If you are looking for a Tetris game on the 3ds, this will definitely do the job. It is your standard high-score chasing Tetris. I was even able to quickly find a game online if you are interested in that. That said the real appeal to this game is the myriad of modes it contains. So let's talk those extra modes.

Fever/Survival: These two modes are probably the most interesting of the bunch. It is mostly standard Tetris, but played on narrower board. Playing on a smaller board really changes the game as you have much fewer options for placing your pieces, meaning you far more likely to have holes in your build. It's pretty fun.

Jigsaw: It is what it sounds like. You put a Jigsaw puzzle together with Tetris blocks. The first so many puzzles are quite boring as they only give you squares and you don't even need to rotate them. The later levels require rotations, give you all pieces, AND even force to do stuff like t-spins. Not incredible, but it's a pretty fun and cute mode.

Shadow Wide: In this mode you have to make fill in a shadow on a wide Tetris board, and avoid filling the outside of it. The mode doesn't exclusively give tetrominos, but occasionally blocks with 3, 2, or 1 blocks adjoined. It is a solid fun mode. I like figuring out how to hang tetris pieces off each other to fill in shadowy parts that are off the ground. Another cool aspect is that the top screen actually builds a little structure as you fill in the shadow.

Fit: You just have to figure out how to fit Tetris pieces into a 6x6 board with holes in quick succession. It gives you two or three pieces to figure out how to place. Pretty dull mode.

Tower Climber: This mode is extremely disappointing. You have a cylindrical Tetris board (reminiscent of Pokémon Puzzle League's 3d mode), where you must get a guy to top. It's extremely easy and once you do it once there is no reason to do it again. Seriously wasted potential.

Bombliss Plus: Have you ever played a game made by a child, but the rules seem to be constantly changing as you play? That's what this mode feels like. Making a line of blocks doesn't clear the blocks in this mode, but instead activates bombs in the line. Sometimes the bombs clear like the entire board, other times just most of the line itself. All I could figure out was that making a square of bombs made a big explosion. It's fine I guess.

Stage Racer Plus: A fairly cute mode where you put Tetris pieces through an obstacle course. I like the concept, but they don't do too much with it, so it gets pretty repetitive fast.

Capture: In this mode you work on the front and back of the Tetris board. Putting a piece on the star in the board flips you between the two Tetris boards, and your objective is to have the same piece overlapping the star on both sides. Fairly convoluted, but certainly unique concept. Really changes the way you play, so pretty neat mode.

Master Mode: This is just instant drop Tetris.

Sprint: It's just how quickly you can clear 40 lines.

There are also some AR modes if you are into that, though I didn't get to try them. Overall, it's a cool package of some experimental Tetris modes. Nothing here is incredible, and I wished they did more with a lot of these concepts. Most of these modes feel like they made a prototype of an idea and just shipped that. They really could use expanding on. That said there is some fun to be had here, and I certainly appreciate seeing all the ideas the designers had for Tetris.

Reviewed on Jul 13, 2022


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