LogFAQs > #951461345

#7. Tetris (Game Boy, 1989)



Tetris got me through a lot of car trips as a kid. I know I ranked the Game Boy classics Donkey Kong '94 and Zelda: Link's Awakening earlier with a similar reason, and those got some decent play. Pokemon Red got a lot of time too. But Tetris was always the game I could pop in and just go for as long as I wanted. It was a five hour drive to see my grandparents, so whenever that trip happened, you can bet there was a decent amount of Tetris being played.

Tetris was always a game I liked decently enough for the NES and Game Boy, but it wasn't among my favorites from the start. Then one summer, when I was like 12 years old, I played a game of Game Boy Tetris and got further than ever before. It felt pretty good, so the next night I played Tetris again, and I got a high score again. I ended up playing a little bit of Tetris like this every single night through the end of summer, which could've been a month, two months, I can't remember exactly. By the end, I could make it to level 18, maybe level 19 on a good day.

The Game Boy and NES Tetris are a little different from each other. The Game Boy version involves quickly tapping directions to move fast to the side, because holding a direction is too slow. The NES goes faster with a held direction, but there's also some start-up time before a piece rapidly slides to the side, so you need to push the direction with good timing. I know the NES version is what the classic Tetris tournaments run now, but I always preferred that Game Boy difference as a kid. Also, the Game Boy version stops speeding up after level 20, so it's just barely manageable enough that you could keep going forever if you play well enough.

Newer versions of Tetris have some changes like piece holding & delayed locking into place at the bottom, and those are nice changes. But also, T-spins and such being such a big thing in Tetris has never fully clicked with me. I just want to put blocks into lines. As such, I think I prefer the classic style of Tetris still. I also considered putting Puyo Puyo Tetris on my list, until I realized the Tetris part is what I really love. The Puyo Puyo part is fun, but I'm not nearly as fond of it or as good at it as I am Tetris. I did once win some money (and a medal!) for playing Puyo Puyo Tetris's swap mode, but that was all because of Tetris, and a nice bit of luck that worked in my favor.

I still find it fun to just turn on Tetris and clear lines as fast as I can or for as long as I can. I've done it so much, that it doesn't really offer anything new these days, but also due to the nature of Tetris, it's always a new experience as I'm adapting my plans and strategy on the fly. The Tetris experience created over 30 years ago was just such a perfect idea that it remains just as fun to this day.



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