar here on Switch, with all of them having this obnoxious, super brief audio stutter. It comes and goes, and I notice some games like Super Bombliss seemingly do this less than the other titles, but unfortunately, they all have it, and when you load a save state upon starting one of these 16-bit games, the audio is incredibly laggy for a few seconds before normalizing. Why the Switch is throwing a fit with SNES puzzle games is bewildering to me, but this manages to be a big frustration for an otherwise solid emulation package.

Last but not least is Tetris Time Warp, a brand new Tetris game exclusive to Forever, with the gimmick of shifting between four different time periods. I honestly really love what they did for the modern look, as it reminds me of the incredibly fun, 2009/2010 EA Mobile version of Tetris. It doesn’t look particularly 1:1, but the colorful, blocky vibe Time Warp’s modern look goes for is the closest any Tetris has come to reminding me of that wonderful version in quite some time.

The other periods of Tetris are also well represented here, with the 1984 style being pretty much the same as the recreation present in the collection, the 1992 style being a scarily accurate recreation of Super Tetris 2’s Bombliss mode, and the 1989 style being a close, but not quite accurate recreation of Nintendo’s Game Boy Tetris; a very famous version not on the collection because Nintendo owns it, so this recreation is the closest you’ll get to that experience here. At the very least, you have a rad extended version of that GB theme song as a new track here, and Time Warp’s music as a whole is really darn good.

Gameplay

With all the presentational quirks out of the way, along with my thoughts on the documentary content, let’s get into the games! It may be a whole lot of variants of one game, but there are plenty of evolutionary changes, fun bonus modes, and interesting gimmicks present among all the games that give a bunch of em their own individual value. Thus, there’s more to these games to discuss than you might think!

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THE PC GAMES– Despite the documentary going over some of Alexey’s PC sequels to Tetris, and other versions like Super Tetris, this only contains a very small amount of ports; the recreation of the original 1984 version, the DOS version of that original version, the official DOS version from Spectrum Holobyte, and the Apple II port from the same company.

First, the Electronika version. Pretty solid recreation, and a delightfully fun look into the origins of the smash puzzle game. Saves Hi-Scores locally, and also shows off the immediate difference between the original Tetris and how the BPS versions would play. Mainly in how the point scoring is not based on clearing lines, but hitting the hard drop button as quick as you possibly can! Yes, clearing lines is still a thing here, but it mostly serves as a means to increase your space in the playfield to drop more fast blocks and rack up those points, rather than trying to build up for a Tetris line clear as in most versions of Tetris you’re familiar with.

It doesn’t make the games last all that long, especially if you’re trying to go for a high score, but I still manage to really get invested in this original version of Tetris; the change of pace in scoring is enough to make this worth a play every now and then, even if future ports and sequels would obviously make the core gameplay better and better. The one oddity I noted playing this port though, is that I was able to pull off a T-spin despite that being flat out impossible in a lot of earlier Tetris games, and I can’t help but feel that may be in error. Either Alexey predicted the future, or this is a remnant from the Time Warp recreation.

You have a DOS version of this original release in the set, bringing the core game into Color for the first time, along with those SH versions I mentioned earlier, but sadly the DOS versions here do not support save states, completely defeating the purpose of playing for a high score. Thankfully, the Apple II port does support save states, and it manages to be a slightly improved version of the original Electronika Tetris.

Of the PC versions included in Forever, The DOS SH version is the best one quality wise, but I really wish there was a way to save high scores for it. Maybe that’s why the PC sequels didn’t make the cut? Hopefully if they do get added in a future update, so will the option to save our high scores for these DOS titles.

THE 8-BIT GAMES– Forever has quite a few Game Boy/NES titles here to play, but not the ones you might be thinking of. Indeed, Nintendo owns the NES/Game Boy versions of Tetris that you’re familiar with, meaning the assortment of retro Tetris classics you get here are the Japanese titles BPS published in Japan over the decade+ they made use of the Tetris license for that market. It does show an interesting evolution of the Tetris formula in the process, though.

First up is BPS Famicom Tetris. Not the Japanese version of Nintendo’s Tetris, but the Japanese, 1988 version BPS put out for the Famicom. This was the first console version of Tetris ever released, and you can feel the influence of the computer versions the most with this one. There’s the debut of the Tetris Line Clear as a means of gaining tons of points, but you have to deal with a silly lives system where you have to fail three times in a row before your game comes to an end, and every stage plays out very close to the Type B Mode you’d recognize from typical Tetris, so the stages aren’t endless, and clearing the high speed Stage 9 will just loop you around to Stage 1 on a higher round.

By far, the biggest off-putting aspect of FC Tetris for those familiar with most other versions of Tetris will be the controls. Being akin to the Computer versions, you have a hard drop and a rotation button, and nothing else, with not even a soft drop to be found. Rather than controlling as a typical console Tetris would though, rotation is mapped to down on the D-Pad, and the hard drop is the A button; you can remap this thankfully, but I found it oddly compelling to stick to the original layout for the sake of authenticity, and this version of Tetris just ended up feeling like a big mess as a result.

Sure, on higher speeds you could still play a pretty decent game of Tetris and score points, but if you end up looping around to an easier level, then your only means of say, sliding a horizontal I piece underneath a sideways T piece is to wait an agonizingly long time for that piece to drop and let you do so. The speed is really the aspect that kills this version for me, and while it serves as an intriguing start to the console legacy, there’s a reason nobody outside of Japan really cares much for this version of the game, especially considering just how much better the Nintendo made version on NES turned out.

So what came after that Famicom Tetris? Well, BPS made Hatris! What is a Hatris? A very weird, hat-stacking game that we have three versions of for some reason, though they at least have enough differences for all of them to be worth the inclusion. The core loop of this game revolves around you stacking to get five of the same kind of hat to clear them from the board, and trying to rack up as much points as possible before you fill up the screen.

Starting with the Famicom version, this was the first console version of the game, and ends up being pretty darn challenging; delightfully so, I felt, since even on the lowest difficulties you had to be on your toes to try and advance to the next level. No way to save yourself from a mistake, satisfying point bonuses if you clear ten hats at once, all in all, a decent little puzzler where the high difficulty adds to the fun.

Next is the GB version, which allows you to go to a shop and sell the entirety of a set of hats as a means to clear the board in a pinch; otherwise, this plays a lot slower, and even on higher difficulty, the speed doesn’t get much better, though it does add new hat varieties to make it easier to top out. A decent little version, but still not as addictive as the FC version for me, and I can’t imagine wanting to play this for long on an actual Game Boy.

Finally, you have the NES version. Surely this means that we just got the FC version with a new copyright, right? No, actually! They completely redesigned the presentation of this version, and added yet another means to clear the board in the pinch, by having Alexey or his helper come down and take hats away if you’re stuck, or just selling the ability to use them to gain even more points.

Sadly, while this is a lot better than the Game Boy port, I still feel the FC version had the perfect difficulty curve, and this NES version just makes things a tad too slow starting out in comparison, even if bumping up the difficulty does remedy that a bit. All in all, an interesting trio of versions, but in my perspective, the Famicom one wins the battle of addiction.

The last of the 8-Bit Console games comes from my favorite title in the entire collection, Tetris 2 + Bombliss. Did you know if it wasn’t for this game, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon probably wouldn’t exist? This was programmed by Chunsoft, and supervised by Mr Ishihara, a man who’d later go on to lead the Pokemon Company, and had input from a variety of famous Japanese creatives. Take the addictive nature of Tetris, refine the hell out of it so it does not play like the prior Famicom version, add in a secondary puzzle game that can be equally addictive, and you have a killer package.

Not only do you have a well controlling Type A/Type B Tetris like Nintendo’s version, but you have a new Type C variant, which is just Type A but with the bottom rising every few drops. It isn’t really that special, but I appreciate Chunsoft for trying to add variety nevertheless, though with how damn smooth Type A/B play, it feels more like a bonus than an essential mode. All in all, you have a Tetris game that exceeds Nintendo’s NES version, with a local Multiplayer mode, three game modes, and tons of fun scoring opportunities.

All of that Tetris goodness in Chunsoft’s package is without taking Bombliss into account, since boy, Bombliss is just a delightful addition to the Tetris formula. Here you have a set of stages to go through, where the main goal is to clear the board of pieces using bombs in just 100 moves. While the lines are cleared in the typical Tetris style, bombs are created by stacking four red blocks in a square formation, not unlike what the later Super Puzzle Fighter II would do. Thus, clear up a line with a bigger bomb in the mix, or multiple lines at once, and you can create some serious chain reactions.

Bombliss isn’t really a score focused game, but even the main contest stages are pretty fun brainteasers to clear, and if that wasn’t enough for you, you have dozens of dedicated, limited move puzzle stages for you to clear, where you have to clear the board in a much, much smaller amount of moves with set amount of pieces to play. These are incredibly challenging stages, but oh-so satisfying to clear on your own, and you even have a few empty slots to construct your own puzzles to play around with, if you wish. All in all, you have tons of content from either side of this Famicom package, and with the two games combined, you have an excellent package from masterclass developers.

Finally, we have Super Bombliss on GB/GBC. They’re basically the same game as one another, but Super Bombliss DX adds a puzzle mode of unique Bombliss stages on top of the other modes. You might recognize the monochrome version more as Tetris Blast, which Nintendo did bring overseas, but you only have the Japanese version here.

You have the returning Contest Mode and a brand new VS CPU mode, where the main objective is to defeat a small little enemy annoying you on the game board by blowing it up with Bombliss bombs. A fun little mode, but otherwise this is just more Bombliss, which isn’t a bad thing.

THE SUPER FAMICOM– BPS takes the concept perfected in Tetris 2 + Bombliss and the Nintendo versions and completely refines them with their Super Famicom library. Audio stutter bug aside, you have a great set of 16-bit Puzzlers here, each with their own benefits that make them all worth playing.

First is Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss. This brings the Famicom game, redoes the puzzles/music after a bit of screwing around with the identity, (since Chunsoft did not port this version) and brings all but the construction mode over to this new 16-bit version. Still a decent version of Tetris, and it still plays rather well, but man, without that Chunsoft OST and the prettier 8-Bit visuals, I just couldn’t get into this version nearly as much. It does have a unique set of Bombliss Puzzles though, and since Bombliss is still just as fun as in the original Famicom version, that alone gives ST2 some merit.

There’s also a special variant included in the set, the Genteiban edition, which basically tweaks a few things and throws in yet another set of Bombliss puzzles to go through. This is the version of Super Tetris 2 to ultimately play, but that doesn’t mean the original SNES version is worth skipping, since the unique Bombliss puzzles still warrant the inclusion.

Next up, is Tetris Battle Gaiden! This is a cult favorite among some Tetris fans due to just how utterly insane the VS system here is. Unlike most modern tetris games where you rely on combos and Tetris clears to beat the other opponent, here you have orbs scattered around the board, which can be used to perform a special skill unique to each of the eight playable characters in the game. You share from one queue of Tetris blocks, meaning that you might not get the piece you were hoping for if your opponent drops before you do, and combine that with most of the skills being outright busted with hardly any balancing whatsoever, and you have a very chaotic game that’s a blast in local VS.

When it comes to the single player experience, though? Eh… I didn’t quite like this one much, and it wasn’t until I went to the options menu and disabled the orb spawns (meaning as a result, that the special skills were completely disabled) that I had way more fun with this one. Yes, a VS tetris without combos is still not nearly as fun as some of the modern VS Tetris titles, but Battle Gaiden can still be a pretty decent time if you manage to tone down the insanity. The insanity is what makes the local VS mode fun, but for the sake of your sanity, keep things gentle before trying to take on the CPU.

A year after Battle Gaiden, we get Super Tetris 3. Now with more Bombliss, (now changed to Sparkliss with some slightly different rules) a new Magicaliss mode, and what I feel is the most refined, core Tetris experience in the entire package. You have a very responsive, very snappy version of Tetris here, along with a mode that pretty much recreates that BPS Famicom Tetris game, silly lives system intact. While you don’t get the bonus B/C types that Tetris 2 had, this is still a very damn great version of the A type, and the puzzles in Sparkliss are yet another thing that’ll keep you plenty busy.

Honestly, the pure fun and refinement in Super Tetris 3 is more than enough to make me not miss the Nintendo versions in this set. Super Tetris 3 really is just that good with the core formula, and to make things even better, you can even engage in four player local multiplayer! Sometimes you don’t need to do much besides polish, and that’s what Super Tetris 3 nails.

Lastly for the SFC series, we have Super Bombliss. I guess BPS realized with all the Bombliss puzzles they were making for these games, that Bombliss was fully capable of being a standalone title, and I say they did a great job here! Not only do you have the typical contest/puzzle modes with new puzzles to enjoy, but now there’s a VS COM mode, which uses the same shared matrix mechanic as Battle Gaiden, only without the unbalanced skills to toy around with. Don’t take that for Super Bombliss being an easy game to beat, since these CPU opponents are really tough, and will not hesitate to try and speed their way towards an easy victory while filling your side of the field with garbage. Nevertheless, it leads to a fun tug of war, and ends the Super Famicom series on a very high note.

Tetris Time Warp– The fully original Tetris game in this set, and thus the only game with the typical hold/t-spin/modern game mechanics! The main gimmick here is you play Tetris like normal, but every now and then you get a special piece that lets you go back in time and play in a time period akin to Game Boy, SFC Bombliss, or 1984 Tetris, with their respective limitations.

I noted all of the presentational aspects earlier, but it really does have to be emphasized just how uncanny the recreation of Bombliss is, and how GB Tetris is close enough to the real thing that I feel any presentational differences are done for the sake of not using stuff Nintendo has copyright over. In fact, you can do a marathon mode of just the 1989 style, which I’m pretty sure is the way Digital Eclipse decided to go subvert the inability to include GB Tetris, just like how Tetris Effect replicated NES Tetris.

Regardless of which mode you choose to play though, I really did enjoy Tetris Time Warp quite a bit, and the local multiplayer is especially chaotic, but also one I barely got time to mess around with due to lack of opportunities. This is the one mode I wish they’d really add in online support for, since more people really do need to enjoy this multiplayer however they can.

The marathon modes are pretty fun too, but the lack of a true endless option for the 1989/Modern modes is a big bummer, since I’d like to just play the Modern mode without the time shenanigans for more than 150 lines. I still cannot reiterate enough how that mobile EA Tetris Nostalgia came out really strong for me with Time Warp, and whether intentional or not, it serves as a solid addition to the package.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Tetris Forever manages to do a damn good job at compiling some excellent puzzlers while telling a compelling story about them along the way, in the usual Digital Eclipse Docu-style compilation style, with plenty of great historical assets and a good, if repeated-to-death tale that excludes a lot of the 90s era stuff.

Still, Forever manages to compile a bunch of versions of the same game without making the compilation feel redundant, and shows a natural evolution of the game over time, while somehow making the most out of the unfortunate legal roadblock of being unable to use Nintendo’s versions. It still covers them pretty heavily in the documentary footage, the 1989 recreation in Time Warp is a decent attempt, and outside of lacking a similar recreation of NES Tetris, I can’t really think of much else they could have done to improve on that aspect.

It does hurt a bit that the two most popular versions of the game are excluded here, but when a good chunk of the other versions included here are of similar or better quality, and a bunch of these have never been rereleased, I can’t help but miss them too much. Super Tetris 3, Tetris 2 + Bombliss, and Tetris Time Warp are all pretty stellar games, and being together in one package gives you more than enough Tetris to keep you occupied for a long, long time.

If you happen to be a Bombliss super fan, though? Hoooo boy, this easily has tons and tons of brainteasers to keep you occupied for even longer across all the differing versions, and the fact I still can’t stop dumping hours upon hours of my limited play time trying to absorb every version of Tetris imaginable and break those high scores, really does make this an absolute must-own for Tetris fans. It is rather annoying the SFC games have that audio stutter in the Switch version, but hopefully that gets fixed in due time. At the very least, this is a great value regardless of where you choose to play it, and the best proof of how Tetris is a timeless concept that’ll continue to be engaging for years and years to come.

I give Tetris Forever a 9 out of 10,