In my experience the premier version of Tetris is on the Nintendo Gameboy.

Two features stand out in particular. One, the inclusion of small animations, awarded for particularly impressive achievments (both documented in the manual, and some hidden easter egg ones as well).

And two, the inclusion of a superb Game B, which instead of building blocks and increasing the speed until the playfield filled up, you would play until 25 lines were filled. At that point a final score would be computed.

This version allowed for a level playing field for excellent two or more player challenges. On the higher (faster) levels, Game B would also offer the aforementioned animations after the 25 lines were complete.

Also of note was the fact that dropping blocks from a higher area gave you more points than letting them slowly fall to the bottom (something rare to see in most tetris clones).

One of the hidden easter eggs I have found is on Game A, after a suitably high score is achieved (from memory in the realm of > 70'000 points), an animation of a rocket blasting off is shown (not the Space Shuttle animation, that is the reward for completing Game B on Level 9, High 5).

A technique for high scores on Game B is to ensure that you complete only 24 lines, then construct a Tetris. This allows you to score points for a total of 28 lines, rather than the usual 25.


I'm told by enth that this version is descended from the 8-bit Nintendo console (the NES). The feature set is probably similar or identical.