You thought Tetris was hard enough...
For the longest time, I've been waiting for the MAME emulator to come to the Vizzed RGR. And I swore to myself, when it came out, this would be the very first game I played on it. I have been a die hard TGM fan for years, and now... it's finally here. Well, for beta testing, at least.

Tetris the Grandmaster(TGM) is the first in a series of three games made by game developer Arika and created by Ichiro Mihara. Unlike the more casual Tetris games released, Tetris the Grandmaster is more focused on hardcore Tetris fans.  The goal of the game is reach the end of the game with the highest grade possible. To do this, you must be skilled in speed, planning, and Tetris in general. The grading system starts you off at grade 9. If you score enough points, you will advance to the next grade. The grades go from 9 through 1, then S1 through S9, then the coveted Grandmaster(GM) grade, which requires lots of practice and hard work.
But now to the actual review portion of the game.

Graphics: 8
The graphics are alright for a game released in 1998. While I wish there would've been better line clear animations and background images(who wants to look at a picture of blood cells?) the graphics as a whole were pretty good. Although it could have used animated backgrounds, like the second game in the series, it really doesn't matter to me.

Sound: 9
I love the sound and music in the game. As with the graphics scenario, there's still a bit to be desired, but I can't help but listen to it while doing stuff, like homework or playing games. It really picks up once you get to the second half of the game.

Addictiveness: 10
Remember how I said I was a die hard TGM fan? Before this came to the RGR I would play clones of Tetris the Grandmaster for a long time, and got better at the game in case it showed up at my local arcade or I could easily play it via emulation. Well I've played a couple games and I can honestly say... I still suck at it. But I'm still going to keep playing, for a long time to come, until that Grandmaster grade is mine. Then I will keep playing, then move on to the second game in the series: Tetris the Absolute: The Grandmaster 2... but that's another review entirely. Point is, you're gonna be playing this game for a long time. Once you start, there's no stopping.
This game lacks a story of any sorts, so I will not grade it for a story.

Depth: 9
If you want that Grandmaster grade, you're gonna have to play for a really long time. Months, even. The only reason I'm giving it a 9 and not a 10 is due to the fact that it only has two game modes: the normal mode and a versus mode to play against someone else. But prepare to pretty much sell your life if you want a high ranking on the game.

Difficulty: 10
You start off rather slow. As the game goes by, though, the pieces fall faster and faster based on the level you're on, until the pieces start spawning at the bottom of the stack. You only get about half of a second to move and rotate your piece before it locks into place, so most of the difficulty comes from how fast the game goes and how quickly it goes to such a speed.

Conclusion: 9.4/10
Although the game may sound daunting, with practice it can be a lot of fun. I honestly hope this game becomes more popular among the Tetris community on Vizzed, as it is a really enjoyable and challenging game. Now, I'm off to play a couple more games. Got to get better if I want to reach the top!
  Graphics 8   Sound 9   Addictive 10   Depth 9   Difficulty 10

Tetris - The Grand Master (c) 1998 Arika.

- TECHNICAL -

Sony ZN-1 hardware

Main CPU : PSX (@ 16.9344 Mhz)
Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 8 Mhz)
Sound Chips : SPU (@ 8 Mhz), Q-Sound (@ 4 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 640 x 480 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 65536

Players : 2
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 6

- TRIVIA -

This game was released in Japan only (July 1998).

If you enter the initials '666', 'A ', 'AA ', 'AAA', 'AHO', 'ASS', 'AUM', 'DIE', 'ETA', 'FUC', 'FUK', 'HIV', 'IRA', 'KKK', 'OSI', 'PEE', 'PIS', 'PLO', or 'SEX', they will be changed to 'ARK', which stands for Arika, the company that made the game.

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (TGM The Grand Master - PCCB-00372) on 19/05/1999.

Music from this game was remixed and included in Arika's music game 'Technic Beat' which saw a release in both arcades and on PS2.

Overall 9.1    Graphics 8    Sound 9    Addictive 10    Depth 9    Difficulty 10

You thought Tetris was hard enough...   awesome99999
For the longest time, I've been waiting for the MAME emulator to come to the Vizzed RGR. And I swore...
  Graphics 8   Sound 9   Addictive 10   Depth 9   Difficulty 10
      Review Rating: 4.3/5     Submitted: 11-04-12     Review Replies: 8

- SCORING -

The higher your level, the more points you earn for clearing lines.
You also get more points if you press down to drop or lock a piece.
This game gives you a bonus for clearing lines in a 'Combo' with consecutive pieces.
If you manage to clear the screen entirely, 'BRAVOx4' will appear on the screen and you will get quadruple the points for those lines.

Here is a more technical description of the scoring formula :
Score = ((Level + Lines)/4 + Drop) x Lines x Combo x Bravo

Where (Level + Lines)/4 is rounded up and :
Level is the current level you are on.
Lines is the number of lines you just cleared.
Drop is the number of spaces you dropped the piece. The last space your piece falls does not contribute to this, however locking the piece once it has landed will add 1 to the Drop.
Bravo is equal to 4 if this piece has cleared the screen, and otherwise is 1.
Combo returns to 1 by default every time a piece does not clear lines. Otherwise, it is :
Combo = Combo - 1 + (2 x Lines - 1)

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Conditions for Achieving the Grandmaster Grade : The higher you score, the better your grade will be. However, you need more than a high score to be graded a Grandmaster. You must be at least grade 1 when you reach level 300 and grade S4 when you reach level 500. Finally, you must be grade S9 and reach level 999 in under 13 minutes and 30 seconds (the tricky bit). Good luck!

* Basic Tips for Improving Speed :
1) When a piece is touching your stack, tapping 'down', will lock it in place instantly, saving you a fraction of a second. These really add up, so keep pushing the game forward as fast as you can handle!
2) It takes the same amount of time to clear a single line as it does to clear a double, triple, or Tetris, so try to be efficient and avoid clearing too many singles.
3) Your level increases by 1 for every line you clear. It also increases by 1 for every piece that appears. However, when you are at levels 99, 199, 299, etc. your level will not increase from falling pieces. You MUST clear a line to proceed (and change the background). Every second you spend without clearing a line is wasted time, so keep an eye on your level and try to have a line ready for the right moment.
4) If you intentionally keep your stack near the top of the screen it will take less time for pieces to fall and you will save time. This is most important at the beginning when pieces fall slowly, and again at level 200 when they slow to a crawl once more. By level 500, pieces will literally fall instantly and it will no longer make a difference how high your stack is.

* Advanced Rotation Techniques :
1) If you press and hold a rotate button before a piece appears, that piece will be rotated instantly as it appears in the field. The attract mode can give you a visual demonstration.
2) When you are rotating a piece, if there are any blocks preventing a rotation then the game will then try to see if there is room for a rotated piece 1 square to the right, and failing that, 1 square to the left. It sounds subtle, but you can use this to get pieces into seemingly impossible locations. Study the visual demonstrations of this in the attract mode.

* Predicting Upcoming Pieces :
1) At the top of the screen, the next piece is displayed.
2) Every piece has its own sound effect. Whenever a piece enters the screen, the sound of the upcoming piece is played. With practice, this knowledge can save you the effort of looking up to find out the next piece.
3) The pieces you get are not purely random. The game keeps a history of the 4 most recent pieces, and every time the game "rolls" a new piece, it will reroll if this piece is found in the history. The game will keep trying to give you a piece not contained in your history, re-rolling as many as 4 times, before finally giving you whatever the last of these rolls happened to be. The implications of this are subtle: You are both unlikely to get flooded with many of the same piece, and unlikely to get starved of any particular piece. Overall the pieces come more regularly than other versions of Tetris, allowing the player to build bold structures (in expectation of upcoming pieces) that would be far too risky with purer randomization. It is also interesting to note that this version of Tetris, a game named after the Greek word for 'four' and using pieces constructed with 4 squares, also keeps a history of 4 pieces and will re-roll up to 4 times.
4) The game will never give you an 'S', 'Z', or 'O' shape as your first piece. Also, every game begins with its history filled with 4 green 'Z' pieces, making these pieces initially unlikely. The odds of getting a Z shape as your second piece, for example, are fewer than 1/1000. Plan your opening moves accordingly.

* Title Screen Codes : Enter these codes at the title screen for the desired effect...
Big Mode (Pieces are much larger in size.) : Left(x4), Down, C, B, A.
Mono Mode (Play the game in black and white.) : Right(x3), Up, C, B, A.
TLS Mode (Pieces will still have shadows beyond lvl100) : A, B, C(x2), B, A(x2), C, B.
Uki Mode (A Japanese child will laugh when you clear lines.) : A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B, A, B(x2).
20G Mode (Starts the game with the highest gravity of 20 spaces per frame.) : Down(x8), C, B, A.
Rev Mode (Pieces rise instead of falling as you play Tetris in reverse.) : Down, Up(x2), Down, C, B, A.

* No Item Mode : To play a classic versus game without any items, hold down both player Start buttons when it says 'Here Comes a New Challenger'.

* Another Hidden Game Mode : As you play, leave the bottom left square unfilled so that that line doesn't clear. Also, leave the square up one and right one unfilled so that the second line won't clear. Continue like this, leaving holes diagonally, until you reach the right wall. Then continue diagonally to the left wall. You should be making a pattern that looks like '>'. It's actually rather hard to make the pattern entirely, but try to make as much as you can. After you die the game will recognize this pattern and give you an additional "Secret Grade", according to how much of the pattern you were able to make. Can you achieve Grandmaster in this challenging exercise ?

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moarkraps 01-08-17 - 05:32 PM
 The ROM isn't working.
awesome99999 10-18-13 - 07:45 PM
 I don't know who added that long section of text to the Cheats, Codes and Tips section of this game, but thanks for saving me the trouble! I guess a game guide isn't really necessary now, but I'll start work on a TGM2 guide if you want.