Tetris Plus

Did You Know?

• The game was published in the United States in 1996 after Jaleco signed an agreement with Blue Planet Software giving it exclusive rights to publish Tetris games for the Saturn and PlayStation in the U.S. for two years.
• The PlayStation version sold well enough to be re-released for the Greatest Hits budget range.
• Tetris Plus 2, the only sequel, made the professor's assistant playable, with faster movement speed.

Gameplay

Tetris Plus offers two main modes: Classic Mode and Puzzle Mode. Classic Mode is a standard Tetris game. Puzzle Mode is mission-based, requiring the player to clear a pre-arranged puzzle layout within a time limit. An editor for creating Puzzle Mode levels is included, and competitive multiplayer is available in either mode. Console versions add a two-player Versus Mode, which is essentially Puzzle Mode with two players racing to finish. The Puzzle Mode begins in the Egypt zone, followed in order by Angkor Wat, Maya, and Knossos. Completing these four zones unlocks the final area, Atlantis. Each of the five zones contains 20 levels, totaling 100 levels. In Puzzle Mode, the player sees a cluster of pre-placed bricks and a professor character who enters through a disappearing gate and becomes trapped with a spiked ceiling. The goal is to make the professor fall to the bottom by placing blocks and clearing lines before the descending spiked ceiling crushes him. The professor, two blocks wide and tall, walks forward until he hits a block, then turns around. If he encounters a gap large enough, he falls; a great fall stuns him temporarily. Blocks placed on top cause him to climb upward. The spiked ceiling starts at the top and descends one notch about every eighteen seconds. Clearing three or four rows at once pushes the ceiling back up. The ceiling destroys blocks in its path, which can remove unwanted pieces. If the timer reaches 125 seconds, the ceiling descends faster and crushes the professor. When spikes are near, the professor runs or panics if unable to move, and the music becomes frantic. If the professor hits the ceiling, he dies and the level is failed.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine ranked Tetris Plus as the sixth top-earning arcade game for January 1996. Reviews for the Sega Saturn version were mostly negative. GameSpot's Peter Criscuola dismissed it as "a feeble attempt at reviving a legend," while GamePro's Scary Larry called it "a poor addition to the Tetris library." Stephen Fulljames of Sega Saturn Magazine found it "certainly nothing to get excited about." The Electronic Gaming Monthly staff was more favorable; Dan Hsu described it as "a good package for even a part-time Tetris fan," and Sushi-X praised it as "a rewarding title with multiple levels of fun with the same classic challenge." The Puzzle Mode received mixed complaints: Criscuola thought it was too simple, Fulljames found it overly frustrating, Scary Larry argued it lacked enough change from the original, and a Next Generation critic felt it simply wasn't as engaging. Other common gripes included weak graphics and controls that felt harder and less intuitive than those in earlier Tetris games. Looking back, Allgame's Jon Thompson labeled the Saturn version "boring."