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The Classic Score Attack mode in Tetris Effect: Connected on PS4--a free update from the original Tetris Effect--is technically a multiplayer mode, but the players don't really affect each other, so you can play it single-player vs an AI, or an empty controller. It was made to reproduce the tournament play used by the Classic Tetris World Championship ( thectwc.com / youtube.com/classictetris ), in which two competitors play Tetris simultaneously on two NES consoles, each trying to outscore the other. So, even though it supports multiplayer, with online support in Connected, the players are each playing their own single-player Tetris session--it's just that they can see the other player's session going there as well, with a live comparison of the scores. The default setting is that a player's session ends automatically two minutes after the other player's ended, but you can turn that off.
I'd been planning to keep the AI player on the lowest difficulty setting, so they would die off quickly and just leave me playing by myself, but I found it was sort of fun to have them there playing next to me--and it's a way to judge how good the game thinks you are. So far, I'm at least slightly better than the level 3, "Decent," AI. = D This is the best I've ever felt about my clumsy Tetris playing! ^ _^
My initial plan actually was just to start my own Player 2 using my second controller, and just let their blocks drop so they'd croak almost immediately, but the AI P2 is ready to go by default so it was just easier to go with that.
By Default, Classic Score Attack mode has lots of flashy effects going on--but rather amazingly, you can turn ALMOST all of these off--mostly through the game's main Graphics options menu, and the bouncing of the playfield under the Gameplay menu. You can also tweak the rules of the mode before starting the play session. The one flashy VFX I can't seem to turn off is the big firework starburst from the middle of the playfield when a player's session ends. ; P Still, with those options settings made, it's one of the LEAST flashy versions of Tetris, and probably (okay I'm biased) the best-looking-and-playing one of those. I really do like that remixed "8-bit" music.
I said all I've been looking for all this time is something like the old NES version of Tetris, but realized afterwards that back in the day I was probably more into the Game Boy version, which had come out first (end of July '89--NES version was November), and felt a bit more elemental somehow. But the NES version was nicer to look at and listen to, so that wasn't bad. (You can play a version in Puyo Puyo Tetris that has GB-style pixel art and sort of the music, but not the classic style of play--and it has all sorts of silly effects over it, and copyright claims on the music on YouTube. : P)
And Classic Score Attack doesn't strobe the screen when making a Tetris, unlike the NES version. It's probably the best Tetris mode, ever. I may be slightly biased.
The game doesn't have a score leaderboard for Classic Score Attack, dang.
Of the companies involved in the game, Enhance is Mizuguchi's production company, based in the US but with a Tokyo office. Resonair is his Japanese game design studio: "produced by Enhance" according to their web site. Monstars is a Japanese studio that of late appears to have worked exclusively on Mizuguchi games Rez and Tetris Effect. Stage Games is an independent Tokyo game design studio specializing in the Unreal Engine and Unity, and for Tetris Effect involved specifically with the Connected upgrade. |
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"Blurry blocks in Classic Score Attack mode."
The 2D or fake 2D or whatever blocks in Classic Score Attack mode are slightly blurry. This is my latest big video game peeve and man dang it. All this horsepower and modern games just going to blurring 2D stuff without seeming to notice--at least in the PS3 era you knew they were doing it on purpose. Looks like I'm gonna be hitting From Below instead for my Tetris fixes until that Super Nt shows up. |
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Well, I guess I got a new tiny high score, 67652 pts. 'p'
First there was that blurry Shanghai game, a blurring of some of the game with a certain setting in Zachtronics Solitaire Collection--and now someone had the gall to make a blurry Tetris game!!! RAWHWHGAHGHA
I mean it's not super blurry which I guess is why I didn't notice it before--also the pieces are just so darn small on the screen.
Well, count me out.
(Also I've decided to go for a Sanni Cart Reader instead of an Analogue Super Nt, so that should be here in like a week and my GB Tetris should be too (plus I already have the Super Game Boy here, so, extra color palettes!), and then I'll have the real OG Tetris to play, if I can manage to get the cart reader working and all. = oo) |
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| | | This slightly-too-excited video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiL6U_iONN4 explains that the update to the game that just came out today adds a single-player Classic Score Attack mode, under the "Effect Modes" main menu item, and that now it has a leaderboard and the two-player one doesn't because one player could speed-play ahead and, since both players get the same succession of pieces, that could in theory allow the other player to see farther ahead than they're supposed to. Why anyone would bother I don't know, but anyway that's their excuse for not having a leaderboard for scores from the two-player CSA. : P
So I tried out the new single-player CSA (yes I had to reinstall after just having deleted the darn game), and the blocks are still small, dark, and slightly blurry. The tiny playfield is at least in the middle of the screen. But, I suppose because there's a leaderboard, you don't have the Match Options menu like you do in the Local Multiplayer CSA, where you can set stuff like the method of piece randomization; in the single-player CSA, it's just on uh well probably the "Classic" randomization method or whatever; definitely not 7-bag, anyway.
I got a new high score there--84,711--which put me at rank 69. : P Then I uninstalled the game again. |
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