Tetris: Created By Alexey Pajitnov; Recreated for RPGM 2 by Jugem.
I'll try to break this down into a format I'll use for all future reviews. I'll use four categories rated one to for "Stars" each. Appropriate for Tetris where everything, even the name, is based on the number 4.
They are: 1) Amusement; 2) Functionality: 3) WOW Factor; 4) Hoopyness (I use Hoopy as an adjective for really complicated feats of scripting... scripting while "jumping through hoops"... metaphorically) (so what?).
So... The Review:
1) Amusement.
Any game has to be amusing. Whether you are amused by High Drama, Active Battle Systems, Silly Cut Scenes, Mini Games. or even etc.
That's what we're playing for, and this game delivers equally strong as the original.
I had the original on the big old black and white Game Boy thing and it kept me amused for hours.
I must admit, when this came out I put a lot of the time I normally put into my own work into just playing this.
Although it is not part of the game, it is noteworthy that he had a "contest" with a system generated password to confirm fraudulent score entries. I do not mention this because I won the contest, but because it generated widespread interest and provided additional amusement. The subject of this section.
The reproductions of the original music made this even more amusing. Jugem provides several faithful soundtracks from which to choose. I could not find an example of the original to compare, but I didn't notice any major departures from my foggy old memory, and that is noteworthy.
A nice personal touch was added with the use of a certain sound effect when your stack reaches the top. Play it and find out which it was!
Amusement = ****
2)Functionality.
It works exactly like the original. Apart from [] being the pause button, it seems to have the same button configurations as I recalled, but again could not find my original to compare (different systems anyhow... Not Applicable!).
You get your Score, Level, number of Lines and a preview window of the next piece all displayed in the main window.
An in game menu system at the beginning covers everything from How to Play to Saving, Passwords, and even a few Tips and Strategies for playing.
It stores your high score. This is an area where, now that I think about it, there is room for improvement. It would not be that much work to incorporate several scores and possibly even assign a name to them so people could compete. I did not think of this until I was writing a review, so it is obviously no detraction from the game.
A very impressive bit of work is shown by the fact that the pieces accelerate the longer that hold the D-Pad button, but return to normal speed when you let go. That was a key feature of the original, but an aspect of RPGMaker 2 that has long presented difficulty to Mini Game and CBS makers!
Occasionally it would not respond when I thought I pressed the button in time, but it may have just been my old controller.
I also found that it did not seem to speed up as fast as I remembered the original, but again, I could not compare.
Either way, it seemed slow to me. I was grateful for the option to start at higher levels. I am sure it played a role in my winning the aforementioned contest. You get more points for lines at higher levels.
There is, sadly for this section, very little else in terms of functionality to describe at the surface.
But... If you have ever tried scripting a mini game that keeps a numerical score, and displays that score, the fact that I never caught an error is relevant to functionality. More on that in Hoopyness.
The only real negative is the extended time RPGM2 needs to calculate a nearly full screen when you drop a line. this is presented as blank Play Area and lasts just long enough that I need to reorient just when I need to stay focused. I don't think that counts as points off because it is a system limitation (maybe it could be handled differently, but not without far more effort than it's worth). Therefore;
Functionality = ****
3) Wow Factor.
Normally, when I see someone else's work, I can look at it and know exactly what they did to make things happen (or at least come up with something else that would do the same thing).
When I first saw this I was astonished.
Sure, I recognized the work with the Dungeon Editor and the Building Editor to make the Playing Field, the pieces and even Title Screen...
But my first reaction was that there was score being displayed in text boxes.
This is very tedious work, but it was worth it. It made an incredible first, and lasting, impression
Another thing I tend to notice more than most is people's choice of color schemes for text boxes and messages (the ones set in the main menu). Even here a true sense of taste is shown. Not only is the choice pleasant to look at and easy to read, it is original (I have not seen it before).
Wow Factor = ****
4) Hoopyness.
I chose this for a subject unto itself because it is often overlooked. It is the fact that that it gets overlooked that makes it worthy of 25% of a review.
Possibly also because I came at gaming (especially with RPGM2) from a programming background, while most came to it through "normal gaming channels."
The fact that Jugem was able to concisely write scripts that tracked every line created by dropping these groups of 4 blocks and be able to eliminate a single line from the pile, then drop the rest, impressed me. His use of different textures form the basis of this trick and it is a pretty Hoopy piece of thinking for an Earth-Man.
I know what kind of logic skills and patience that sort of thing takes and I think this really shows how powerful a tool RPGMaker 2 really is.
Few games push the limits of what you can do with this maker as hard as this one.
Hoopyness = ****
Summary:
This game shows a solid mastery of RPGM2 and all it's editors. From Dungeons and Buildings, to Visual Effects and Scripts, this game accomplishes everything it sets out to do as well as is possible. Except for the extended blank screen when the blocks are stacked high and you are at a high level, it is a nearly indistinguishable copy of Alexey Pajitnov's Masterpiece.
Somebody should send him a link.
I highly recommend everyone give this a shot. If for no other reason than it is the only available version of the original Tetris playable on the PS2!
Playing this is a must for all RPGMaker 2 fans if only to see how much other than RPGs this tool is capable of producing.
A Complete 4 Star Game in all categories.
Epilogue: Jokes I left out!
The only thing wrong with this is that there's no "Breakout" or other classic games thrown in as extras.
I was also going to comment that the battle system sucked. Something about the fights being either way too short, or maybe that it took too long to get to the final boss (and I gave up?) or something.
Finally, your reward for reading through all that crap; an mpg file showing about a minute of gameplay:
Peace.
