Tetris Party Deluxe Impressions

[jujube]

it seems like most of the TDS players i've seen on worldwide are Japanese (or at least their names are), so yeah i'm sure things will pick up when TPD is released there.

here's a useful thing to do when your stack has this shape:
[fumen]105@NdE3kbG3ibG3ibI3gbI3gbI3gbI3gbI3gbI3gbI3qb?A4G7eEV6A+ABkQcs/AAAA[/fumen]
it still sucks that it doesn't do any good to set up a Z-spin triple->T-spin double, because of the weird Z-spin recognition. but this particular setup is so easy that's it's probably more useful anyway. it also works when the empty column is 1 away from the wall, but not 2 away.

[iphys]

juju, I still think that stack shape is better suited to a ZT stacking style TSD, since it sends more garbage than a ZST.

Okay, I broke down and bought the Wii version too (yeah, I know I've got it bad).

At first I thought DAS/ARR was slower on this than the DS version, but I can't observe any difference when I try shifting pieces at the same time on both systems like I did when I compared with TDS, so now I'm wondering if it might just be a psychological effect do the stiff D-pad on the Wiimote that it feels harder to move the pieces.  If there is ARE in this game, it's slower than how fast it takes me to tap, because I could suicide in under 2 seconds with apparently every tap up registered.

You get 15 cpu levels and you can set up to play against multiple CPU opponents in multiplayer.  Co-op and all the other multiplayer modes can be played with the CPU, which is something you don't have access to if you're playing on a DS by yourself, and most of the multiplayer modes on the DS don't even offer download play if your friends don't also own the game.

You get 14 music tracks, all 9 from TP plus 5 new ones, whereas on the DS you get 8 tracks, of which only 3 were from TP plus the same 5 new ones.  The 6 songs you get from TP on TPD Wii that you don't get on TPD DS are Fly Into The Sky, Katiusha, Kalinka, 8bit World, 2dpp, and King Street -- pretty sad that they left out Katiusha and Kalinka on the DS version, as those are pretty essential Tetris songs.

The backgrounds on the Wii version are animated like on TP rather than static like on TPD DS, which personally I find really annoying, but you can still set it none (which just has the colour changing on you and isn't usually distracting).

And as GPD already said you get 20 Bombliss and Shadow edits on the Wii version vs 5 on the DS.  So there are definitely a lot of pluses to the Wii version, and the only major drawback is the horrible D-pad on the Wiimote.

[Caithness]

So, I figured out how to change the background for a WFC match in the DS version, but not the music. Is it possible?

[iphys]

I don't see a way.  There was a personal settings section when you went online in TP where you could do it, but I don't see it here.  I notice for local multiplayer there doesn't seem to be a way to change the music either.

Lol, something I just noticed for TPD Wii is they made the save file icon a spinning J block vs it was a spinning T block for TP, so maybe that's their way of showing the deluxe version counts J-spins.  The fail is that they made the J block orange.  How do they not notice mistakes like that?  It was probably supposed to be an L block for de Luxe.

[iphys]

Okay, so I recorded some video to get some data on how fast TPD Wii is.

The DAS appears to be .16-.17 seconds, which would mean 10 frames, and the ARR appears to be .05 seconds, which would mean 3 frames.  TPD DS might be the exact same, because it appeared slightly faster than TDS which was 11 frames and 5 frames.

As for ARE, there appeared to be .06-.07 seconds in between the animation of a hard drop starting and the ghost of the next piece starting to appear, so I would guess it's 4 frames, but I don't think too many people can tap that fast so I can't see that annoying anyone.

Forgot to time the lineclear delay, so I'll do that later.

Edit: I checked the lineclear delay, and it actually depends slightly on whether you do a single/double/triple/tetris, as it seems to be approximately 26 frames plus 4 frames per row the stack has to fall down.

Double edit:  BTW, that would be lineclear + ARE, so 22 frames lineclear + 4 frames per row to fall + 4 frames ARE.

[XaeL]

i just got 56.56 i'm top of HD leaderboard. theres a 52 and 49 now. WTF.

[Boingloing]

I got down to 55.9 but that 49 is too odd.... 52 is mase.

[XaeL]

mofo i hate u.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIkwxETJlhU

[jujube]

juju, I still think that stack shape is better suited to a ZT stacking style TSD, since it sends more garbage than a ZST.

yeah that's true. there are a couple other ways to make a ZST with a slightly different stack shape:
[fumen]105@rdF3jbF3jbG3ibI3gbI3gbI3gbI3qbA4G7eENJB+PB?kfcsOBAAArdF3jbF3jbF30lUcAAA7eEDPBVKBnfcvOBAAA[/fumen]
it's the same shape you could make a yoshihiro out of, but you know EZ spins aren't so good. it's funny that you can easily make an SST or ZST from this situation, and you're almost sure to get exactly the pieces you need to make one or the other.

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I can promise it's legit (not that it'd mean much coming from me, I guess).  Actually it's out of date; I only had wifi temporarily, so I haven't been able to update it recently.  My new total is 2733.  I have posted my scores for each stage here, which might make the total score more plausible (and might show you which stages you should work on).

Heh, don't worry.  Like I said, I noticed you in other sections where you weren't first, so I didn't honestly suspect you of hacking.  Good to meet my rival in Bombliss Mode though, been grinding that to try and at least match your score.  Seems that there's a tactic or two that I don't know about yet though, because there are some levels where I could have sworn you need at least X pieces, but you somehow did it with one fewer.

[iphys]

Do you guys actually like Bombliss?  I find it kind of boring, because once you figure out how to get a high score on a stage, you have to keep restarting over and over till you happen to get the exact pieces you need.  If they would have made each stage with a specific piece sequence, then it would at least be fair that you would have the same opportunity for a high score on a stage every time you played it, but as it is, a person could restart forever and never get a sequence of pieces that allows for the highest score.  I never played Bombliss before, but I looked up the scoring for Tetris Blast, and apparently it gave you points for making big explosions, so I would imagine that game had more complexity to it than just using the minimum number of pieces.

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Do you guys actually like Bombliss?  I find it kind of boring, because once you figure out how to get a high score on a stage, you have to keep restarting over and over till you happen to get the exact pieces you need.  If they would have made each stage with a specific piece sequence, then it would at least be fair that you would have the same opportunity for a high score on a stage every time you played it, but as it is, a person could restart forever and never get a sequence of pieces that allows for the highest score.

It's sort of a catch-22.  Admittedly the restarting over and over is kind of annoying, but staple pieces would make the mode a bit less playable when just going through for fun.  Over-all it's hard to put that much faith in Bombliss since you just know that within a month or so some shlub is gonna write and FAQ for it and then suddenly anyone with some patience will be tied for first place.  Frankly, I like the idea behind this Tetris Blast you were talking about, just an endless mode that's built around getting as many explosions as possible... but alas.

Anyway, over-all I do like Bombliss, with my primary gripe being the lack of said "open play" mode.  It's something new and refreshing in a game that's otherwise a bunch of stuff from the WiiWare game all over again (aside from Master Mode, but they ****ed that up, imo).  Not to mention that I'd like to see how high of a score I can get before guides start showing-up for it and suddenly everyone is in first place.

[iphys]

Tetris Blast actually had some (maybe all) of these same Bombliss stages in its contest mode -- the screenshot for the first stage is identical.  The only difference I've found in the way the explosions take place for Bombliss to how they are explained in the wiki for Tetris Blast is that the large bombs actually blow up a 10x10 area in this game instead of 10x8.  I also tried playing this on the Wii, and for some stupid reason the Wii version actually scores 1 point lower because it deducts a point every time you drop a piece rather than every time another piece has to enter the well.

BTW, I did figure out that there is a bug in both the Wii and DS versions for Beginner's Tetris where the time it records as your "best time" is actually only the time for the game where you got your high score.  So somehow they actually managed to make the bug worse than it was in TP where it would only overwrite your best time if you got a new high score, but you were otherwise always able to improve your best time record without having to get a high score.

Also, the terribly sparse instruction manual for the DS tells you to hit Y to use items, but it's actually still X like in TDS, and the Wii boxart tells you you can use a nunchuk in this game, but I tried it and it does absolutely nothing.  The only plus to the Wii manual is they do actually tell you what the items are at least, although I'm not sure if we can trust anything they tell us.  I swear they didn't check anything in this game before releasing it, lol.

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Tetris Blast actually had some (maybe all) of these same Bombliss stages in its contest mode -- the screenshot for the first stage is identical.  The only difference I've found in the way the explosions take place for Bombliss to how they are explained in the wiki for Tetris Blast is that the large bombs actually blow up a 10x10 area in this game instead of 10x8.  I also tried playing this on the Wii, and for some stupid reason the Wii version actually scores 1 point lower because it deducts a point every time you drop a piece rather than every time another piece has to enter the well.

So it deducts when you drop a piece, which includes the piece that clears the screen?  That's kinda weak.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]BTW, I did figure out that there is a bug in both the Wii and DS versions for Beginner's Tetris where the time it records as your "best time" is actually only the time for the game where you got your high score.  So somehow they actually managed to make the bug worse than it was in TP where it would only overwrite your best time if you got a new high score, but you were otherwise always able to improve your best time record without having to get a high score.[/quote]Had to re-read that a couple times to get it, but yeah that kinda sucks.  I'm far from being a speed player, so I wouldn't have noticed something like that even if it was in normal Tetris, but I guess the bug went unnoticed because few people bother to play Beginner's outside of getting the trophies outta the way.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Also, the terribly sparse instruction manual for the DS tells you to hit Y to use items, but it's actually still X like in TDS, and the Wii boxart tells you you can use a nunchuk in this game, but I tried it and it does absolutely nothing.  The only plus to the Wii manual is they do actually tell you what the items are at least, although I'm not sure if we can trust anything they tell us.  I swear they didn't check anything in this game before releasing it, lol.
[/quote]I was actually very disappointed with the manual simply because it doesn't really tell you much of anything.  Admittedly though, that's partially Nintendo's fault for forcing multiple languages on their products lately.  Can't make a manual too informative when you have to make it 3x as long for the other languages.  :/

[EnFuego]

I was actually very disappointed with the manual simply because it doesn't really tell you much of anything.  Admittedly though, that's partially Nintendo's fault for forcing multiple languages on their products lately.  Can't make a manual too informative when you have to make it 3x as long for the other languages.  :/

They could atleast have a link to a website detailing the instructions and each game mode a lot better. Hell, even a link to harddrop.com  would help everyone more than what they wrote