Tetris 2

Name: Tetris 2
Year: 1993
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: Half an hour
Beaten: No

Tetris took the US by storm in 1984, and quickly became a bestseller for Nintendo in 1989.  So the obvious question became: how do you make a sequel?  Do you make it 3D, as in Welltris?  Four player mode, as in The New Tetris?  Exploding blocks, as in Tetris Blast?  Playable characters with special moves, as in Tetris Battle Gaiden?  The original game plus a set of 100 puzzles to solve, as in the unofficial unlicensed Tetris II released 3 years before this game?  Which one of these concept would Nintendo find worthy to wear the lofty title of Tetris 2?

The answer is: none of them.  Tetris 2 is not a Tetris game at all; it actually plays more like a variant of Dr. Mario, with each screen consisting of "flash blocks" (flashing blocks that act like the viruses in Dr. Mario) that you have to clear to progress to the next level.

According to the manual, there are three kinds of blocks in Tetris 2: falling blocks, fixed blocks, and flash blocks,  Fixed blocks are the blocks that are already on the screen at the beginning of the level; some of them have circles on them and some don't, but the manual doesn't differentiate the two.  Flash blocks are also already on the screen, and look the same as the fixed blocks with the circles, except they also flash.  Falling blocks fall from the top of the screen, like a regular abstract puzzler, and you have to position them to clear the fixed and flash blocks.  The falling block is where things get weird; sometimes it's a single piece with multiple segments, other times it's multiple pieces but you still spin and position them together like you would a tetromino, and then once it's placed gravity kicks in and makes the unconnected pieces fall down.  I hate to keep comparing it to Dr. Mario, but honestly, imagine playing Dr. Mario without the catchy music and cute animated characters on the sidelines, and the pieces your placing being a jumbled mess instead of a two-segment pill, and you've pretty much got it.

Tetris 2 is an okay game at best, but the fact they'd release a game called "Tetris 2" that had nothing to do with Tetris is, at best, disappointing.  Nintendo would go on to release games for the Super Nintendo that included classic Tetris along with other games, such as Bombliss (i.e. Tetris Blast) or Dr. Mario.  Maybe that would have been a better use of this game, or maybe they could have marketed this as Dr. Mario 2; either way, calling it Tetris 2 just feels like a sneaky way to trick kids who wanted Tetris for Christmas.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics here do the job, nothing bad but nothing too fancy.  There's backgrounds while you play, but I'm not really sure what they're suppose to be... the Nazca lines, maybe?

Music & Sounds: 2 (Average)
No traditional Russian folk music or catchy Dr. Mario theme here; the music is about as generic as it gets.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The controls themselves are solid enough, but clearing even the first board feels like such a chore.  The falling blocks are huge and weirdly shaped; even if they contain a color you need, there's still a good change you won't be able to use it.  It's also really hard to get the hand of the segment gimmick - sometimes pieces fall down due to gravity, and sometimes they hand in the air.  There's definitely rules behind it, it's not random, but it never feels natural.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
The games looks nice enough, if uninspired.  They even have little cutscenes after you clear a certain number of levels, like Dr. Mario and Tetris have!

Length & Replayabilitiy: 2 (Average)
I couldn't justify a bad score on this one; after all, there's a one player mode, a two player versus, and a one player versus the computer mode, and the regular game has a whopping eighty rounds!  I just can't image anyone would want to play this for very long.

Total: 9 (Average)