Visceral Video Game - Video games you haven’t heard—yet

By Cory Anotado
Collegian Staff
September 20, 2006

The basic game play of Tetris has remained unchanged since the mid-’80s. For those who don’t know, shapes consisting of four individual blocks fall from the top of the screen to the bottom. The objective is to stack the shapes so that they form lines all across the playing field before they fill up the field, giving you a “game over” and a sad, empty feeling inside.

In 1993, a software developer named Blue Planet Software released a Japanese version of Tetris that emphasized competitive play over the solo Tetris game everyone was used to. Tetris Battle Gaiden is, for lack of a better term, weird. Really, really weird. Imagine a quirky, cutesy fighting game, but replace your kick, punch and block mechanics with “rotate piece” and “drop” and you quickly grasp the idea.

Tetris Battle Gaiden starts off with a character selection screen, where you can select one of eight characters: Halloween (a jack-o-lantern), Mirurun (a pink bunny), Shaman (a tiki statue), Aladdin (who looks like the literary character of the same name), Princess (complete with tiara), Bit (actually five small fairy things), Ninja and Wolfman. After you select a character, you’re put into a match.

To battle your opponent, you remove lines from your field of play. For each line you remove from your field, one line gets added to your opponent’s. Also embedded in play are gems. For every gem you remove, you build up your power-ups. Each character has different power-ups, ranging from adding lines to the opponent to rearranging the opponent’s blocks, or even removing blocks of your own. Even though the power-ups are consistent through the game, it’s still tricky to remember what power-ups happen with the power-up levels, especially in the heat of the game.

The absurdity of the game is what gives it its charm. The animations for the power-ups are often humorous and usually nonsensical, and are vibrant and colorful. The music in the game is catchy, and fits the characters and their respective levels. The computer is no slouch, either; it can put up a good fight when it has to.

The power-ups and the characters really put this game on the chart for an interesting play. If you can sit back and enjoy the complete absurdity of battling a pink bunny via Tetris, then Tetris Battle Gaiden may be the game for you.

anotadoc1@lasalle.edu