Tetris Battle Gaiden

[KeroKai]

Right. Clearly an old school tetris game with no hold, no twists, nothing! I even attempted to T-spin once on the game. It was a big fail. HOWEVER!

I'm just wondering if there are other people that have played this game before. It's one of my favourites, and is probably the first thing to get me into the tetris scene. It's basically special power tetris.

Shaman
Level 1 - Split
Level 2 - Spinny Blocks...
Level 3 - Death
Level 4 - Random

Bunny
Level 1 - Blockie Chew (Not really)
Level 2 - Forgot
Level 3 - Button push
Level 4 - Reversal

Overtime the game speeds up. Course you can have the setting on max straight away.
One thing that my friends have found weird about this game is the whole sharing tetris pieces element which meant that you had to time your play somewhat. Otherwise it's a brilliant game worth playing if you ever get your hand on a SNES (Or... Homebrew+Wii) *cough*

[holdnext]

For the bunny:
Level 1 - remove bottom four rows
Level 2 - input controls are upside-down
Level 3 - raise five rows
Level 4 - negative field (invert)

Strategy for Shaman's Level 4:
Do not use this item if you or your opponent is near the top. Think before you use this item. Shaman's Level 4 is random Level 4 of other characters.

[chowmain24]

looks like pretty high das actually

[KeroKai]

looks like pretty high das actually

Oh really. Hmm. I always assumed it was slow. Thanks for the correction.  

[Paul676]

looks slow to me

[Wojtek]

yeah, i like battle gaiden, it's not very fast but very fun.

too bad there is no decent clone available. there is Touhou Battle Gaiden but i dont think it's free and doesn't look very polished.

[DrPete]

this looks pretty fun. I love that there's a special power that sets up a 4-wide for you, that'd be hilarious in other clones

[Sisu]

can this cartridge be played on a standard US snes?  

[Kitaru]

If you grind out the tabs preventing cartridge insertion, yes.

[Sisu]

jeez kero really likes this game

If you grind out the tabs preventing cartridge insertion, yes.

oic. Needle-nose pliers. Mine were out in 4 minutes.

[Integration]

jeez kero really likes this game

It has some potential for sure, but honestly I had no fun playing it. I hated most the shared next piece queue. It makes you stall and sometimes it's hard to tell which piece you get (especially when some magic is used). Some 2 mana skills are annoying, e.g. there's one which prevents you from dropping the next 3 or 4 pieces. Overall, the game is SOOOO bloody slow. Normally one game takes much longer than 2 minutes. Then the AI is unbalanced. It's very easy to beat on easy and medium, but it always gets those special pieces in hard mode.

[zaphod77]

It has some potential for sure, but honestly I had no fun playing it. I hated most the shared next piece queue. It makes you stall and sometimes it's hard to tell which piece you get (especially when some magic is used). Some 2 mana skills are annoying, e.g. there's one which prevents you from dropping the next 3 or 4 pieces. Overall, the game is SOOOO bloody slow. Normally one game takes much longer than 2 minutes. Then the AI is unbalanced. It's very easy to beat on easy and medium, but it always gets those special pieces in hard mode.

The key to beating the AI is to deny it orbs.

They show up very predictably every 5 pieces.

Use attacks to pop their piece off the field and take the next one. (useful if either is an I piece, but better to let them get an I than an orb)

Use attacks to kick the piece they have with an orb in it of the field.

Use orb stealing attacks if they do get orbs.

Many of the level 1 powers make mincemeat of level 4 attacks, which is why it's so important to deny your opponent any orbs at all.

[CaptainPaul]

"too bad there is no decent clone available. there is Touhou Battle Gaiden but i dont think it's free and doesn't look very polished."

You don't even need a clone. You can use an SNES emulator, and it works just fine.

[Integration]

I think Wojtek also meant a clone which fixes gameplay flaws. I think they just used that shared stack, because they couldn't implement a proper AI. This way they can assure that the AI on highest level gets much more mana pieces than you (unless you use some tricks Zaphod mentioned). Other flaws:

• incredibly slow gameplay
• mana pieces appear in steady intervals
• unbalanced spells, most 1 mana skills are overpowered, most 4 mana skills mean instant win

[zaphod77]

The shared stack system is the heart of the game.

Here's how I would remake the game.

1) KEEP THE SHARED STACK.

2) instead of orbs in the stack, every 5 pieces you place, the 5th one has an orb added to it. This way both players get orbs.

3) make it so if you use a mana 4 attack an the opponent has 1 mana, that mana is drained. (screw that gettivg out of a 4 mana attack with an immediate level 1 that you were saving!)

4) rebalance the spells.