Yoshi's Cookie

Name: Yoshi's Cookie
Year: 1993
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Bullet-Proof Software
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: 2
Beaten: No

When Tetris first came to the States from Russia in 1984, there were a lot of legal battles over who owned the rights (in Russia, according to laws at the time, the game was owned by the government and not the creator).  After many lawsuits, Nintendo ended up with the rights to the game, but only for a limited period of time.  They used those rights to push the Nintendo and especially the Game Boy to success (as Tetris co-creator Henk Rogers stated, "Tetris made Game Boy and Game Boy made Tetris").  The downside of all this was that Nintendo knew they couldn't keep the rights forever, and so the search was on to come up with a replacement.  Hence, during the NES's lifespan, Nintendo came out with a number of abstract puzzlers, including Yoshi, Dr. Mario, and Wario's Woods.  The game we'll be looking at today is Yoshi's Cookie.

Yoshi's Cookie is neither the best nor the worst of these games released by Nintendo; what it is is the most reflex based and least contemplative of the series.  At first glance, it looks like a predecessor to Candy Crush - everything from the arranging pieces game play to the confectionery theme feels immediately familiar.  But spend a couple of rounds with the game, and the huge differences quickly become clear. The relaxed gameplay in games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush is nowhere to be found; the emphasis in Yoshi's Cookie is strictly on making matches as quickly as possible before you get overwhelmed and the screen fills up, Tetris style.

The gameplay is simple: you have cookies in a rectangle-shaped grid, and more cookies fly in from the top and the right.  Arrange a row or column so that all the cookies match, and it clears that line.  Clear all the cookies, and you progress to the next stage.  The basic problem here is that the extra cookies come flying in pretty quickly, so it's near impossible to formulate any kind of long-term strategy; your only bet is to clear the screen as quickly as possible.  From what I've been able to determine (from my own gameplay and making family and friends try it), if you can't clear a screen in less then 30 seconds from when you start, the statistical chances of you making a comeback and beating it are very low.  It stops you from ever getting into the classic puzzle-game "trance"; you're too busy staying constantly on your toes.

As an experiment, I had my wife, who's obsessed with beating Candy Crush without purchases, try the game.  To my surprise, I (who hates Candy Crush) was much better at is then her; her abstract puzzle-solving strategies weren't nearly as useful as my gamer reflexes.  The end result is that the game doesn't satisfy either audience; she'd rather be playing a game at a casual, relaxed pace, and I'd rather be shooting bugs and stomping mushrooms.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics here aren't anything to write home about, but they are a lot of fun.  Everything here is easily identifiable, especially the cookies, and Yoshi looks pretty good rendered on an 8-bit system.

Music & Sounds: 1 (Bad)
The music here is pretty forgettable.  Not to compare games, but the Super Nintendo version has an opening theme that manages to sound like a Mario game without copying music from other games; why couldn't the NES version have anything that memorable?

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The controls in this game are frustrating.  Unlike some puzzle games which purposely limit how you can move pieces (Yoshi, Tetris Attack/Puzzle League), in Yoshi's Cookie you're free to move any piece to any spot you like; so why make the controls so awkward?  Instead of simply picking and moving a piece, you grip a piece and then use the D-pad to slide that row or column around, sort of like a 15 puzzle game.  The titular Yoshi's Cookie (a cookie shaped like Yoshi's Head) is suppose to serve as a wild card, but it's extremely difficult to get it where you want it without accidentally making a match on the way.

Story & Presentation: 4 (Excellent)
The game is called "Yoshi's Cookie", and they drive that theme home wherever they can.  Mario wears a chef's outfit to oversee the playing field, and little Pac-Man-esc cutscenes play out every ten levels where Mario opens boxes of cookies and tries to hide them from Yoshi.  It's silly, but they still went the extra mile to include it,

Length & Replayability: 1 (Bad)
Kudos to the game for having a two-player mode, but also including a puzzle mode where you clear pre-designed boards (like the Super Nintendo version of Yoshi's Cookie) would have went a long way towards giving this game more replayability.

Total: 9 (Average)

Tetris

Name: Tetris
Year: 1989
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  This has been a difficult review to write, because how do you approach it?  Do you approach it from the angle of how this was the definitive version of Tetris for many years and the version still used in professional Tetris competitions to this day?  Or do you approach it from the angle of how it doesn't hold up well compared to modern versions of Tetris, lacking both multiplayer and the ability to "hold" pieces (save them for when you need them)?

Fortunately, the rules of this blog make the answer easy: you ignore the legacy and the versions that came before and after, and focus solely on how it stands up as an NES title.  And the answer is: it holds up very well.  When Tetris was released for the Nintendo, their was nothing else like it, and none of the endless wave of imitators that followed could ever hold a candle to the original.

Moreso then even Super Mario Bros, I have trouble believing their is anyone who would come across this review who's never played a round of Tetris, so I'll keep the synopsis brief: tetrominos fall from the top of the screen, and you arrange them to fill up the well with as few empty spaces as possible.  When a horizontal line is full, it dissapears; if the pieces reach the top, the game ends.  The Nintendo version has two modes: Mode A, which is classic Tetris, and Mode B, in which reaching a certain score ends the game (and plays a little cutscene).

Tetris' biggest selling point is it's accessibility.  It's the one game that attracted sisters and mom who didn't play video games, and is the grandfather of the non-gamer games on mobile devices everywhere today.  It has an important place in gaming history, and the Nintendo version has an important place in Tetris history.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics in Tetris do the job, although they aren't anything spectacular.  The palette changes every time you clear a level, which is a nice effect.

Music & Sounds: 1 (Bad)
The Game Boy version of Tetris, released the same year as this one, was the first Tetris to use Korobeiniki, a Russian folk song more famously known in America as "the Tetris theme song".  For the NES version, Nintendo uses as the main theme The Dance of the Sugar-Plumb Fairy, which is a song most Americans associate with Christmastime.  Not only is the lack of the classic iconic Tetris tune dissapointing, but using Christmas music as the theme is... baffling?

Controls & Level Design: 4 (Excellent)
Nintendo is known for games with great control, and they put out (for the time) the definitive version of the game.  Being able to slide over after it's already touched ground has become an integral part of  any serious Tetris player's strategy.

Story & Presentation: 3 (Good)
NES Tetris has a very nice presentation.  The background is made of Tetris pieces, and (as was common in early versions of the game) there is a strong Russian theme present.  Little cutscenes play out when you get to a certain score, which is a nice little extra.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 4 (Excellent)
With so many puzzle and board games on the NES, it's easy to feel ripped off that you're only doing one thing over and over, as opposed to the variety found in games like Super Mario Bros.  And I've certainly complained about high score-centric games on a system that can't save your high score.  But something about the addictive nature of Tetris keeps people coming back and back again, and the NES version has just the right slow steady pace of speeding up to always make you feel like you could have done just a little bit better...

Total: 14 (Good)

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)

Dr. Mario

Name: Dr. Mario
Year: 1991
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: No, watched video

Nowadays, when people talk about "puzzle games" (what I refer to on this site as "abstract puzzlers), they're referring to games like Tetris or Candy Crush, where you're tasked with arranging colors or shapes into like groups.  What sets these games apart from true puzzle games (games where you're solving actual puzzles) is the random factor: true puzzle games tend to feature puzzles created by programmers with a set solution, where abstract puzzlers tend to focus on dealing with random elements.

Dr. Mario is an abstract puzzler in the column-matching subgenre; pairs of colored objects fall from the sky (in this case, medicine pills with two segments), and it's your job to arrange them into columns or rows of four to clear them.  The twist to Dr. Mario is that at the start of every level, there are "pieces" (in this case, cartoon viruses) already on the playing field, and using the pills to clear them takes you to the next level.

The problem here is the game never quite "clicks".  It doesn't work as an abstract puzzler, because the game is focused on clearing stages and proceeding to the next level; you're never able to get into the groove or trance that comes from endless games like Tetris.  And it doesn't work as a traditional puzzle solving game, because the puzzles you're given to solve (clearing each board) are randomly generated, so they're never that interesting.  Candy Crush managed to take the endless puzzle play of games like Bejeweled and turn it into completing levels, but they did so by giving each level a unique twist: a specific board shape, chocolates to clear, ingredients to collect, etc. In Dr. Mario, the only variation from level to level is the amount of viruses to clear, and it gets old fast.

There were a lot of attempts at column-matching games in the late eighties/early nineties; most of the unsuccessful ones (Hatris, Columns, Yoshi) now languish in obscurity.  Dr. Mario, for some reason, has managed to stick around as a game people remember liking.  Maybe it's the colorful graphics.  Maybe it's the amazingly catchy music.  Maybe it's just because it features Mario in doctor cosplay.  Whatever the reason may be, Dr. Mario is definitely one game not as good as you remember.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics are pretty good in Dr. Mario.  The sprites are oversized and colorful.  Three viruses (one for each color in the game) march in the bottom right of the screen, and everytime you make a match, the corosponding virus takes "damage" (falls down and wiggles his legs).  It's an extra touch that adds a lot of charm.

Music & Sound: 4 (Excellent)
The music in Dr. Mario is some of the best on the NES, and second only to the classic Tetris theme in terms of best music in a puzzle game.  It's pretty well remembered by NES fans, and I'm betting it's the main reason behind why Dr. Mario is remembered so fondly.

Story & Presentation: 3 (Good)
Dr Mario has a pretty nice presentation.  Besides the obvious doctor theme, there's also a nice checkerboard theme that's found on every screen in the game.  Non-nonsensical cutscenes play when you beat certain stages, and the game has an "ending" (another non-nonsensical cutscene) that differs depending on what speed you beat the game on.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The controls here have that Nintendo polish to them: pills always land where you intended them to, and there's a lot of room for finesse (slipping pills into tight corners).  The problem here is the level design, or more specifically the space you're given to work with.  Go ahead and set the game on a higher level, then tell me if you feel like it's a reasonable challenge to clear the viruses with the amount of space given; on level twenty (the final level), a single mistake can cost you the game.  That would be fine if there was no time limit, a la Candy Crush, but on the higher levels you only have a second or two to place each piece!

Length & Replayability: 0 (Awful)
The bottom line is that Dr. Mario feels like a chore to play.  Having a mode with pre-designed (not random) virus configurations could have went a long way to making this game more playable.

Total: 10 (Average)

Hatris

Name: Hatris
Year: 1992
Publisher: Bullet-Proof Software
Developer: Bullet-Proof Software
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

After Tetris took the world by storm (Russia: 1984, Britain: 1986, USA: 1987), every programmer and software developer was scrambling to create another abstract puzzle game that would recapture that magic and become "the next Tetris".  Alexey Pajitnov, creator of the original game, would make many attempts over the years, mostly without much sucsess.  His second game, "Welltris", was a 3D Tetris hampered by the technology of the times, and the bizarrely named "Faces ...Tris III" was an ambitious but ultimately doomed pioneer of the Columns-style matching genre.

His fourth game, Hatris, was a second attempt at a column matching game, proved much more successful in terms of gameplay, and received ports to various systems including the NES and GameBoy.  While it languishes in obscurity today, and lacks the refinement of games like Puyo Puyo, Hatris remains an interesting and enjoyable challenge.

As you may have guessed, the basic gist of the game is that hats fall from the top of the screen, and you must arrange stacks of five to clear them.  The gimmick that sets the game apart is that each type of hat has unique properties.  Top hats are very tall, but nestle very tightly.  Fast food worker hats are much shorter, but don't nestle well; thus a stack of four fast food hats is actually taller then a stack of four top hats.  Hats come down in pairs of two, and navigating around the stacks of hats to the spot you want is a big part of the gameplay.  This means there's a lot of strategy in how you arrange your hat stacks, and since different hats stack differently, your shortest can quickly become your tallest stack in just a couple of moves.

The other unique feature of the game is to call upon helpers who can alter the playing field for you.  As you play the game, Alexey Pajitnov and his (then-)frequent collaborator Vladimir Pokhilko flip switches and watch you play.  As you earn points, you unlock the ability to summon their assistance: Alexey can remove hats from the bottom of stacks (up to five times a summon), and Vladimir can switch two stacks of your choice.  These "calling cards" give you a sense of control over the playing field not usually found in puzzle games; knowing when to use them, when to save them, and when to cash them in for points is a big part of the strategy of Hatris.

Hatris was an early attempt at an abstract puzzle game; while it may lack the refinement and polish of modern games, the idea is different and intriguing enough to be worth a play or two.  It doesn't capture the magic of Tetris or Puyo Puyo, but I'd take it over Yoshi or Dr. Mario any day.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics are pretty good in Hatris.  All the hats look distinctive, and it's immediately clear what kind of hat their suppose to be (including McDonald's hats with an "H" instead of an "M"). Rather then leave it at that, the developers really put their stamp on the game, from a nicely detailed (and animated!) jukebox on the title screen, to game designer Alexey Pajitnov sliding down a pole to assist you with your hats.

Music & Sound: 3 (Good)
Hatris has some pretty enjoyable and memorable music.  The impressive thing is, while most developers feel like a puzzle game is a good excuse to only have one song, there's ten different tracks in Hatris, meaning you have to get to level 10 before the music repeats.

Controls & Level Design: 2 (Average)
The controls always go excactly where you tell them to.  The only issue I've had is accidentally hitting the summon button (B) instead of rotating the hats (A).  I kinda wish they'd made it select, but that may just be me.  The ability to summon the game designers and have them rearrange the playing field for you really helps you keep the board under control, and is the kind of limited use item I wish more old-school puzzle games had.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
For an abstract puzzle game, Hatris has a very nice presentation.  Everything is themed to look like a hat factory, the menu screen looks like a factory break room, and there's cut scenes every ten levels.

Length & Replayability: 1 (Bad)
Once you understand how to play the game and when to use your calling cards, the average round of Hatris can go on for quite a while.  Unlike Tetris, where a lucky streak feels like a respite, here it starts to feel boring.  There aren't any extra modes or puzzle screens or two player mode to give you more to do; it's just you and a long game of Hatris.

Total: 10 (Average)

Yoshi

Name: Yoshi
Year: 1991
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Game Freak
Genre: Abstract Puzzler
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

I hadn't played this game since I was a kid, and I remembered it being decent but forgettable; no Tetris, but better then Dr. Mario.  Well, I'd like to apologize to the good doctor, because this game is absolutely terrible.

The idea is simple: you have only four columns in which to arrange four types of famous Mario enemies (Boos, Bloopers, Goombas, Piranha). Two stacked on each other makes a match.  The gimmick is there's also top and bottom halves of Yoshi eggs.  Line up a top and bottom, and a Yoshi hatches for extra points.  Stack enemies between the two halves and you get even more.

The first problem is, for a game in the vein of Columns, the gameplay is pretty boring.  Only having four columns to maneuver in adds some challenge, but only needing two characters to make a match means you can clear out the well pretty fast.  The egg hatching mechanic doesn't add much to the game; I tried playing once where I made the biggest combos possible, and a second time where I completely ignoring the eggs.  My level was higher in the second game, but my score was almost identical.

The second and much bigger problem is the game's AI.  There was a fad in the nineties to make video games "intelligent", meaning the game adjusted the difficulty during play to meet your skill level.  That sounds pretty cool in theory, but what it usually translated into is you'd start to do really well and then the game would throw a ton of crap at you to take you out.  It always came off as unfair, and it was the predecessor of the "forced fair" tactics still found in Mario Kart and Mario Party games today.  Yoshi makes heavy use of this tactic; if you're doing too well, the game will temporarily speed up and increase the number of falling enemies, as if to say "here, deal with this!"  Since there's four columns and four enemies types, the biggest annoyance is getting two enemies of the same type at once.  So when the game decides to start throwing trios of the same enemy at speeds too fast to react to, it kind of feels like getting the finger for doing too well.

The bottom line is that Yoshi feels like a chore to play.  Five minutes of boring, too-easy gameplay, followed by thirty seconds of unfairly challenging gameplay, does not equal a good game.  It's hard to believe in today's oversaturated world of mobile puzzle games, but in the nineties everyone was still desperately trying to create the next Tetris and no one quite knew how to pull it off.  This is definitely one of the weaker attempts.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The best thing about this game is the graphics.  The Mario enemies present have never looked better, and it's the first time we ever saw Yoshi (the character) on the NES.

Music & Sound: 1 (Bad)
Remember how Dr. Mario was an average, kind of boring game, but they still gave it fantastic music that sticks with you way afterwards?  Yeah, not so much here.  I've been playing the game all day and I can't even hum you a note.

Controls & Level Design: 0 (Bad)
Instead of controlling the falling enemies directly, you shuffle the board around from below, giving you pretty precise control of where you want things to land.  That's good controls.  Bad controls is getting slammed with six or seven waves of enemies because it's impossible to place them in time.  Either change the controls or change the speed, but stop punishing me for making progress!

Story & Presentation: 1 (Bad)
Remember in Yoshi's Cookie for the NES, how they tried to give the game personality by making it look like a bakery and having Mario in a chef's outfit?  Yeah, there's nothing like that here.  The menus look exactly like the ones in Dr. Mario or Tetris... it's just very uninspired.  There are at least cut scenes if you play Game Type B... they tell the very exciting story of Yoshi eating a different power-up each time.  Pac-Man had more interesting cutscenes then this.

Length & Replayability: 0 (Awful)
There's not much to do here except play a very poor excuse for a puzzle game.

Total: 4 (Bad)