It's a nice overview of the rich history of Tetris from a gameplay perspective. Often when talking about the history of the game it is the licensing part that is mentioned (and it is a very good...
It's a nice overview of the rich history of Tetris from a gameplay perspective. Often when talking about the history of the game it is the licensing part that is mentioned (and it is a very good story indeed), but the gameplay history post-Elorg is seldom told, leading people to think that there's only one and one Tetris only. So, good recap from John Linneman (albeit with some inaccuracies†)
However...
It saddens me to see that he prefer the mechanically inferior Tetris Effect (TE) to the Tetris the Grand Master (TGM) series. Granted, TE is probably one of the most gorgeous Tetris out to this date (Mizuguchi <3), but the core gameplay (the "SRS" system) hasn't changed much since Tetris World in 2001 (there are some gimmicks, but none have sticked). And sadly, this system is ill-suited for a challenging high-level play. Explaining this in detail is perhaps too much technical so I will not elaborate here (I can do on request), but to a certain extent SRS feels a bit like Funky Kong in Donkey Kong Country Returns (albeit not as assistive): you are plenty of tool that assist you, but it's too much. You can still speedrun and spend some time perfecting your strategies, but the speed is entirely up to you instead of a speed dictated by the game that you have to conquer.
Of course, I am a TGM player so this may be me being blazé and elitist... but as someone still spending some time on it for more than 10 years, I cannot help but to feel a little bitter to see a perceived inferior see all the praise while my perceived superior game gets no love (or even outright hostility from the developers). It's probably the same feeling that hardcore Smash Bros Melee have against the Smash Brawl (and Smash 4 ? I have not that familiar with it).
† Tetris DX is has a different rotation system compared to Gameboy Tetris. He weirdly skip TGM2 and not present its free extension TGM2+ that introduce the popular "Death" mode (direct ancestor of the Shirase mode of TGM3). He also only shows the "World" ruleset of TGM3 whereas most serious players go with the "classic" ruleset.
It's a nice overview of the rich history of Tetris from a gameplay perspective. Often when talking about the history of the game it is the licensing part that is mentioned (and it is a very good story indeed), but the gameplay history post-Elorg is seldom told, leading people to think that there's only one and one Tetris only. So, good recap from John Linneman (albeit with some inaccuracies†)
However...
It saddens me to see that he prefer the mechanically inferior Tetris Effect (TE) to the Tetris the Grand Master (TGM) series. Granted, TE is probably one of the most gorgeous Tetris out to this date (Mizuguchi <3), but the core gameplay (the "SRS" system) hasn't changed much since Tetris World in 2001 (there are some gimmicks, but none have sticked). And sadly, this system is ill-suited for a challenging high-level play. Explaining this in detail is perhaps too much technical so I will not elaborate here (I can do on request), but to a certain extent SRS feels a bit like Funky Kong in Donkey Kong Country Returns (albeit not as assistive): you are plenty of tool that assist you, but it's too much. You can still speedrun and spend some time perfecting your strategies, but the speed is entirely up to you instead of a speed dictated by the game that you have to conquer.
Of course, I am a TGM player so this may be me being blazé and elitist... but as someone still spending some time on it for more than 10 years, I cannot help but to feel a little bitter to see a perceived inferior see all the praise while my perceived superior game gets no love (or even outright hostility from the developers). It's probably the same feeling that hardcore Smash Bros Melee have against the Smash Brawl (and Smash 4 ? I have not that familiar with it).
† Tetris DX is has a different rotation system compared to Gameboy Tetris. He weirdly skip TGM2 and not present its free extension TGM2+ that introduce the popular "Death" mode (direct ancestor of the Shirase mode of TGM3). He also only shows the "World" ruleset of TGM3 whereas most serious players go with the "classic" ruleset.