Collection essentials #164: Tetris (Game Boy)

Here’s the big game that really put the Game Boy on the map. Nintendo made the very wise decision to include Tetris as a pack-in game with Game Boy systems, so buyers would have one of its very best games to play right off the bat. 

I already talked about a couple versions of Tetris previously, so I’m not going to talk too much about how the game works or the history behind it. See those previous posts for more such info.

Tetris on the Game Boy is a really solid version of the game. It’s similar to the NES version, but arguably better since it has an actual two-player mode. The Game Boy had an accessory called a “link cable” which connected two systems together for multiplayer modes. (I had mentioned multiplayer in Pokémon already but didn’t mention how it was done, whoops!) The iconic Tetris theme that most people remember debuted in this version of the game.

I don’t have a ton else to say about Game Boy Tetris. It was one of my early Game Boy acquisitions, so I have plenty of experience with it. It’s the other game aside from Dr. Mario that my non-gamer uncle would play on his Game Boy all the time. Even a good number of people who normally play video games fancied them a Game Boy so they could play Tetris on it. For what it is, it’s a practically perfect game that almost any human being can enjoy, and it’s a perfect fit for the portable Game Boy, so perfect that it helped kick off Nintendo’s incredible long reign of absolute dominance in the realm of portable systems. Historically significant and timelessly fun, Tetris on the Game Boy is a no-brainer essential.