A guide to Tetris Battle Gaiden for the SNES Written by Adam King (aka Gnik)

                           Version 1.0

This FAQ is intended for personal use only. You are free to save or print this guide for your own use in playing the game, but it is not to be reproduced or redistributed without the express permission of Adam King.

This guide is best viewed using a fixed-width font, with at least 79 characters per row.

The most up to date version of this guide may always be found at http://www.gamefaqs.com

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Table of Contents:

You can search using the code listed before the titles to jump right to that section. Just press Ctrl-F and type in the code.

F-0 FAQ information F-1 Version History F-2 Preface

G-0 Game Basics G-1 About Tetris Battle Gaiden G-2 Starting Up / Menus / Secrets G-3 Controls G-4 Basic Gameplay Mechanics G-5 Basic Strategies G-6 Options

C-00 Characters C-01 Halloween C-02 Mirurun C-03 Shaman C-04 Aladdin C-05 Princess C-06 Bit C-07 Ninja C-08 Wolfman C-09 Dragon C-10 Queen

Z-0 Contact and Credits Z-1 Contacting Me Z-2 Credits Z-3 Closing Information

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FAQ Information:

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Version History:

1.0 - Dec 16, 2010 First draft. Probably final.

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Preface:

This is a Japanese game, but this guide will assume you cannot read Japanese. With the aid of this guide, you will be able to enjoy the game to its fullest extent even if you can't tell a Japanese character from a hole in the wall.

Since this guide is being prepared for English speakers, I am not making any particular effort towards accuracy in translation. This mostly pertains to the Crystal Power names.

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Game Basics:

This sections goes over the basics of the game.

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About Tetris Battle Gaiden:

There is no puzzle game more popular or more well-known than Tetris. Even many people who don't play games at all can play Tetris capably, and it is available in hundreds of different formats for every type of electronic device imaginable. Owing to its near-universal and timeless appeal, the core gameplay mechanics have barely changed at all since it was first introduced more than 30 years ago.

Except for this game. Tetris Battle Gaiden is still very much a Tetris game, but it makes some crucial changes that force you to play the game in an almost completely different way. As someone who has already played enough Tetris for one lifetime I find this injects a lot of life into the formula, but no doubt some people will be put off by the changes instead. Still, I recommend giving it a shot, just like regular Tetris it is deceptively addictive.

So what is this game actually about? First and foremost, Tetris Battle Gaiden is a Competitive Puzzle game. This means that at all times you will be playing against an opponent, and the goal of the game is not to score points but to defeat them. Furthermore, the game has many different playable characters, each of whom have four special powers that they can use after acquiring enough crystals. You'll need speed, strategy, timing, patience, and keen observation to defeat your opponents and become a Tetris Battle master.

If you want to buy a copy of this game, it's generally fairly common and cheap on Ebay (my copy cost me less than $20). Just search for "Tetris Gaiden" and you'll probably find it (some refer to this game as "Tetris Butou Gaiden", that's just a different way of translating the title). Don't forget that this game was only released in Japan, so if your SNES is not Japanese you'll need to make the appropriate adjustments so it will play Japanese games. This is not hard, just look at the SNES Hardware FAQs on this site for more details.

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Starting Up / Menus / Secrets:

When you start the game, you'll first see Bulletproof Software's splash screen, then a copyright screen. These both last for a few seconds at most.

Afterwards, you'll arrive at the Main Menu. It has three choices. From top to bottom, they are as follows:

Story Mode Versus Mode Options

Story Mode is the main game for one player. You must select your character, then battle through the other seven and the two boss characters.

Versus Mode is for two players. You can each select your character (you can also choose the same one) then battle to your heart's content.

The Options let you set various settings (see the Options section for details).

Use the D-Pad to navigate and the A button to make your choice. If you wait for a while, the game will either introduce the characters or show a demo, press Start or A to dismiss this and return to the title screen.

If you picked either Story Mode or Versus Mode, next you'll have to select your character. You can scroll between characters by pressing left and right, and make your selection with A. Pressing B will return to the title screen. The characters are listed in the following order, from left to right:

Halloween Mirurun Shaman Aladdin Princess Bit Ninja Wolfman

But you'll learn to identify them by sight soon enough.

You can also the game's one code on the copyright screen. To play as the boss characters, input B,B,X,X,A,Y,A,Y,Up,Left. Astute gamers might notice that this is the famous Konami Code, except inputted with the controller held upside-down. If entered correctly, the text will turn blue. If not entered correctly, you'll have to press Reset to get another chance.

Inputting this code will allow you to play as the boss characters in Versus Mode. To play as the Dragon, hold L + A until the match begins. To play as the Queen, hold R + A instead. Remember that you must continue to hold it until the match actually starts. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you can play as the Dragon or the Queen in Story Mode. It will also allow you to listen to Queen and Dragon's music in the Options.

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Controls:

The controls for this game are pretty straightforward, but they're listed here for completeness.

Menu Controls

A - Make selection / Skip text B - Cancel selection Start - Skip text

In-game

Left / Right - Move current piece left / right A - Rotate piece clockwise B - Rotate piece counter-clockwise Up - Use current Crystal Power Down - Fast Drop (current piece falls faster) Start - Pauses the game

These controls may change based on certain Crystal Powers.

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Basic Gameplay Mechanics:

Flow of Battle

In Tetris Battle Gaiden, both players simultaneously drop pieces into their own 10 x 22 play areas called "fields", creating piles of placed pieces called "stacks". Player 1 is always on the left, Player 2 (or the computer) is always on the right, and gameplay continues until one player places a piece that both does not complete a line and overflows the top of the field. When this occurs, the other player wins the round. Matches in this game are best 2 out of 3 rounds.

Just like in Tetris, creating a horizontal line from placed pieces clears that line, and any pieces above it are moved down by one space. Additionally, in Tetris Battle Gaiden, clearing a line sends one near-complete line to the bottom of the opponent's stack. You can several lines at once using a single piece, but unlike in other Tetris games there is no bonus whatsoever for doing this. Whether you clear four lines at once (a "Tetris") or just one, you will send one line for each line that you clear.

Moving and Rotating Pieces

Tetris Battle Gaiden uses "classic-style" Tetris rotation mechanics, which means that you cannot rotate a piece if there is not enough space for it. There are no "spins" in this game, and there is also no "kick", if you're well-versed enough in Tetris lingo to know what that means. You can slide a piece a little once it touches the stack, but they lock in pretty fast.

Unlike most other Tetris games, the challenge in this game is not derived from the rate at which your pieces fall, most of the time they fall pretty slowly.
As such, you'll frequently want to Fast Drop your pieces by pressing down to get them into place quicker (this does not drop them instantly, the "Instant Drop" function from later games is not available in this game). But sometimes you'll want to stall so that the opponent places their piece first, see below to find out why.

The Piece Pool

Besides Crystal Powers, what really sets this game apart from other Tetris games that feature a Versus mode is that both players draw their pieces from the same pool. The Piece Pool displays four pieces and is located in the upper middle of the screen, and whenever a player places a piece, they get the next piece off the top.

This means that how fast you place your pieces will determine which pieces you get. If you see a piece you really want (or don't want the opponent to have), you can place your piece quickly so you get that piece instead of them. Or, if you see a piece you don't want (or want to give the opponent), you can try to drop your piece as slow as possible in the hopes that they'll place their piece first. Skilful Management the piece pool is absolutely essential to playing this game well, so there will be more on this in the "General Strategies" section.

Crystal Pieces and Crystal Powers

Every handful of pieces a piece with a shining crystal inside it will appear in the Piece Pool. If you use the crystal contained in that piece as part of a line, you will gain one Crystal for your Crystal Meter, which is located either to the left or right of your Field (for Player 1 and 2, respectively).

If you have at least one Crystal in your meter, you can press up at almost any time to activate one of your Crystal Powers. Which power you will use is determined by how many Crystals are in your meter, one crystal makes a Level 1 Crystal Power, three Crystals make a Level 3 Crystal Power, and so on. The maximum amount of Crystals you can have is four, if you earn more after that they will simply be discarded.

In general, most characters powers follow a certain pattern. Level 1 will be a defensive power, Level 2 will be some kind of buff, Level 3 will have a unique effect, and Level 4 will be some kind of powerful attack. There are some exceptions, though.

When you activate a Crystal Power, a short animation will occur, and then some kind of effect will happen to one or both of the fields. Every Crystal Power in the game is different, and all of them are detailed in the Characters section.

But that's not all! When you activate a Crystal Power, any active piece that either player is in the process of placing will be discarded, so you can force your opponent to throw away a good piece or get rid of a bad one by using a power. If both players end up discarding their pieces, the player who activated the power will draw a piece from the Piece Pool first, so think about what the next piece both players will receive will be, too. Keep in mind though that if the opponent's piece has been drawn but has not entered the field yet, it won't be discarded, so don't jump the gun.

Hard Blocks

Hard blocks only come into play through 2 different Crystal Powers, but they're so unique that they need to be addressed in their own section.

Hard blocks (which look like grey bricks) need to be cleared twice before they will be erased. If you make a line which contains any hard blocks, any blocks other than hard blocks in that line will be erased, the hard blocks will turn into regular blocks (they'll look like pink bricks, but at this point they function normally), and any blocks above them will not move down.

Since clearing hard blocks almost invariably results in holes in your stack, it's best to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Use your defensive powers and focus your line-clearing efforts towards getting rid of them as quickly as possible.

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Basic Strategies:

In case it isn't obvious by now, there's quite a bit of strategy involved in playing this game well. Obviously, knowing when to use your Crystal Powers is super important, so that will be covered in the characters section. This part will list strategies that apply to all characters.

This Isn't Classic Tetris

It has to be said right off the bat that the same strategies you employ when playing Tetris by yourself will not necessarily work here, and in fact they may even be counter-productive.

The most important things to watch out for are not to focus on building Tetrises and not to play too slowly.

The main reason you don't want to aim for Tetrises is pretty simplistic - only one piece can clear a Tetris, so you either have to wait until you get that piece or use another piece, possibly creating a hole. Since making a Tetris offers no advantage whatsoever over four singles or two doubles, you should aim for those instead since they're more versatile. Of course, if you do have the opportunity to complete a Tetris (perhaps one that was created by an opponent's attack), you should definitely take it. A secondary reason is that if you clear many lines containing Crystals at the same time, you may not be able to select the Crystal Power you want. Again, once at a time is better.

As for playing quickly, that has everything to do with the shared Piece Pool. Slow players don't get the pieces they want (unless they're deliberately stalling), and if you allow the opponent to outpace you you can expect a lot of nasty Crystal Powers and other unpleasantness coming your way. If the next piece in the pool is a vital one, it's often better to place a piece in a suboptimal position and claim that piece than to perfectly position the piece but lose it. Of course, speed and accuracy is ideal but that takes a lot of practice. Don't forget that you can use your Crystal Powers to clean up your mistakes, too, so the penalty for a badly placed piece is not as high.

Observation is Essential

In order to play this game even capably, you absolutely must keep track of what is in the Piece Pool at ALL times. I realize this is somewhat hard to do, but you have to train yourself to watch both the Piece Pool and your field at the same time.

It would also be ideal to keep an eye on the opponent's field and their Crystal Meter. Being able to keep an eye on the opponent's field at all times is something that only the absolute top puzzle gamers are able to do, but you should at least try to glance over there occasionally and see what they've got, or you might be taken by surprise. Knowing what pieces they need is also vital to the next section.

Piece / Crystal Monopolization

As mentioned before, managing the piece pool well is very important to success in this game. Besides trying to make sure you get the pieces you want, it can also be very effective to try to deny certain pieces to the opponent by either playing quickly or stalling to ensure you get that piece instead.

The most obvious type of pieces to try to hoard are Crystal Pieces. If you can stop the opponent from getting any Crystals, they won't be able to use their Crystal Powers, and that will make things much easier for you. However, Crystal Pieces are pretty common and it's hard to stop them from getting any, at least without destroying yourself in the process. Still, you should generally try to get any Crystal Pieces that you can since they're helpful.

But there's no reason we have to limit this to Crystal Pieces. Does your opponent have a Tetris ready? Keep an eye on the Piece Pool and make sure you take all of the stick pieces that they need to complete it. You can do the same thing with any particular hole they need to plug, generally resulting in a messy board. It's a pretty cutthroat practice, but there's no reason to feel sympathetic, because they're going to do the exact same thing to you every chance they get.

One more thing to keep in mind is that even if they do get the piece they need, you can force them to discard it by activating a Crystal Power. There's really nothing more satisfying than watching them slide the stick piece right into place only to hear Ka-Plink and watch the piece fly away (of course, it's very annoying when it happens to you, and it will). Just make sure they won't immediately be handed that same piece after the power is over.

Winning the Round

If you read the game basics section, you know that in order to win a round, your opponent has to place a piece which both crosses the top of the field and does not complete a line. If their piece does complete a line, no matter how far above the top it went, they will not lose. As such, when the opponent is at the top, if at all possible you want to feed them a piece that they cannot possibly make a line with. The piece that is usually best for this is the 2x2 block, since it cannot complete a line that has only a single hole. Of course, if they have a 2-space hole, you'd want to feed them the stick piece instead.

Do whatever it takes to give them a piece that will kill them, whether it means messing up your field or using your Crystal Power, because if they go over the top none of that is going to matter anymore.

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Options:

The option screen lets you make various gameplay changes that affect both the single and multi-player modes.

The menu has the following settings:

Speed Change

Default setting: On

This determines whether or not the drop speed gradually increases over time. It doesn't really have a huge effect on the game, because the increase isn't that drastic, but I recommend leaving it on anyway.

Crystal

Default setting: 1/05

This determines the frequency of Crystal Pieces. The default is one piece per every five pieces, but you can either reduce or increase it. I really don't recommend increasing it any farther, but if you feel the game is a bit too insane you could try reducing the rate a bit.

Setting it to 1/00 means Crystal Pieces don't appear at all.

Com Level

Default setting: Easy

This is the difficulty setting for Story Mode. It defaults to Easy for a reason: there's quite a big jump between Easy and Normal.

On Easy, the computer plays slowly and sometimes chooses powers unwisely. On Normal, the computer plays much faster and makes good use of powers, but is a little impatient and doesn't handle a high stack as well as they might. On Hard, the computer is now a master of timing their drops so that you don't get Crystal pieces. On Expert, the computer will attempt to control who gets every single piece to their advantage and is smarter with the use of their powers.

Don't increase the difficulty level before you can win the previous one with little effort unless you want to get slaughtered, the AI in this game is very ruthless.

Game Mode

Default setting: Battlis

Choices are Battlis, Tetris, and Rensa. Tetris is just the same as Battlis but with Crystal set to 1/00, you still use the shared Piece Pool. Rensa mode is quite different, in this mode the Rensa Rule is constantly active, which means that after any line is made gravity takes effect and all blocks (except Crystal blocks) fall until they hit another block or the bottom of the stack. Of course, under the Rensa rule, Wolfman's Level 4 is useless.

I would generally recommend playing under Battlis, though, the game was definitely balanced with the regular mode in mind.

Back Ground

Default setting: 2P Character BG

This determines what background will be shown in Versus Mode. The default setting will show the background associated with the second player's character, but you can change it to the background of any specific character if you want.

If you entered the code to play as the boss characters, you can select them here, too.

Speed and Power

Default settings: 00 for Speed and 01 for Power.

These are handicaps for Versus Mode. The 1 player handicap affects both the player and the computer in Story Mode. The maximum setting is 07 for Speed and 05 for Power.

The speed setting is straightforward, the higher it is set to, the faster that player's pieces will fall. 07 is actually quite fast, but very good Tetris players can probably still control it at that rate. It does completely impede your ability to stall, though.

Power is a more interesting setting, it acts as a multiplier on the number of Crystals required to use each power. If you increase this to 2, you now need twice as many Crystals for each power, so Level 1 is now 2, Level 2 is now 4, and so on. You can use this setting to tone down the craziness if you feel the game has too many powers, or as a substantial handicap to one player. If you set this to 0, that player cannot use powers at all.

SE and BGM

This is a sound test. Press A to listen to the associated music or sound effect.

If you entered the code to play as the boss characters, you can listen to all of the tracks, otherwise it ends at 0C.

The BGM list is as follows:

00 - Halloween's theme 01 - Mirurun's theme 02 - Shaman's theme 03 - Aladdin's theme 04 - Princess's theme 05 - Bit's theme 06 - Ninja's theme 07 - Wolfman's theme 08 - Start battle fanfare 09 - Lose battle fanfare 0A - Win battle fanfare 0B - Game over fanfare 0C - Title screen theme 0D - Dragon's introduction in Story Mode 0E - Dragon's theme 0F - Queen's introduction in Story Mode 10 - Queen's theme

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Characters:

This sections details all of the game's characters, their Crystal Powers, and gives advice on how to use them.

This is the real meat and potatoes of the guide, so let's get down to it!

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Halloween:

Halloween is a Jack-O-Lantern wearing a cape and a wizard's hat.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Fire Level 2: Dark Level 3: Steal Level 4: Bomb

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Fire (Level 1)

Completely fills the bottom 3 rows of Halloween's field. Upon placing the next piece, this creates a triple, clearing 3 of his rows and sending 3 to the opponent. If there are any Crystal Pieces in those rows, they are lost.

This is a very good power, with a net gain of 6 rows this is the most powerful Level 1 of any of the non-boss characters. This is very potent on both offense and defense, and it is especially useful near the end of close battles where you need both at the same time.

The only downside to this power is that the rows do not clear until you place another piece. If the opponent is prepared, they may be able to respond with various other powers before it activates.

Dark (Level 2)

Hides the opponent's playfield, except for a little area under the current piece. Lasts until the opponent places 3 pieces.

This is basically worthless. The computer is barely affected by it, and any good human player can deal with it pretty easily as well. Since all of your other powers are pretty good, focus on using them instead.

Steal (Level 3)

Takes the opponent's Crystals away and gives them to Halloween.

This is a fairly situational power but it can be useful. Obviously, if your opponent has four Crystals stocked, use this and take them, you gain a Crystal and they lose all of theirs. Most of the time, though, your opponent will be careful not to give you this opportunity, so you'll likely be stealing 1-2 Crystals instead. This can still be helpful, though, for one thing it can prevent them from using a defensive power if they're near death. Or you can use it to make them discard their current piece, then force them to discard AGAIN with the Crystals you took from them.

Even though you might not use this that much, the threat of this power forces opponents to use their Crystals early and that's a weapon in itself.

Bomb (Level 4)

Randomly destroys parts of the opponent's stack, creating a bunch of holes.

Very annoying to deal with and potentially very deadly if the opponent's stack is high up. Combine this with the Fire power to finish off your opponents. This can also destroy placed Crystals.

The only real problem with this power is that some characters can counter it pretty well using their Level 1s. Try to make sure they don't have any Crystals (or steal them first) in this case.

General Strategies For and Against Halloween:

Halloween is a pretty balanced character who has a lot of tools at his disposal. With a very strong defensive power and the ability to Steal the opponent's Crystals, Halloween can shut down the opponent's offense, or he can go on the offensive by raising their stack and using Bomb. His well-rounded nature and ability to neutralize Crystal Powers makes him a good starting choice, which is probably why he's the initially selected character.

When playing against Halloween, the absolute most important thing to do is to avoid letting him Steal a lot of your Crystals. Keep an eye on how many Crystals he has and make sure you use your powers ASAP if he's going to get 3. Beyond this, he really doesn't have any significant weaknesses so you'll just have to try to play to your own strengths as best you can. If you can get your powers out, Halloween doesn't have a ton of ways to counter them.

Halloween does well against characters who are very dependent on their Level 4s, because he can generally prevent them from getting them. This makes him one of the best choices against the Queen and Aladdin.

Shaman has a significant advantage over Halloween because his defensive power totally shuts down the Bomb, and he doesn't even need his Level 4 to be deadly. Wolfman can achieve similar results with his Level 4, which he can build up pretty easily using his Level 2, so watch out for him too.

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Mirurun:

Mirurun is a pink robot bunny with a plug for a tail.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Erase Level 2: Invert Level 3: Raise Level 4: Mirror

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Erase (Level 1)

Removes the bottom four rows from Mirurun's stack.

A decent defensive power, it can give you a little breathing room if your stack is high or get rid of some mistakes that you'd rather not deal with. Just try not to discard Crystals.

Invert (Level 2)

Inverts the opponent's controls for their next three pieces.

The inversion is quite literal here, you're meant to rotate your controller 180 degrees so your left hand is on the buttons and your right is on the D-Pad. If you do this, however, it's quite easy to deal with, and on any difficulty except Easy the computer is barely affected by it.

About the only danger is that it takes a second to rotate your controller. If you're really cheap, you could pause the game when he activates it, spin the controller, then unpause.

Raise (Level 3)

Adds 5 rows to the bottom of the opponent's stack.

Now this is a more potent power. If the opponent's stack is relatively high, wait for a poor piece to be the second piece in the Piece Pool and unleash this bad boy to kill them outright. Of course you need to make sure they don't have a Crystal Power that could save them or it might be a waste. You can also simply play this whenever to keep the pressure on.

The best defense against this thing is just to keep one Crystal on hand. Most defensive powers will undo most of the damage this causes.

Mirror (Level 4)

Switches all blocks in the opponent's stack with holes, and all holes with blocks (up to the most highly filled row only). Eradicates all Crystals on their field in the process. Hard blocks are not inverted at all.

A very interesting but highly situational power. If the opponent's stack is high and their last row is barely filled, using this will create a nearly filled row on the top of their stack that could easily prove deadly. It can also create many nearly empty rows below (or even totally empty if you use it to counter one of the Fire powers), which take a lot of work to clean out. If the opponent has any odd-shaped holes in their grid, all the better. It also wipes out all the Crystals on their field, which is a nice bonus.

However, this power can be easily countered in many situations. If the opponent is not near death, they may simply be able to clear the top few rows and then be left with a nearly-empty field (albeit, one devoid of Crystals). Certain defensive powers also make this completely useless, particularly Wolfman and Shaman's. You need to make careful use of this power for it to be effective.

General Strategies For and Against Mirurun:

Despite his cute appearance and status as the game's Mascot character, Mirurun is hard to use well. Mirror is likely the game's most situational Level 4, but without it he is a fairly unremarkable and weak character, so you'll have to learn to make good use of it. Ideally, Mirurun wants to play a pressure game, making heavy use of his Level 3 and Level 4 to keep the opponent off-balance and gradually raise their stack until he can go for the kill. Unfortunately, several defensive powers stop this strategy cold and he really has few options against those characters but to spam his Level 1 and try to outlast them.

Mirurun needs a lot of Crystals to do much of anything offensively, so if you if you can prevent him from getting them he's not terribly hard to beat. You can also guard yourself against his Mirror Power by watching how you place your pieces when he has it stocked up. If all else fails, spam your defensive powers whenever he does anything.

Mirurun does well against characters with bad defensive powers like Aladdin, Ninja, Bit, and Dragon. Just wait for a good time to Mirror them and they're pretty much done. Even if Dragon or Aladdin tries to send you their layout, your defensive power will handle that just fine.

On the other hand, characters with very good defensive powers are very hard for him to beat. The absolute worst offender is Wolfman, his Slice completely shuts down both Raise and Mirror, and Mirurun has no defense whatsoever against Slow. Princess can also generally beat down Mirurun pretty easily as long as she can keep her Reflector up.

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Shaman:

Shaman is a classic tribal warrior complete with crazy mask and green hair.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Split Level 2: Spiral Level 3: Death Level 4: Random

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Split (Level 1)

Splits Shaman's stack down the middle vertically. Pushing his blocks two spaces in each direction and dropping blocks to fill holes in the process. Crystals do not fall.

Preposterously amazing. This power shuts down pretty much all forms of attack by itself and eliminates whatever holes you might have in your field, as long as Crystals aren't holding them up. Since whatever blocks you have in the last two columns on either side are lost, two applications of this power basically clears your entire field.

There's pretty much no defense against this move, at least, not anything another application of Split wouldn't solve. Shaman is virtually unkillable if he spams this repeatedly. The only weakness is that making rows in the four-space wide area in the middle can be tricky if you have bad luck with pieces. If you're playing against Shaman, try to feed him as many S-shaped and block pieces as you can to prevent him from getting more Crystals.

Spiral (Level 2)

For your opponent's next 3 pieces, the opponent's rotate buttons rotate pieces continuously (and at a very fast rate) as long as they are pressed down. The Down button also rotates pieces clockwise in addition to Fast Dropping.

An annoyance move that will generally slow the opponent down a bit, but it's generally overshadowed by his Level 1 and Level 3. It can be effective if they're near death, though, as they might not be able to properly position their pieces.

It's worth noting that if this power is used on you, you can hold down A or B to drop the pieces at a much slower rate than is normally possible, allowing you to stall for whatever piece you might want.

Doom (Level 3)

After placing each of their next four pieces, one row of hard blocks will be sent to the bottom of the opponent's stack. If Shaman sends any additional rows during this time, they will also be sent as hard blocks.

Doom is a very accurate name for this power, it is very nasty and can easily be fatal. Having your screen moved up four rows is bad enough, but to have them be four rows of hard blocks is much worse as they are very hard to get rid of. And when you consider that Shaman can send even more rows of hard blocks by making lines you have a power that overshadows many Level 4s.

Luckily for his opponents, most defensive powers can deal with this, and this is almost always a better idea than trying to clean it up manually. But it might take several applications and if you're near death you might not even get the chance.

Random (Level 4)

Randomly uses any of the other character's Level 4s. This includes Dragon's, but I don't know if it includes Queen's. Also, you may actually invoke Ninja's Stone power on YOURSELF.

This is easily the game's worst Level 4. Sure, you might theoretically get lucky and use a good power on the opponent, but since you have no way of knowing which power you're going to get, at least as often you'll end up with something useless or even detrimental to you. And the fact that you can end up casting Stone on yourself is just an added kick in the pants. Sure, at least your Split move can take care of it, but it's a huge waste of 6 Crystals (4 for this move and 2 more to clean it up).

This power is so bad that it essentially acts as a handicap. Should you accidentally place your crystal pieces in such a way that you clear several at a time and end up with 4, you're either stuck using this move and praying it doesn't hurt you or going without powers for the rest of the round. It's usually better to suck it up unless you're just about to win, but ideally you should try to place your Crystal Pieces in such a way that this doesn't happen.

General Strategies For and Against Shaman:

Shaman is an extremely powerful and well-rounded character who is almost certainly overpowered. Even though only two of his Crystal Powers are useful, they're so amazing that it's more than enough to deal with any situation. As long as you can keep spamming those Splits and Dooms you're pretty much unbeatable.

Shaman has an interesting but largely trivial weakness in his Level 4. Random is such a bad power that using it actually hurts him as often as it helps, but as long as he's careful in how he places his Crystal Pieces he should never have to use it. Any battle against Shaman is likely to be a war of attrition, just try to deny him Crystal Pieces and defend against Doom with your defensive power and hopefully you'll outlast him.

Shaman can fight on at least even footing against almost every character since Split shuts down pretty much every form of attack in the game. In particular, he's one of very few characters with any real defense against Wolfman.
Wolfman's defensive powers are pretty useless against Doom and Split should adequately defeat his offense, assuming you can get a chance to use it before he kills you with Slow. Make sure to get one Crystal pretty fast and hold onto it. Actually, that's a good strategy against anyone.

The only character with a discernable advantage over Shaman is Aladdin.
Split provides no defense whatsoever against Aladdin's Control power (since the side columns remain high, just direct the pieces to the sides), so as soon as Shaman's stack gets high you can use Control for a free win. Aladdin can also use his Shove power to send Shaman's hard blocks right back to him if he uses Doom.

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Aladdin:

Aladdin is an Arabian man holding a (presumably magic) carpet.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Shove Level 2: Barrier Level 3: Fax Level 4: Control

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Shove (Level 1)

Takes the bottom two rows from Aladdin's stack and sends them to the bottom of the opponent's stack. Any Crystals or hard blocks are preserved.

This is not a very good defensive power, it only gives you two rows of space and is not terribly strong from an offensive standpoint either. However, if the bottom rows in your stack have been messed up in some way (ie, they have many holes or are hard blocks), sending them to the opponent can be more potent. Try not to send Crystals, though.

Barrier (Level 2)

For a while, any lines sent by your opponent are ignored. This does not protect against specials that raise your stack directly, like Mirurun's Raise.

A halfway decent defensive option but limited in use because many deadly powers involve rows being sent in ways that this does not block. Also, since it lasts such a long time, if your stack is high it may prevent you from using your Level 1 when you need it, so try to use it before you get into an emergency situation.

Fax (Level 3)

Replaces the opponent's field with a copy of Aladdin's.

On paper, this seems like an excellent power - simply raise your blocks high, then send them to the opponent for a quick win. Unfortunately in practice it's much less useful, because after using this you'll be left with zero Crystals. If your opponent has any Crystals stored up they can easily use their defensive power or anything else to reclaim the advantage, and you're stuck with a high stack that Aladdin cannot easily deal with. If the opponent has no Crystals, you can occasionally use this for an instant kill but 95% of the time you'll want to save up for your Level 4.

Fax works best as a counter to moves that really mess up your stack, like Bomb and Stone, at least that way you can share the pain. But be aware that most characters can deal with a messed up stack better than you can.

Control (Level 4)

For the opponent's next two pieces, Aladdin controls both his piece and the opponent's piece simultaneously. During this time the opponent can not do anything at all.

You may have noticed so far that Aladdin's powers are kind of bad. This is why: His Level 4 is EXTREMELY powerful. If the opponent's stack is within 5 rows of the top, just wait for a stick piece to be the second piece in the Pool, then activate this power and stack the two pieces on top of each other to win instantly. If they're even higher than this basically any combination of pieces will result in a win for you.

Of course, the best defense against this move is to keep your stack low by using defensive powers. This isn't hard for most characters, since Aladdin doesn't really have any great ways to raise your stack. Even if your stack is low, though, this can still be annoying as Aladdin can use it to create nasty holes in your stack.

General Strategies For and Against Aladdin:

Aladdin is the very definition of a one-trick pony - His Level 4 is incredible, but that's pretty much all he's got going for him. As such, when playing Aladdin the entire focus of your strategy will be upon placing the opponent in a situation where you can use Control for an instant kill. This will likely revolve around clearing as many lines as you can and trying to stay alive long enough to get your chance. Solid fundamentals are definitely going to be very important to playing him.

Since Aladdin is so one-dimensional it's fairly easy to counter him. Simply focus on keeping your stack low and he won't be able to do much. He also has a weak defensive power so you can send him a bunch of lines and try to overwhelm him, just be careful that he doesn't surprise you with a Fax.

Aladdin has a huge advantage over Shaman and Ninja, since their defensive powers don't directly lower their stacks they provide no defense against Control, and Shove is a good counter to their hard blocks. He can also abuse the Princess in a similar manner (how ironic) as long as you can get past her Reflector. Bit's random defensive power may also leave him open to a good Controlling.

Unfortunately, Aladdin is pretty bad against characters whose powers push their stacks down a lot since this mitigates Control's effectiveness. This includes Halloween, Mirurun, Wolfman, the Queen, and to some extent the Dragon. Halloween and the Queen are especially bad since they can also attack Aladdin while lowering their stack and he can't counter attacks very well. Wolfman is also liable to crush Aladdin pretty badly unless he can activate Barrier when Wolfman activates Rensa.

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Princess:

Princess is a girl in a white dress with pink hair and a tiara.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Ray Level 2: Reflector Level 3: Paralyse Level 4: Copy

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Ray (Level 1)

Fires a ray of light that eliminates 3 adjacent columns. You can choose where to fire the ray using the D-Pad.

This is an okay defensive power, it's sort of like Shaman's but without the effect of making the blocks fall together. 3 columns isn't a lot of space, so you might want to fire off two to get some working room.

Reflector (Level 2)

Puts up a reflector that "steals" the next Crystal Power used by the opponent. Unlike all other Powers in the game, this does not have an animation and the opponent is not forced to discard their piece (though the Princess still is). If the opponent uses a Crystal Power while this is active, it will function as though Princess had been the one to activate it (except for the fact that the opponent will still draw first if both players discard their piece). If no power is reflected this eventually wears off. Princess cannot activate any other powers while this remains active.

Easily one of the game's most useful powers, it forces the opponent to forego the use of their Crystal Powers for a long time or have them used against themselves. Of course, after putting this up, Princess cannot use Crystal Powers at all during this time, so it's best not to use this if your stack is very high and you need to use your defensive power.

Speaking of which, this also reflects defensive powers, so it's a great move to use when the opponent's stack is very high. Denying the opponent the ability to lower their stack can easily finish them off. You can also use this when an opponent with a very powerful Level 4 is about to get their last Crystal, there's no way they'll want to fire it off and be hit with it.

This power can be countered, though. Some Crystal Powers are so situational that using them at the wrong time is actually harmful, for example you could use Aladdin's Fax to force her to send you her stack when it's better than yours, and a couple powers have the same effect regardless of who uses them (Bit's Rally and Dragon's Swap). And don't forget that regardless of which power you use, she'll still have to discard her active piece when you activate it.

Paralyse (Level 3)

The opponent cannot rotate their next 3 pieces.

One of the game's best debuffs, this power can easily mess up an opponent's field whenever it's used. It's especially helpful when the opponent is near the top, because not being able to rotate will prevent them from completing lines with most pieces.

Copy (Level 4)

Replaces Princess's field with a copy of her opponent's.

Very similar to Aladdin's power, but slightly better since not having any Crystals shouldn't hurt as badly if your stack is fairly low. Unfortunately, this power is still just as situational, and since it's a Level 4 if you build up four Crystals you won't be able to use any other powers until you use it. As such, you may actually want to send most Crystal pieces to your opponent if you have the Reflector active and you're winning by a fair margin.

General Strategies For and Against Princess:

Like Halloween, Princess is a well-balanced character with a diverse set of tools. She can deal with almost any situation, but playing her is a bit more nuanced since using her powers at the wrong time can be disadvantageous. Make sure to take the current battle situation into account before activating Reflector and try not to collect 4 Crystals unless you want to Copy.

Playing against Princess generally revolves around dealing with her Reflector. First and foremost, you absolutely must know at all times whether it is active or not. Since you can't see it activate, this requires you to watch her Crystal Meter. If she has two Crystals stocked but has not activated it yet, be very wary of stocking too many Crystals because you might get stuck using your Level 4 on yourself. If the Reflector is up, the best way to deal with it is to try to use either a harmless power (Halloween's Dark, for example), or, even better, a situational power which can be damaging if used at the wrong time. Of course, the Reflector isn't her only move, you also have to keep an eye out for Paralyse and Copy, but remember that if the Reflector is up, she can't use them until it goes away.

Princess's toolset allows her to perform reasonably well against most characters, but she has a particular advantage against characters whose powers are useful at pretty much any time. Wolfman is likely the best example of this, since all of his powers are so great he really has no good way to take down the Reflector. She also has some advantage over characters who are very dependent on their Level 4s, like Ninja and Queen, because she can just play normally until they are about to activate these, then toss up the Reflector to totally disable them for a long time.

Princess is most easily victimized by characters with highly situational powers or powers that function the same way even if the Reflector is up. This includes Aladdin, Mirurun, Bit, and Dragon. Aladdin and Mirurun can use Fax and Mirror when their own layout will make these beneficial, and Bit and Dragon can use Rally and Swap just the same as they could normally. Rally is an especially great counter to the Reflector, since Bit can not only activate it through her Reflector but it also prevents Princess from using any powers until it ends. Of course, Princess still has some other decent tools up her sleeve but without the Reflector she's not nearly as dangerous.

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Bit:

The Bit are a set of five differently coloured sprites.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Starfall Level 2: Rally Level 3: Bandit Level 4: Shuffle

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Starfall (Level 1)

Nine stars fall in random locations. The rows where they land are cleared. The cleared lines are not sent to your opponent.

This power's effectiveness is completely random. It could clear as many as 9 rows, but more often it will only clear 1-2 rows. It tends to work better if your stack is more uneven, which unfortunately means it rarely comes through when your stack is near the top and you really need the help.

Rally (Level 2)

Until both players have placed a combined 6 pieces, every piece in the Piece Pool will be whatever piece Bit had when he activated this power.

Definitely Bit's most useful power, Rally has all kinds of interesting uses. The most straightforward one is to Rally a piece that you need a lot of to clean up your stack (which you'll probably be doing a lot due to Bit's lack of a capable defensive power), but you can also use it to "give" your current piece to your opponent, ideally if it will mess up their stack or kill them. You can also Rally a Crystal Piece to generate an obscene amount of Crystals, then use Bandit to steal any unclaimed Crystals from your opponent's board and leave them with a bunch of holes.

Don't forget that even after all 6 pieces have been placed, the next four pieces in the Piece Pool will still be whatever you Rallied, so you'll typically get to place between 4 and 6 of them.

Bandit (Level 3)

Bandits steal all Crystal Pieces from the opponent's field, leaving holes.
Some of the stolen Crystals are then given to Bit.

A very handy power. Everyone loves leaving holes in the opponent's grid and taking their Crystals at the same time makes it even better. Unfortunately, the amount of Crystals Bit actually gains from this is random, it appears to be evenly distributed between 1 and the number of Crystals taken, but of course you can't acquire more than the maximum amount of Crystals.

Obviously, to defend against this, try not to leave too many Crystals unclaimed in your stack.

Shuffle (Level 4)

Randomly shuffles the opponent's stack around.

This power also has random effectiveness, but unlike Starfall it's usually pretty useful. It does have the potential to create lines for the opponent, but much more often it makes the opponent's columns very uneven, which is annoying to clean up. You can make it even worse by following up with a Rally of the block or S pieces.

Of course, Shaman's Split power instantly fixes this, as does Wolfman's Rensa. Bit's offense is pretty limited against them.

General Strategies For and Against Bit:

Bit is an odd luck-based character who focuses more on harassing than attacking or defending. Bit's strategies primarily revolve around the Rally in one way or another, whether you use it to amass a massive amount of Crystals for Bandit or Shuffle, to clean up your stack and make a ton of lines, or to mess with the opponent, you're going to be using it a lot. You'll also really need to keep an eye on the height of your stack, because Starfall really isn't a very reliable defensive move and if you wait until your stack is high to do something about it it will frequently be too late. Aim to stay in the middle range for as long as possible and try to throw off your opponent's game.

When playing against Bit, it's best to hit them hard and fast. Try to claim your Crystals from your field as fast as possible to defend yourself from Bandit and use your crystals liberally to attack. If you can really get your offense rolling, Bit will have a hard time recovering from it unless they get extremely lucky with Starfall. If you get hit by Shuffle, try to clean it up as fast as possible because an annoying Rally might be coming your way.

Bit's ability to generate tons of Crystal Pieces and throw out powers left and right makes them a fantastic choice against Princess. Rally is the best move in the game against the Reflector, it will still function normally even if the Reflector is up (though the piece Princess has will start the Rally), and Bit can generate tons and tons of Crystals that Princess really has little use for. Bit's also pretty good against Mirurun, Mirror is the one thing that Starfall actually does a very good job of cleaning up.

Bit has the most trouble with characters who hit hard or can clean up holes easily. By far the worst is Ninja, who does both - his Wind power will clean up any damage from Shuffle, Rally, or Bandit, and Bit has almost nothing to defend against Stone or Web. Wolfman and Shaman are bad too, Rensa and Split can quickly eliminate most of Bit's offense and he has a hard time countering theirs.

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Ninja:

Ninja is a confident-looking purple ninja accompanied by his pet frog.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Wind Level 2: Disguise Level 3: Web Level 4: Stone

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Wind (Level 1)

Wind pushes all of the blocks in Ninja's stack to one side of his field.

Fitting with his status as the game's most aggressive character, Ninja is the only character in the game with a defensive power that doesn't directly reduce the height of his stack. If your stack is filled with nearly-complete rows, this will line up all of the holes along one side of the screen and can create some easy Tetrises, but if the stick piece doesn't appear for a long time or if the opponent deliberately denies them to you, you're out of luck. If possible, use this when a stick is the next piece in the Pool so you get one for free.

Unfortunately, this power is not a reliable means of defense, and it makes Ninja the weakest character in the game defensively. However, this power is quite useful for attacking, if used long before you're in danger of going over the top it can generate a lot of additional lines to send to the opponent.
It's also a decent counter to any move that creates holes in your stack, like Bomb or Bandit.

Disguise (Level 2)

The opponent's next 5 pieces will be changed to a random piece as soon as they enter the field.

A pretty worthless power. Sure, it's somewhat annoying not to get the piece you expect, but it's rarely especially difficult to deal with. Don't waste any Crystals on this, you need to get out Web or Stone as quickly as possible.

Web (Level 3)

For the opponent's next 6 pieces, clearing a line does not drop the pieces from the row above, creating empty lines in the opponent's stack.

Very annoying to deal with. Blank lines in the middle of your stack are horrible to clean up, and Web lasts a long time, too. A great way to slow down your opponent's offense, and unlike Stone you can toss this out at pretty much any time and have it work its magic.

Of course, you can defend against this by simply not clearing any lines for the next six pieces, and that's often a better option, but if you're near the top you may not have a choice. Shaman and Wolfman need not fear this, as they can easily clean this up with Split and Rensa, so Ninja should use Stone against them instead.

Stone (Level 4)

Turns the opponent's entire stack into hard blocks. Crystals are not affected.

Easily one of the most frightening powers in the game. Hard blocks are hard to clear and if their field is high this is pretty much the kiss of death. Make sure to keep the pressure on after using this, you could either try using Wind and flooding them with Tetrises or use Web and complicate their cleanup efforts further.

If this hits you, start spamming your defensive power like there's no tomorrow, because if you don't get rid of those hard blocks there won't be. Or, if you have a power that swaps or copies fields, this is the time to use it.

General Strategies For and Against Ninja:

Any good Ninja knows that victory goes to the one who strikes first, and this is exactly the strategy you should employ when playing Ninja. Ninja is all about hitting hard and fast, trying to win the battle before his opponent can exploit his inadequate defense. This makes him a very straightforward character to play and a good choice for beginners, but some of his matchups can be extremely difficult to win.

When playing against Ninja, your main objective is to weather his attacks and keep up your own offense, aiming to outlast him. Don't be stingy with your defensive power, it's your main advantage over him, but also don't be afraid to throw out any offensive powers that you know he has a hard time dealing with. If his stack is getting high, he'll have to devote a lot of his time to fixing it and that'll reduce how heavily he can attack you.

Ninja is brutally effective against Bit. Wind makes short work of all of Bit's powers and Bit's almost equally poor defense can't deal with Ninja's attacks at all. He's also pretty good against Halloween, since Wind provides good defense against Bomb and Halloween's offense isn't otherwise terribly strong.

However, a lot of people can take advantage of Ninja's poor defense. Aladdin's Control is almost unfairly good against Ninja since he can't lower his stack easily, and to make matters worse, anything Ninja does to Aladdin's stack can just be sent back to him with Fax. Shaman and Wolfman are nasty opponents too, Split and Slice can easily take care of Ninja's offense and Ninja has a hard time defending against Doom and Rensa.

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Wolfman:

Wolfman is a werewolf with a sword, cape, and samurai hat.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Slice Level 2: Slow Level 3: Friendship Level 4: Rensa

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Slice (Level 1)

Eliminates the top four rows from Wolfman's stack.

An amazing defensive power, it's like Mirurun's but better since the top of your stack generally tends to be the most messed up. This power alone makes Wolfman very hard to kill.

Slow (Level 2)

For your opponent's next four pieces, they cannot Fast Drop.

From the description of this power, did you realize that it would be by far the strongest power in the game? Well, think about how crucial it is to play quickly and time your drops so you get the pieces you need in this game. Now think about what you can't do without the ability to Fast Drop. Couple that with how ridiculously slow this game's innate drop speed is and you have the gamebreaker to end all gamebreakers.

If used near the beginning of a match when the opponent's stack is low, this will typically buy Wolfman enough time to place about 20 (!!) pieces with complete impunity. This is easily enough time for Wolfman to clean up his stack, send a handful of rows, collect as many Crystals as he wants, and just generally go to town while his opponent is effectively frozen. However, the most frightening use of this power is to use it to build a huge Rensa chain. You probably won't be able to do this in only one application of Slow, so you'll want to make sure to collect 2 Crystals while it's active so you can immediately apply it again once it ends, then focus on getting 4 Crystals the next time around as you prepare your massive attack.

The best defense against this monster is to keep your stack relatively uneven in height. This way, you'll have a little bit of control over when you get your next piece, and you just might be able to get a Crystal Piece if Wolfman isn't paying attention. Also, as time goes on, the natural drop rate of pieces speeds up, and your stack will likely be higher, so the longer you can stay alive, the less dangerous this power becomes. You could also consider using your defensive power if you have it, particularly if you can use it to get a Crystal Piece, though you might be better off waiting for him to activate Rensa before defending yourself.

Still, ideally you want to stop this power from being used at all. Against Wolfman it is especially important to focus on denying him Crystal Pieces by any means necessary. Princess's Reflector is also an absolute godsend here.

Friendship (Level 3)

For a while, any rows sent by the opponent lower Wolfman's stack rather than raise it. Rows that are sent directly through Powers are not affected.

A decent defensive option but Wolfman really has little need of it. Slice should already take care of any of your defensive needs and you'll want to put most of your Crystals towards Slow and Rensa. I guess it could be useful if your opponent's stack is high or if there's some garbage at the bottom of your stack that you'd like to get rid of.

Rensa (Level 4)

For his next four pieces, Wolfman's stack behaves according to the Rensa rule, in other words after any line is cleared, non-Crystal blocks fall straight down until they hit another block or the bottom of the field, possibly creating additional lines.

Not the most imposing power ever under normal circumstances, but since Slow gives Wolfman so much time to set up a massive Rensa chain this can be incredibly dangerous. Basically, to make a nasty Rensa chain just create many nearly-complete rows with the holes in different places. Then complete one row near the top and watch as the blocks fall in and complete the rest of the rows. If your stack is high, it's entirely possible to send 12+ rows in a single turn. Of course, since you only get Rensa for four blocks, don't activate this until you have your Rensa chain set up and ready to go.

You can also use this somewhat like a defensive power when your stack is very high or messed up, if you can clear a row you're pretty much guaranteed to clear a bunch more from the Rensa, buying you some breathing room and cleaning up your stack at the same time.

Defending against this power is actually pretty straightforward, though. Even though it can send an utterly obscene amount of rows, as long as you can either make a row with your next piece or have your defensive power ready, you won't die. If you know the Rensa chain is coming, stock up one Crystal and wait it out.

General Strategies For and Against Wolfman:

Every game needs a gamebreaker, and this game has Wolfman. Unlike most characters, who either have a set of averagely-useful powers or one amazing power and a bunch of lousy ones, Wolfman's powers are all very good. At the forefront of this is his Slow power, which is almost definitely the best power in the game. If you can get out Slow before the opponent can collect a single Crystal, the round is pretty much over right then and there. Just build up your Rensa chain, send them a massive amount of rows, and that's all she wrote.

As such, playing against Wolfman is all about preventing this from happening to you. It would be best if you could prevent him from using Slow at all, but since he only needs 2 Crystals for it he's probably going to get it eventually. Still, as long as you can get at least 1 Crystal before he does it, you can wait until he does Rensa then use your defensive power to save yourself. Since Rensa is really his only means of offense, as long as you can always keep your defensive power ready he'll have a fairly difficult time killing you.

Wolfman can steamroll pretty much anyone if he gets Slow before they get any Crystals, but in particular he can really walk all over Ninja, his crummy defensive power is no match for Rensa and even if he does get out Web or Stone Wolfman can easily Slice them away.

The best character against Wolfman is probably Princess, her Reflector was made for shutting down this kind of nonsense. Of course, this means that you have to get 2 crystals before Wolfman does, but at least that makes it a relatively fair fight. Shaman can also always put up a good fight, no matter how high his stack gets he only needs one Crystal to get rid of it all.

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Dragon:

Dragon is a traditional green dragon with a red belly.

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Stomp Level 2: Choice Level 3: Roulette Level 4: Swap

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Stomp (Level 1)

Pushes Dragon's stack together by one row (eliminating his two center columns) and down three rows.

Although this sounds like a good defensive power, it's actually pretty bad. The culprit is the squeezing part, it always leaves his side columns empty, which makes it hard to clear lines without a lot of stick pieces. Of course, you can always use Choice to get some, but you'll have to get 2 more Crystals first.

Choice (Level 2)

For Dragon's next four pieces, he can select any type piece he wants by pressing L and R after the piece enters the field.

A pretty useful power, it's great for cleaning up messes on your stack. It's fairly expensive for what you get, though, so it's best saved for emergencies.

Roulette (Level 3)

For the opponent's next 3 pieces, their controls are randomly scrambled according to an onscreen roulette.

Very nasty, especially if you can't read Japanese. Just take it slow and try to figure out which buttons move your pieces.

Swap (Level 4)

Swap's Dragon's field with his opponent's.

This move is basically Fax and Copy put together. However, it still has the same weaknesses that they do: since you have no Crystals after activating this, the opponent can quickly reclaim the advantage.

The best defense against this move is not to keep your field that much lower than his. Since Dragon's defense is pretty bad, you want to keep the pressure on at all times rather than focusing on defense.

General Strategies For and Against Dragon:

Dragon looks scary, but he's really not particularly hard to beat. His powers don't really have any particular theme and apart from Swap none of them are especially damaging. If playing as Dragon, you'll want to do as much damage as possible through regular line clears (and possibly Choice) and then try to use Roulette to finish your opponent off. If your opponent's field ever looks a lot better than yours (in particular, if it has a lot of Crystals on it), try to use Swap. Use your defensive power sparingly.

When playing against Dragon, you want to stay on the offensive at all times. His defensive power is not very good, so hit him as hard as you can and he should go down without much trouble. He doesn't have any terribly scary attacks, either, as long as you're not super high Roulette is an annoyance at best, just watch out for Swap.

Hilariously, the only character who Dragon has a big advantage over is Queen. It should be obvious, but after she does Annihilation he can do Swap to gain a huge advantage. Actually, using Swap after his opponent uses a powerful move is pretty much his strategy against most characters, but if they choose to stall after he builds up 4 Crystals he doesn't have much defense against that.

Since Swap is really one of the only things he has going for him, any character who can neutralize it can really clip his wings. Halloween is probably the best at that, he can just Steal Dragon's Crystals and then Bomb him for a devastating one-two punch.

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Queen:

Queen is a woman in a blue dress holding a fan. Ohohohohoho!

Crystal Powers:

Level 1: Gigafire Level 2: Reverse Level 3: Double Level 4: Annihilation

In-Depth Crystal Power Analysis:

Gigafire (Level 1)

Completely fills the bottom 4 rows of Queen's field. Upon placing the next piece, this creates a Tetris, clearing 4 of her rows and sending 3 to the opponent. If there are any Crystal Pieces in those rows, they are lost.

This is identical to Halloween's Power, but it does 4 rows instead of 3. With a net gain of 8 rows, this is probably the overall best defensive power in the game.

As with Halloween's move, the rows are not cleared until her next piece, so you can activate a power before that happens.

Reverse (Level 2)

For the opponent's next four pieces, their movement controls are reversed.

A completely useless power. Any gamer worth their salt can deal with reversed controls, and this doesn't even reverse the Fast Drop / Crystal Power controls.

Double (Level 3)

For a while, any rows Queen sends are doubled. So if she makes a triple, it would send 6 rows.

Potentially very dangerous, but only with the right setup. If you can clear, say, six lines while this is active, that's almost enough to flood the opponent's entire field. But if you can only clear a couple it's better to just stick with Gigafires.

Annihilation (Level 4)

Completely clears Queen's field.

The ultimate defensive move, as soon as this is activated Queen's field is completely erased. Suffice it to say this will counter anything, and as long as Queen has four Crystals she basically cannot be killed.

Since this move is so powerful, defeating Queen is largely a matter of denying her four Crystals. If you have any methods of taking her Crystals away or blocking her powers, use them.

General Strategies For and Against Queen:

While Dragon was a bit of a pushover, Queen is the real deal. She doesn't have any super strong attacks, but her defense is nearly impenetrable, with both one of the best Level 1s and a Level 4 that completely erases her field. She's clearly an overpowered character, but you really wouldn't expect anything less from the final boss.

For most characters, if Queen stocks up four Crystals, she is literally unbeatable, so it should be obvious that you have to do everything you can to prevent her from getting Crystals. A couple characters have counter options, but most will have to simply overwhelm her before she can use it. It's a tall order, but if you've made it this far you should be able to do it.

Queen is so powerful that she can do relatively well against pretty much anyone. Her standard offense is quite powerful thanks to Gigafire, and if she ever gets in trouble she has only to stock up 4 Crystals and hit the big reset button.

There are a couple people who have an advantage over her, though. Aladdin can Fax her his stack after she uses Annihilation, and Princess can use Reflector to steal the effect or Copy it afterwards. Halloween can try to Steal her Crystals, and bit can try his Banditry. Dragon is the most entertaining of all, he can Swap with Queen after she uses Annihilation, leaving himself with the empty field. Too bad this can only happen in 2-player mode.

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Contact and Credits:

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Contacting Me:

You can reach me via email at terotrous at yahoo dot com. Include Tetris Battle Gaiden in the topic title so I know it isn't spam. If you find out anything I add to the guide, you'll be appropriately credited.

I don't think there's too much more to add to this guide, but if there's a way to play as the boss characters in Story Mode or something that'd be great.

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Special Thanks:

Bullet Proof Software - For making this game.

Ascgen - http://ascgendotnet.jmsoftware.co.uk/ This program helped me create that ascii logo I used here.

Mariyoshi - For submitting the code to play as the boss characters to Gamefaqs.

That's it for now. If you submit information, your name could be here!

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Closing Information:

Thanks for reading this guide. I hope you found it helpful. Gnik out.

Tetris Battle Gaiden Guide copyright Adam King, 2010. Do not reproduce or redistribute.

Tetris Battle Gaiden the game, and all related copyrights and trademarks are held by their original owners. This guide is not intended to infringe upon said copyrights in any way.