The addition ofGame Boygames toNintendo Switch Onlinelast month also meant the addition of the most important Game Boy game ever made:Tetris.
There are other games in the running for that title, to be sure.PokemonRed, Blue, and Yellow were certainly much more importantto meas a kid obsessed with Ash’s adventures. AndThe Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening,Metroid II: Return of Samus, andSuper Mario Landshowed thatNintendo’s premiere franchises could work on a handheld. But, on the other hand, Tetris is Tetris. It’s probably the mostperfect video gameever made and the Game Boy version was the version that brought the phenomenon to players at home.
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I recently upgraded my NSO subscription to the Expansion Pack tier which got meGame Boy Advance,Sega Genesis, andN64games too. So, besides Tetris, I now have access toDr. Mario 64and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. That’s in addition to Dr. Mario forNESwhich had already eaten up countless hours before the upgrade.
My Switch has become a puzzle game machine, which is perfect because my extremely dogmatic opinion is that puzzle games should be played portably. Puzzle gamescanbe transportive experiences in need of a big, impressive display. Tetris Effect, the 2018 puzzler from Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Enhance, is named for the experience that some obsessive Tetris players have reported over the years, of seeing falling blocks even when they aren’t playing the game or imagining how real-world objects could fit together like interlocking Tetrominoes. That game, fittingly, was designed to be a captivating and surprisingly moving experience. It was playable in VR and designed to be immersive, not just a way to pass the time.
But, puzzle gamesarethe perfect way to pass the time. As evidenced by Tetris' popularity on the Game Boy, there is a long history of puzzle games being games that people use to pass the time. My wife’s grandmother, who is not a gamer by most people’s definition of the word, has put thousands of hours into Candy Crush over the years. My non-gamer friends approach games the same way, looking for things they can pick up and play on their phones in between their obligations.
In general, that’s my preferred way to play a puzzle game, too. If I don’t have anything pressing to do, a few minutes may become a few hours. Instead of intentionally devoting time to a game like Dr. Mario, I like to be sucked into it, surprised by the extent to which the familiar melodies of “Fever” and “Chill” get me pumped to prescribe.
Nintendo Switch Online’s increasingly wide selection of games also has me excited to expand my knowledge of puzzle games beyond the ones I grew up playing. Pokemon Puzzle League is available in the N64 tab, Columns is on Genesis, Kuru Kuru Kururin is there for GBA, Magical Drop 2, Mario’s Super Picross, Super Puyo Puyo 2, and Panel de Pon on SNES, and Wario’s Woods, Solomon’s Key, and Yoshi on NES. The real puzzle is… which should I play first?
