The company ModRetro has released their Chromatic, an FPGA handheld console which simulates a Game Boy Color and plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. It retails for $199, which may seem rather pricey but to attract buyers ModRetro developed a new version of Tetris and bundled it with the console. This version of Tetris can only be purchased with a Chromatic, it is not available separately. Having bought a Chromatic I intended to review both the console and its game, however as the console review was already pretty long and the game review ended up being lengthy in its own right, I decided to split the article into two parts for easier reading. In this article I will review the Tetris games which came before ModRetro's, give an overview of ModRetro's features and gameplay and see how it stacks up against its predecessors and whether it offers good value to the Chromatic package.
When the Chromatic was first announced back in June of 2024, one of the highlights was the introduction of a new, officially-licensed version of Tetris. ModRetro Tetris premiered at the Classic Tetris World Championship held on June 7-9, 2024. Eight Tetris notables (including Blue Scuti, Logan Paul and Alex T.) competed head to head on June 7 with Chromatics, their ModRetro Tetris cartridges and a link cables. Alexey Pajintov, the creator of Tetris, was in attendance alongside Palmer Luckey, the founder and owner of ModRetro.
Bundling a colorful version of Tetris with more modern mechanics and showing it off at the well-known competition with such public figures was undoubtedly a shrewd move. Fortunately, while obtaining a cartridge copy of the game requires a Chromatic purchase, it can be played with original GBCs and hardware which simulates it, including Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Player, Analogue Pocket and Funny Playing's FPGBC (Game Boy Micro does not support GB & GBC games). I tested it in all those systems to confirm its functionality.
The original Game Boy dominated its early competition in no small part because Tetris was bundled as the pack-in game outside of Japan for its first few years. Tetris became a sensation whose history is so well-known it does not need to be summarized here. On a handheld system, Tetris proved easy to pick up but surprisingly hard to put down.
There have been five official Game Boy games supporting the Tetris name in at least one region of the globe, Tetris, Tetris 2/Tetris Flash, Tetris Attack/Yoshi's Panepon, Tetris Blast/Super Bombliss and Tetris Plus. Additionally, there are two Game Boy Color Tetris games, Tetris DX and Magical Tetris Challenge. Tetris Plus and Magical Tetris Challenge offer a traditional Tetris-style game as an option, but Tetris and later Tetris DX are the pillars of the old-school Tetris experience. In order to discuss ModRetro's features, it is important to summarize what the features of the two formative Game Boy Tetris games offered before it:
Tetris
Tetris (1989) offers a very barebones version of Tetris by modern standards and uses a 32KiB cartridge. It was developed by Nintendo's R&D1 unit with assistance from Bullet Point Software (which had developed the Famicom and Japanese home computer versions). Console versions of Tetris had existed prior to Game Boy Tetris, but their mechanics have not aged well. Two single player game variations are available:
Game A-Type - marathon mode, play as long as you can
Game B-Type - clear lines (25) mode and allows up to five levels of garbage squares to be randomly placed on the screen (bottom to top) to challenge your clearing abilities.
Scoring is done by clearing lines and piece placement. 10 speed levels were available for each mode and the next 10 could be selected instead by a secret code (hold Down when pressing Start on the title screen). Three high scores could be saved for each speed level but these were not retained when the power to the console was turned off. You can turn off the preview box showing you the next piece by pressing select. Unlike NES Nintendo Tetris, A-Type is endless in that there is no known kill screen for playing the game for an excessively lengthy period of time.
2-player mode offered head to head competition, each player would try to be the first to clear 30 lines or outlast the other player in a best of seven match. The garbage settings were available as an option. Clearing two, three or four lines will cause the same number of rows of extra squares (minus one) to raise the existing stack of the other player. There is a bar on the side which indicates the height of the opponent's stack.
There are three missile launching sequences shown at the end of a Type-A game depending on your score. Completing a Type-B game at Level 9 with a Garbage level of 5 will show a musical sequence followed by a rocket launch.
Tetris DX
Tetris DX (1998) offers a cosmetic overhaul of the original Tetris while retaining most of its fundamental mechanics. There is new music, sound effects, graphical animations and more fluid controls, again courtesy of R&D1. This game came on a 512KiB cartridge using an MBC1 with 8KiB of battery backed save memory and as a hybrid game plays on both monochrome and color Game Boy systems. It offers a pair of borders for the Super Game Boys but no custom palette.
The game allows three player profiles to be created, which will save that player's high scores and the player's power rating, which measures the strength of the player's abilities. The top three high scores per level for each mode are saved. A guest profile can also be selected instead, but you have to create one player profile first. Four single player game modes are provided:
- Marathon - play as long as you can
- Ultra - survive for 3 minutes
- 40Lines - clear 40 lines with five levels of optional well height reduction
- Vs. Com - compete against the computer with three levels of difficulty
The two player mode is identical to Tetris except there is no end after a set number of lines. Scoring in Tetris DX is not just by the number of lines but also by fast dropping pieces. There is no option to add garbage blocks in Tetris DX. There are 20 speed levels but no cheat option to access the top ten levels. High scores in the Marathon mode will show short animations at the end of various objects trying to launch into space. Similarly, fireworks will be animated when you complete the 40lines mode.
ModRetro Tetris comes on a 2MiB cartridge (the game is 256KiB in actual size) with 32KiB of FRAM for saving. It was developed by ModRetro with the assistance of The Tetris Company, Inc. It follows on Tetris DX by providing three user profiles or a guest profile. It offers four single player game modes:
- Marathon - play until you complete 15 (modern) or 20 (retro) levels
- Ultra - survive for a set number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 20 30) of minutes
- Sprint - clear 40 lines as fast as possible
- Endless - play for as long as you can
While the modes do not substantially differ from Tetris DX, the mechanics of ModRetro Tetris are mode modern by default. The game implements the modern Super Rotation System (SRS), standardized spawn orientations, wall kicks, floor kicks, hard and slow drops, infinite placement lock d own and a generous ability to fit pieces into spaces that are partially blocked. Other mechanics can be switched into retro functionality via the options screen. "Ghost Piece" is turned on even in the retro setting but is not something seen in Tetris or Tetris DX. The more modern settings tend to make for an easier game, the "Bag System" ensures you are less likely to get multiples of S or Z pieces and no more than two at a time. "Hold" is great if you want to hold an I piece in reserve. I imagine "Seed" is tailored toward competitive gameplay with highly skilled players to increase randomness.
Two questions I was able to answer is whether the game was compatible with consoles other than the Chromatic and whether it works with monochrome systems. The answer to the first question is "yes" I tested ModRetro's Tetris in a Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Player, Analogue Pocket and the Funny Playing FPGBC and it works with all of them.
The answer to the second question is more complicated. The manual page for the game says the game requires GBC-compatible hardware but the cartridge has a black shell with a notch cut out for a DMG's power switch latch. That was Nintendo's physical and color designation for a hybrid cartridge. The game does work with monochrome systems but will display significant graphical glitches in the menus and credits screens. These glitches are not game breaking and the actual game itself plays without glitches. The contrast can be rather poor with the shades that are used for the graphics, but the gameplay is not affected. Game Boy Color-only games can stop execution by detecting a monochrome Game Boy and displaying a message like "This game will only work on a Game Boy Color" but this was not done for ModRetro Tetris.
The Tetris cartridge did not work in all my monochrome systems. It worked in a Super Game Boy, Super Game Boy 2 and two of my three original Game Boys (DMG). It failed to boot in the third DMG and my Game Boy Pocket (GBP), showing only the scrolling black bar which displays when there is no cartridge inserted. One of the working DMGs had a backlit screen replacement kit installed and the other DMG had a backlight & bivert mod. Both had replacement CleanPower regulator boards from retrosix installed. The nonworking DMG and GBP were stock consoles, unmodded and worked with an EverDrive GB X7. I do not consider this to be an issue for Tetris because ModRetro did not advertise monochrome compatibility, they merely implied it by the cartridge shell, but it is interesting nonetheless because ModRetro sells other homebrew games that are monochrome compatible. They may use this board design.
Evaluation
Now that we have the facts and features out of the way, let's get to some opinions. My overall impression is that this a serviceable version of Tetris, but you should not spend $199.00 just to get the game. Apart from the novelty of owning and playing a 2024 new officially licensed Tetris cartridge, most people will be attracted to the modern mechanics and the one and two-player modes geared to modern competitive play. Those of us more used to classic mechanics can adapt easily and will find ModRetro Tetris much more forgiving than Tetris or Tetris DX. The RNG of the old games always felt a little stingy when it came to the pieces you wanted at any given moment.
Graphically the game has a few nice touches, such as the screen shake with the hard drop and the credits screen has a nice background picture. I like the 3, 2, 1 countdown as the game begins but find it annoying when it also happens when you unpause the game. The pieces are colorful and easy to track. One issue I have is that it is hard to track the current menu option on original GBC screens because the active color option is rather close to the inactive color and more difficult to distinguish without a backlight. However there is an option described in the manual to invert the colors and this helps visibility on the original non-backlit screens tremendously. Kudos for ModRetro for thinking of those of us with unmodded systems:
The three selectable songs of the ModRetro Tetris are OK but not as good as the Nintendo songs in my opinion. Unfortunately there is no other music in the game, no little jingles, no title screen music, no winning animation music as far as I can tell, no increasingly frantic music as the stack climbs high. In short there is nothing to break up the musical experience except changing the active song (which you can do outside the options screen by pressing select) or turning it off. Along with the partially broken monochrome support and lack of animations or congratulation screens, the musical limitations of the game suggest a lack of that extra polish and gloss that Nintendo put into their games. ModRetro's sound effects sound a little weak compared to the older Tetrises. By contrast, ModRetro's Tetris is all about competition.
Used Tetris carts can go from $15-20 and Tetris DX carts from $25-30, so acquiring one is not going to bust your bank. The original Tetris may feel a bit creaky in certain areas, the RNG is less friendly, line clearing animations take a few frames longer than necessary, there is delay from when one piece drops and the next appears, the piece movement is a bit stiff. Tetris DX addresses most of these issues and while not quite as modern as ModRetro's Tetris, if you do not want to spend the money on the Chromatic console then Tetris DX is a much more budget-friendly way to go for a quality Tetris experience. Also, the Rosy Retrospection hack for the original Tetris adds the modern features to the classic game, and there is a DX colorization hack for it too. Ultimately, unless money is no object, anyone who wants the new Tetris will have to decide whether the Chromatic bundle is worth the $199.00. That is a question I hope to help people answer in the next blog entry.
You are spoiling us already man
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