Tetris X

Tetris X or テトリスX is a Tetris game for the Playstation 1, released by Henk Rogers' Bullet-Proof Software (BPS) company. Despite being made entirely for the Japanese market, almost all writings are in English. It contains 2 modes:


 * Classic
 * Battle

Classic
This is the Marathon mode. It uses entry delay and lock delay. Auto repeat rate is pretty high. Gravity is 1G at higher levels (a piece falls 1 row every 1/60 seconds). Randomizer seems to be memoryless. Altogether, Classic feels like the previous BPS games (Super) Tetris 2 + BomBliss. One difference is that all pieces spawn flat-side which makes them harder to rotate if they hit the ground unrotated. Thus to handle 1G gravity, some minor kicks were introduced and you may rotate your piece during the entry delay (IRS).

It shares the leveling and scoring system of the original BPS and Nintendo games. However, softdrop isn't rewarded. Unfortunately, Classic comes with over 100 levels. You can start at level 0 (Easy), level 11 (Normal), level 51 (Hard) and level 120 (Expert). If you start at level 51, you'll have to clear 520 lines before the gravity will increase and the lock delay will shorten.

Battle
This is the Versus mode which can be played against up to 3 AIs (bots) or players. There are 4 difficulty settings which influence how fast the bots play and how fast the pieces fall (same as in Classic mode). The playfields are only 7 columns wide and 17 rows high. Getting a bunch of S, Z and O pieces may be deadly. However, all players start with the same piece sequence.

The 4 playfields are arranged horizontally. Each player is represented by a character known from Tetris Battle Gaiden: the Pumpkin, the Shaman, the Rabbit and the Princess. Initially, these characters stand below the owner's playfield, but the owner can move them left and right. If you clear a line and your character is standing beyond the playfield of another player, then a garbage line is send to this player (one garbage line for every cleared line; garbage is pretty clean).

If your character stays by you and you clear a line in the moment a line is sent to you, then this incoming line is cancelled. Otherwise, your character will charge its next attack. This is represented by bats (Pumpkin), vodoo dolls (Shaman), carrots (Rabbit) and birds (Princess). Your character can collect up to 8 of these minions. One minion represent one line which will be sent to the opponent you walk to next. But beware, your character may slip and fall, which causes all lines sent to you!

After a while the music will switch to Hänschen Klein. Now, all characters will roam randomly. No line is sent during this period, but minions are collected. If the music stops, all lines are sent to the player your character has moved to. Yet again, you may target yourself (at least if you clear a line in the wrong moment)!

Goal is to be the last player being alive. A match consists of 3 to 5 of these rounds (as described above). A match is represented by a 10 meter race. After each round, all characters come closer to the finish line. The character who won the round moves first and moves the furthest. The character who crosses the finish line first, is the winner of the match. So, the players may begin to target the person who is the closest to the finish line.

Remark: Due to limited space, your next piece isn't shown until your current piece falls down 2 rows. So this mode is a mix of 0 to 1 previews. You may want to softdrop a piece a little before you make your final placement decision.