Not every Tetris game is a masterpiece just because its a Tetris game,anyone who played most of the games in between Tetris DS and Puyo Puyo Tetris knows how bad an official Tetris game can be,not only that but over the years “Tetris” has turned into 3 separate games:classic Tetris,Arika Tetris and modern Tetris.

Each of these iterated the core of Tetris in their own way,classic Tetris is the source,modern Tetris changes the way the game is played thanks to the Super Rotation System,and ARIKA Tetris is all about speed,high gravity and playing the game as fast as possible.

With the story lesson done,we can finally talk about the latest Arika Tetris game,TGM 4 -ABSOLUTE EYE-…why do i feel like I’m not done.

What took you so long?

I wont talk about the development history of every game i review,but TGM 4 has quite the story to tell,the first 3 TGM games were a hit in the Japanese arcades,bringing the natural evolution of SEGA Tetris intense gravity and speed,with every new game and release the formula was fine tuned,to a simple game of Tetris with a grading system based on your score and time,to a game that rewards consistency over everything in TGM 3.

The problem appears after these 3 games,the Tetris company decides to enforce its guidelines after years of copyright confusion,forcing all Tetris licensed games to follow its guidelines if they wanted to keep the license,witch was disastrous for Arika at the time,during the time they were busy developing the first TGM 4-The Masters of Round back in 2009,as it forced them to use SRS,not only that but they lost badly against other Tetris games like SEGA giant Tetris during location test.

In the end,they weren’t able to release it,the bad performance didn’t help in convincing the Tetris company to give them the license that they were so reluctant to give,and that killed the game.Even after trying again and again in arcade test in an attempt to convince Tetris,the basically finished game ended up shelved,never to be seen again…OR IS IT?

RISE FROM THE GRAVE!

After all hope was lost,ARCADE ARCHIVES suddenly dropped a port of the first TGM game,with the permission of ARIKA and,surprisingly,the Tetris company.This was unprecedented,the first time an ARIKA game got ported or rereleased,and it was a clear sign of the Tetris company was more open,the reality was that ARIKA just got a very limited time window to use the Tetris license again,and they used it to make the first two TGM games more accessible and to rush TGM 4 out before the Tetris company decided to chicken out of the deal.

This obviously meant rushing the game out,the important thing was grabbing the original game,giving it a new coat of paint to make it not look like a rejected 2009 project,making the main game modes playable on the platform that was easiest to develop,and then releasing whatever they had by the time the deadline came.Even if that meant technical errors and the game missing a lot of promised features when it was release,be it because they didn’t have time to finish them,or what ended up happening most of the times,they just didn’t get the OK from the licensee.

All of this just meant that ARIKA revived the game just to send it back to the grave,because it was the only way to do it,resurrecting the game again after it flopped on release was better than all that effort just disappearing forever.And so,the second race to finish the game started immediately after.

The game finally released to a resounding booing crowd,getting mostly negative review scores,mainly because of the many technical failures and shortcomings it had,so many that i wont really bother to list them here,as they were all fixed eventually.But even basic stuff like controller support wasn’t functional on release,leading to a cascade of bugfixes and added features almost every week,sometimes even just a day after the previous patch notes,for almost an entire year.

In the end ARIKA was able to save the game,it still wasn’t able to add multiplayer because of the license,but they managed to even recover the old grading system that gives the series its name after an update,making TGM 4 a finally complete game.

The actual review

For a game like this gameplay is the most important part,and everything else is mostly secondary,so i will share my thoughts on the rest of the package before diving into the meat and potatoes of it all.

The audiovisual presentation is incredible,easily the best part of the game besides gameplay,probably because parts of it affect the way the game plays severely.but even the bells and whistles wrap the game with an immaculate feel.

The graphics are really good,the art direction centered around the seasons works really well and the level backgrounds are beautiful,well animated,and personally speaking they don’t distract from the gameplay,but if they do you have options that remove the animations.The tetrominoes are customizable and the default ones are visually clear,but you have more options,most of these are really good and some of them are bad on purpose,the only bad ones are the overdesigned ones but you can just ignore those.The playing field is in two player mode by default but after an update they added the option to have a normal one player field.

The different gamemodes feature more than just the playing field,in asuka mode you see the mascot of the game,kita the fox,as a Tetris indicator,it also appears as a perfect clear indicator in konoha mode and its a very cute and well animated design,although you probably wont notice as you try to clear the modes.In konoha you also unlock anime girls doing some profession after doing enough perfect clears,this fitted the frutiger aero aesthetics of the old version of the game because they had a very old school look back then.But the modern anime artstyle they have now make them class with the artstyle of the game,they are very well drawn but that doesn’t change how jarring this is.Even in the original version it feel out of left field.This is the way you unlock tetromino skins in chase you were wondering.

The audio is amazing,but a bit mixed compared to the previous game.TGM 3 had a very clear sound direction and i cant help but realize the fact that they had to shoehorn classical Russian music just to make the Tetris company happy.Yes,i know some of these tracks come from TGM ACE but that doesn’t change that.Also,because of the license they were forced to change a track at the beginning of marathon mode after release,and that track is a remix of korobeinki because of course it has to be…Outside of that the OST is amazing,from konoha amazing FM soundtrack to the intense OST of the final levels of normal and master.Not only that,but after the 1.8 update the game features most of the OST of the first three games too.

Gameplay

The gameplay is the reason to play any game,but for a game like this its literally its only reason.This means that anything gameplay relevant will be discussed here,brace yourself.

Lets start with the controls and the way the game feels to play.world mode(SRS) is a bit strange to play as you can imagine in a game were that gamemode is an afterthought.Not just because of the lack of any graded modes besides master and asuka,mainly because of the way the diagonals are handled back in the default settings,settings that didn’t exist in the original version because it affects the balance of the standard mode(ARIKA).the game,besides marathon and maybe master and shiranui,is clearly not designed around world rules,witch lead to me not really playing the mode after playing marathon a few times.

Standard mode on the other hand is an amazing experience that feels way better to play than in TGM 3,not only because of the world rule randomizer but also because of the more generous next window that shows more pieces,the buffer zone that allows for crazy comebacks,and the extra button that really helps speeding up the earlygame of standard.although i wish it was a toggle rather than a button that you have to keep pressed all the time.

We also have a practice mode,a very important feature on any arcade game.In this game the practice mode is very robust,with everything that you might need covered,and even some extras like invisible Tetris and big mode.But sadly this mode didn’t receive that many updates,witch means that the new normal modes aren’t available for practice even after you unlock them.

GAMEMODES

i have been namedropping them over the course of the review,and its finally time to talk about them!TGM 4 features a lot of modes that don’t deviate in crazy ways from usual Tetris with one exception,that doesn’t change the fact that all of them are fun,but some are undoubtedly more fun than others.

Lets start with the ones exclusive to a control style:

WORLD rule exclusives

Marathon:The least interesting mode in the game,its not unfun but it wont retain your attention for more than an hour.This gamemode is exclusive to world rules and its just the standard modern Tetris mode that every game has,a simple mode where you just play for score.

Sprint:Another one of the obligatory Tetris modes,this one is way more fun as you try to clear 40 lines as fast as possible,not my thing but if this was Tetris effect or any other Tetris game i might actually play this.Also exclusive to world.

Ultra:The last one of the guideline modes,this one is a caravan mode where you try to score as much as you can in tree minutes.I’m not even sure if i have played this once in this game.

TGM rule exclusives

Normal:The first ARIKA mode,this is very similar to the usual normal mode in the other TGM modes but fused with the easier mode of TGM 3 and it also features a new way to rank the player.Its a race to get to level 999 before the death timer hits you after 15 minutes,where the game ranks you based on tetrises per section and survival…Or at least it used to be like that.After an update the mode was altered,the kill time has been erased,the way gravity progresses is different too.The mode is easier as a result but this change made some hardcore players angry,but taking in consideration how hard this mode is and the fact that we have effectively two master modes i think its fine.

Normal,again?:yes,normal,again,three more times to be exact.The first one is normal 1.1,you unlock it after beating normal and its just a recreation of TGM 1 normal mode,grades are based on score and its very straightforward,this is another mode that’s way easier than what it used to be because of the many changes since the first game,but i don’t think anyone misses TGM 1 normal,and if you do you can play the original game.This mode is mostly an improvement over the first game.

you already know:Normal 2.1 is a huge difficulty spike compared to the other two,this mode is a port of the T.A. death mode of TGM 2.as you can already tell this mode wants your blood,max gravity all the time,the time you have to place tetrominos is reduced several times as you progress,and the only way to grade is completing the mode by beating all 999 levels,sounds easy until you realize that you have to clear the first 500 in 3:20 or else the game kicks you out…it took me 6 minutes to get there so i cant talk about anything after that but this mode is fun,even if it is a bit redundant.

Another one:Normal 3.1 is unlocked by beating 2.1,you only need to see the congratulations screen so barely surviving until level 499 is good enough.This one is similar to shirashe from TGM 3 but it has a bunch of changes,it last for way longer has it requires you to do 2000 levels and its harder because of the lock delay,it has normal grades just like the original mode but the REGRET mechanic that forced you to play faster and better as the game progressed is not here.This mode also kicks you out several times but i don’t think anyone reading this is good enough to get there,specially because this mode trows garbage blocks at you at the halfway point of the first torikan.(that’s the term the community uses for these progression gates)This mode is fun and VERY hard.

Universal gamemodes

Asuka:Supposed to be the intermediate option,its based on the death mode from the second game and they added enough beginner friendly features to the point were it is arguably easier than normal until you realize that you need a Tetris to advance every 100 levels,you start in max gravity and it looks like all the other modes at a first glance,but you can rotate the pieces as much as you want,giving you unlimited extra time to place your pieces so long they are not locked,and you can reverse the last action you did too.This makes it the only forgiving mode in the entire game that isn’t a WORLD rule exclusive. This mode is a time attack were you need to clear a Tetris every 100 lines to advance,every Tetris,t-spin triple or perfect clear per 100 lines gives you a fox,you only need one but seeing a lot of them lined up is a really nice feeling,this mode also features an easy and a hard mode,the easy mode has a different grading system,normal gravity and way more time,and the hard mode is very similar to normal but harder and with way less time. This mode was very fun on release and one of the modes i played the most,but after the release of the new normal modes i haven’t touched it,this mode feels redundant now,but its one of the few max gravity modes you can play in WORLD rule so its not completely replaced.

Master:After what feels like a million years we finally arrive to the main course!Master is a really hard and fast mode with a lot of gimmicks ready to catch you with something the moment you get used to the speed and the current bullshit you are dealing with,besides normal,master is the mode to play,in both gamerules. It starts as a max gravity version of normal with minor mechanical differences,like badges that you get after a Tetris that lets you advance levels faster,until you reach level 300 and half the pieces just freeze,you clear them with a Tetris but they stay there until you clear 100 levels. The mode is filled with surprises like that one and taking in consideration the fact that this is the new mode i wont spill the beans too much,but its a very fun and challenging mode.

Konoha:Probably my favorite mode in the game alongside the normal modes,in this mode you play giant tetris and instead of just clearing lines,the objective is doing all clears to unlock a picture of an anime woman working(???),after three all clears you unlock it and move to the next one,in easy you have a guide that tells you where you have to place pieces in order to all clear at the begging,but the first anime woman are always the same,so even if your objective is just unlocking all of them you still have to learn how to all clear.Luckily the easy mode changes the way pieces are randomized and eliminates the S and Z pieces,this makes perfect clearing all the time a reasonable task that anyone can do.The mode ends after 110 perfect clears and you have a time limit of 5 minutes and you get more time every perfect clear.In easy mode you only unlock the first 37 girls so you will have to play hard mode eventually to unlock everything and complete the game.Hard mode has no assist,S and Z pieces and increasing gravity,making this mode one of the hardest alongside master,this difficulty gives the konoha master rank if you get to level 110 and it keeps going after that endlessly. This mode provides a very different way to play Tetris compared to any other game,its fun and rewarding and it starts easy before getting extremely hard,it makes you look at the game in a distinct way and it also has a very different look and sound compared to the rest of the game,one of the highlights of the game.

Shiranui/versus:i am grouping both modes together as one is just the singleplayer version of the other.Shiranui is a player vs ai mode where you try to beat ai that get harder as you progress,you can only progress up to four levels per victory and how much you do advance is based on your performance on the vs mach,its a best of 3 with a time limit where ties are decided on how many lines you cleared before the time limit vs your opponent,the ai is piss easy the first 20 levels and by level 30 you are already sweating,level 40 almost makes me want to tap out and start playing world with openers like if i was playing online.The mode is clearly not balanced enough,as doing one line more on Tetris and back to back in world isn’t enough to compensate the fact that you have way less options to deal with everything the game trows at you,less ways to recover from garbage because no SRS,worse openers because no SRS,less strategies available because no SRS,SRS is very broken and its hard to keep up if you play TGM,its not as bad as Puyo vs Tetris in PPT 1 but you have to be a Tetris machine if you want to compete…You can also just play SRS like usual and murder most of the 100 levels with ease.there are special levels like level 0 that imitates your playstyle and are fun bonuses. This mode is another heavy hitter and i spent a lot of time just trying to clear as much as possible using TGM rules,the progression is nice and gradual and once you hit your skill level it becomes one of the most fun modes.And unlike in other Tetris games,here you will find a worthy opponent even if you are rank X in TETR.IO,and if you don’t you can always play in TGM rules.

In conclusion:The modes are very fun,offering for the most part a huge challenge that at first feels insurmountable,until you start playing and you see your improvement,you start to feel like you can conquer the game and become at least a master,and then you play master mode,or asuka hard,or konoha hard,or normal 3.1,or the final levels of shiranui,and you remember that these games are designed to be unbeatable for 99,9% of human beings in this earth,at least you can get all the achievements,modes and konoha girls without becoming a living TAS,and it will only take you around 50 to 100 hours depending on your skill.The variety is really nice but thank to the updates some modes like asuka normal and regular normal mode feel irrelevant and redundant,still,the underlying game is probably the most fun game of all time so any excuse to play one more time is always welcome.

Issues

No game is perfect,TGM 4 is a good candidate for best game of all time in my opinion,but that doesn’t change the fact that the game is lacking in some small areas.

compared to TGM 3 i miss the way that game rewarded consistency by giving a grade to your account and forcing you to beat a promotional exam,it was a source of frustration but the surprise exams really made for some of the most exciting Tetris games i have ever played,the demotion exams when you play below your level for a while also were a huge incentive to never give up and always try to recover no matter how bad you started.The way TGM 3 was built entirely around just master mode,with its more streamlined master mode compared to TGM 4 that always threw honest stuff at you,and focused on you being able to do your best performance or at least something similar every time you sat down to play really made that game feel special,that combined with the better ranking system and medals,and that detailed performance graphic that shows up after you lose,plus the amazing direction and how cohesive the experience was really made TGM 3 an unique game,and its sad that because of the Tetris company we cant have fun like that anymore.

Another thing that i miss is sakura mode,this was a puzzle mode in TGM 3 that added levels of the game Tetris with Cardcaptor Sakura,it was a very fun,very casual mode on an otherwise cruel game,and it also gave you something else to do besides torturing yourself playing master mode again.TGM 4 really needs more variety modes that play different from classic Tetris and i feel that this one is perfect.I’m not sure if this didn’t get the OK from the Tetris company or it was an internal decision but i want it back.

Versus mode wasn’t able to get online because of a certain company too…

Honestly all of the technical issues i had when i bought this on release have banished,but i wish that the brand new TGM after 20 years released in a finished state.

This is the end

Its a miracle that we even have this game in our hand,let alone in an official manner and accessible to everyone interested.The price feels a bit too step if you don’t know the other games and how fun this one is but its worth every single penny,ever since i became aware of its existence i believed that the Tetris the grandmaster games where the best puzzle games alongside maybe Puyo Puyo 20 anniversary,and TGM 4 is more and better in almost every conceivable way,if you were wondering if you should play it the answer is almost always yes,but i do have to admit that if you are looking for a more casual fun experience Tetris effect is probably the way to go,the TGM games are only for the brave of heart,or the stupid ones like me.