Tetris (Sega)

Tetris (テトリス) is a 1988 Sega System 16 arcade game developed and published by Sega. It was licensed from Atari Games (credited as Tengen) and Mirrorsoft, who held the rights to produce Tetris arcade games at the time. This version of Tetris took Japanese arcades by storm, becoming one of the most commonly known versions of the game. Due to its popularity, it became the base of rules for many other Japanese games created later on, both licensed and unlicensed. Such games include the TGM series and the Tetris Plus series. It was one of the first games to instate lock delay, improving maneuverability greatly at high speeds compared to games which did not have the feature.

Sega also released versions of this game on Taito's B-System and H-System arcade boards in Japan. The B-System versions were released as upgrade kits for Taito's Nastar and Master of Weapon; the H-System version appears to have been sold on modified boards that previously held Taito's Go for the Gold (released overseas as Recordbreaker) rather than as an upgrade kit. A less powerful version was also released for 8-bit Sega System E hardware. Both versions are unrelated to Atari's arcade version, released in the same year under the same name.

A fairly accurate representation of the game, along with Tetris: New Century, Flash Point and Bloxeed, can be obtained in the Japanese PS2 game Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.28 Tetris Collection.

Gameplay specifics
Being an early game, there was only one rotation button, which rotated counterclockwise. The game also contained no wallkicks and no hard drop. However, many of the elements that exist in later games can already be seen here, such as delayed auto-shift movement, lock delay, entry delay, and rotation/movement processed before gravity. One rule element not commonly seen in recent games is the existence of the field ceiling. The field height is fixed at 20 cells, and any rotation that would exceed that height would fail.

It was one of the first games released in Japan to popularize the "marathon" play model of playing endlessly against increasing speed for survival, as opposed to beating levels or clearing a predefined number of lines ala Atari's own Tetris for arcades.

There are 2 ways to increase a level: The "level timer" will increase every 256 frames. For most levels, the timer must reach nine, except for levels 0, 9, 10, and 15, where the timer must reach fourteen. If the level increases, the timer will be reset to zero.
 * 1) Erase 4 lines.
 * 2) Put any tetromino after the "level timer" reaches to certain value. (Level will not increase if line clear happen.)

Power-on Pattern
One characteristic of this version of Tetris was the existence of a "Power-on pattern". This referred to the game's behavior that the string of pieces it dealt in the very first game after starting up the system was always the same. This was most probably caused by the state of the randomization seed in the system. After its discovery, players began constructing gameplay plans around the power-on pattern in order to max out the score in the least lines possible. Sega's 1999 version of Tetris (Arcade, Dreamcast) pays tribute to the power-on pattern, by dealing the sequence in the final level of the single-player game.

For MAME players, unless you are playing the bootleg, you must delete your nvram before playing to get the poweron pattern. The B-system version has a different poweron pattern, and does not require you to delete your nvram. It even restores the pattern upon reset, which not even the bootleg will do.

Flash Point also contain a poweron pattern, and uses it for every level you play for the entire game, and if you continue. If you fail to continue, the next game continues where the failed level ended in the poweron pattern. Again, unless you are playing a bootleg without nvram, you must clear the nvram to get the poweron pattern back.

Bloxeed contains a poweron pattern as well. Additionally if you "continue" you will recieve the pieces in the same order again! However, the powerups are NOT included in the poweron pattern, and are truly randomized.

Mega Drive version
Sega attempted to port the game to the Sega Mega Drive, however sales were blocked by Nintendo who owned the home console rights to the franchise (they had taken Atari's home console division, Tengen to court over a similar incident on the NES). As such, only about 10 cartridges were produced, all of which were only released in Japan. This version is now a rare collector's item, being sold in auctions for up to US$16000. Because Nintendo had no authority over the arcade versions, the Sega Mega Drive port was brought to Mega-Tech hardware in 1989.

This conversion is fairly accurate to the arcade version. However, it does alter the look of the blocks somewhat. It also contains some other features such as level and height settings, the ability to toggle the next piece on and off, as well as the ability to toggle on the special item blocks feature. When turned on, certain flashing blocks fall which, if used to clear lines, will grant special bonuses. The game also features a timed mode, two player competitive modes, and a two play cooperative mode where players must work together to drop two pieces simultaneously in a single matrix.