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One Game, Three Ports to Nintendo’s Eight-Bit Consoles… and a Buncha Bogus Licenses

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The story about the early Tetris ports on Nintendo involves a web of events that is every bit of a brain teaser as the renowned game itself and that is, perhaps, truly worthy of a Hollywood adaptation even to this day.

The First Port

• Atari bought a bogus license from the worldwide PC-rights holder, to release Tengen Tetris in the US. It was believed by the parties involved that the rights weren’t limited to just PC. The game suffers a delay in development.
• Bullet-Proof Software (BPS) bought a bogus license from the PC-rights holder via its sister company, to release Famicom Tetris in Japan. The game is released as the first port on a Nintendo console.

Race for Handheld Rights

• Nintendo, working on the Game Boy, wanted to buy a license from the PC-rights holder, to release Tetris as a pack-in on the Game Boy.
• BPS, as a publishing partner of Nintendo, asked the PC-rights holder about Nintendo buying the handheld rights. The PC-rights holder asks the original, rights-acquiring middleman about the same.
• Nothing transpired, tipping these parties off that none of them have the handheld rights. They race to Moscow.

Aftermath

• Nintendo not only wins the race for the handheld rights but ends up with a windfall. Namely, it also bought the worldwide console rights, which had actually never been sold.
• BPS got from Nintendo a good license for subsequent releases of Famicom Tetris.
• Game-Boy Tetris was later released.
• Tengen Tetris was finally released as the second port on a Nintendo console.
• NES Tetris was then released as the third port on a Nintendo console.
• Due to Nintendo’s windfall, Atari’s license was fully rendered bogus. Atari was subsequently ordered to pull a quarter million unsold copies of Tengen Tetris from store shelves for good.

The Ports, Today

• NES Tetris is the most widely played, on both a casual level and a competitive level.
• Tengen Tetris is recognized for its multiplayer versus and coop game modes. The game also has a devoted following that considers this version to be the best port.
• Famicom Tetris is largely relegated to an afterthought. Any mention is likely just calling out the admittedly awkward control scheme of the port.

Enter this Romhack

In sum, despite being the first Tetris game to land on Nintendo, Famicom Tetris is grossly unappreciated due to its unusual control scheme. This romhack updates the game to have the standard controls that players have come to expect from a classic Tetris game. Features include the following.

• Hard drop (A button)—remapped to Up on the D-pad.
• Rotate counterclockwise (Down on D-pad)—remapped to B button.
• Soft drop—newly added; mapped to Down on D-pad.
• Rotate clockwise—newly added; mapped to A button.
• Bonus: exploit patched—holding down any button after a hard drop no longer stalls the game indefinitely.

For a demonstration of these features, see the following video.

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