Best Tetris Games, Ranked – Switch And Nintendo Systems

If you were feeling competitive and had a Nintendo WiFi Connection, Tetris Party Live — essentially a short-lived, scaled-down version of the other Tetris Party titles — let you take on up to four players online.

In addition to the regulation Marathon mode and vs CPU modes, the game offered online play for up to four players in either the Battle Mode or a Duel Space challenge, where you tried to drop blocks to take up the most area on the playing field. This might have seemed tacked-on, but it served up an interesting twist on the original formula and one that could get quite intense.

You could choose to tackle online challengers or stick with your friends via Friend Codes, and you could also practise while waiting for an online match to start up. Not bad for an early, Nintendo-handheld foray into the online world. The strange lack of a local multiplayer option was a minus point, but otherwise this was a compelling multiplayer Tetris take on the DSi.

The first of THQ’s Tetrises, this 2002 entry introduced a world of modes and a controversial ‘infinite’ spin feature that essentially let you rotate a piece at the bottom of the well as long as you wanted. Talk about Tetris forever.

Tetris Worlds also introduced little cuboid aliens (Minos) sending out Tetronauts in search of other worlds to escape from an impending supernova by, naturally, playing Tetris.

Ignoring the creaking narrative intended to differentiate what was essentially the same game everyone had been playing for well over a decade, one redeeming feature — well, memorable perhaps, at least to impressionable teenage ears, at the time, two decades ago (is that enough caveats?) — was the sultry voice of the announcer. Pop on some earphones, listen to this voice whispering “Go for a Hot Line”, and tell us you don’t get a little…tingle.

Tetris Worlds, then. The most sensual Tetris. Until Tetris Effect.

Developed by 3d6 Games, the GBA version of Tetris Worlds was released the year before the home console versions and didn’t feature the husky voice of the announcer that bewitched us on GameCube.

So, then. 2/10 – not enough husk. Let’s crack on with something better.

Add Tetris to the magical pairing of Capcom and Disney and you can’t go too far wrong. With Capcom, you’re going to get a base level of quality, at least, and Magical Tetris Challenge delivers on the artistic side, with great pixel art and animation worthy of the characters.

Similar to how Rare jammed some top-down, RPG-lite gameplay into Mickey’s Speedway on GBC, Capcom added a Quest mode to the portable version that saw you wandering around and chatting with other Disney characters while collecting coins and — you guessed it — playing Tetris.

We especially enjoy the animation box with the characters operating levers and knobs (probably) to ‘play’ the game, and you get plenty of modes and a decent Disney flavour. But if you’re just after Tetris-ass Tetris, you’re better off steering clear of the Disney fluff.

The incredible success of the original game meant a sequel was inevitable, but when you’ve created a puzzler as singularly refined as Tetris, how exactly do you create a new take which does anything but dilute the first game’s purity of expression? Sequels are meant to polish and introduce new and better mechanics — how do you do that with Tetris?

Tetris 2 essentially has you playing Dr. Mario with tetrominoes. It’s not bad, by any means, but it’s certainly not better than Tetris, so it’s difficult to play it and not think you could be having a better time.

Tetris with all the Disney trimmings, the home console version of Magical Tetris Challenge has all the charming animation you’d expect and — Capcom rarely drops the T-piece when it comes to art — although the combination of classic-style pixel-art characters ‘working the Tetris machines, the morphing pre-rendered ‘heads of the machines up top, the static backgrounds, and the Tetrominmoes themselves don’t quite gel, aesthetically speaking.

The extra screen real estate means you can see your opponent’s well in this one, though, and the story mode, simple as it is, is fairly cute. Overall, then, another inessential Tetris tie-in with a bunch of goofy (ha!) modes that does the job well enough.

This time it’s personal. A sequel to the system-selling puzzler was an absolute given, of course, and looking back on Tetris 2 all these years later, it’s admirable just how much of a departure it was from the original classic.

Named Tetris Flash in Japan, it takes the basic falling-blocks gameplay but adds in a match-three element with irregularly-shaped tetrominoes. It’s jarring at first if disappearing horizontal lines are burnt into your brain, but give it time and you’ll find a surprisingly addictive little puzzle game in its own right.

Developed by H2O Entertainment (The New Tetris, Aidyn Chronicles), with input from Alexey Pajitnov and championing from NOA’s Ken Lobb, Tetrisphere‘s greatest strength was its genuinely unique take on position-falling-blocks-to-clear-blocks formula.

The general idea is to drop pieces onto the outer layer of a sphere to form clumps of same-type pieces which clear until you get to the centre. Various power-ups including missiles could be used to blast away great chunks of the sphere, too, clearing a path to release the robot trapped in the sphere.

Add in a decent multiplayer mode and some great techno tunes and you’ve got a game we sincerely hope will come to Nintendo Switch Online for another chance to shine. And a VR reimagining would surely have potential.

The complexity of the added dimension isn’t for everyone, of course. “I enjoyed playing Tetrisphere […] but the game should be simple,” Pajitnov told us in 2019. “That game was too complicated.”

The DS version of Tetris Party Deluxe isn’t bad — far from it — but issue it’s got is that when you’ve got one of the all-time great Tetrises on the platform (one that’s got the platform’s name in the title, no less), you’re always going to look like the also-ran.

There are plenty of great modes here, including Bombliss and a neat Shadow mode, but if you’re a block-faller fanatic after dual-screen kicks, your Tetris is in another castle.

Having secured the rights to Tetris, Nintendo wasn’t shy about expanding/exploiting the concept — or just the name — in various other puzzle games.

Known as Super Bombliss in Japan and essentially the BomBliss portion of the Japan-only Tetris 2 + BomBliss broken out on its own, Tetris Blast has each of the falling blocks (this time mixing two and three-block shapes in with the standard tetrominoes) contain at least one bomb. Completing a line causes any bombs contained in that line to explode within a set radius. If you manage to obliterate the entire board, you move on to the next stage.

It’s a unique and enjoyable take on the original game, with a password system and a Fight mode where you battle against comical bosses who move around the well. Now also available as part of Tetris Forever, so it’s easy to check out.

Known as Panel de Pon in Japan, Tetris Attack was released on Game Boy and Super Nintendo, although it’s Tetris in name only – the actual game bears almost no resemblance to Alexey Pajitnov’s game. The Western versions also saw characters from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island co-opted in an effort to attract an audience to this Intelligent Systems joint.

Despite this blatant marketing ploy, Tetris Attack is a cracking block-swapping puzzler in its own right and well worth checking out alongside its more famous Russian namesake.

This ‘Plus’ version of the first sequel to Arika’s Grand Master series was bought to Switch by Hamster in 2023, but the original came out in arcades in 2000.

Incorporating a ranking system that tops out with the titular ‘Grand Master’ if you’re good enough, these versions are the choice of connoisseurs and absolute purists, putting your skills to the test with devastating speed and dastardly requirements that absolutely flummox mere mortals for whom seeing the shuttle blast off in the Game Boy version is a serious accomplishment.

The Grand Master series is Tetris for the hardest of core series fans. Arika’s 1998 arcade take on the puzzler most people learned to play on a handheld made competition a central tenant, with ranks awarded depending on the speed and skill displayed, and a nail-biting difficulty which meant only the best of the best were honoured with the eponymous title.

Hamster’s Arcade Archives Switch port makes it accessible to the masses, as in you can access it easily, but mastering this game requires untold dedication. If you’re a Tetris fan looking for a challenge, step right up.

The New Tetris is somewhat like The Old Tetris, although the addition of a new square block-based mechanic, an EDM soundtrack, and a four-player mode gives it a very particular (and addictive) flavour.

It came from H20 Entertainment, the same team behind the similarly interesting Tetrisphere and is worth investigating if you can’t get enough variations on the king of block-fallers.

Essentially the retail version of the non-Deluxe WiiWare release with extras, Tetris Party Deluxe had a whole ton of multiplayer modes, including 2v2 co-op and Wii Balance Board support carried over from the original version, compatible with a handful of modes. Yes, the Wii Balance Board: the ideal way to play Tetris. Or are DK Bongos preferred?

As party games go, a block-falling puzzler might not be your first pick. However, Hudson made a decent case for a few rounds of Tetris to get the party started.

There’s not a huge amount to say about this one. Combining 16-bit remasters of NES Tetris and Dr. Mario, SNES owners in the West got a double helping of puzzling that included a Mixed Match mode which jumped from game to game between rounds. Beyond that, this is pretty much regulation Tetris and Dr. Mario.

Interestingly, thanks to Nintendo not owning the console rights in Japan, the Tetris part was stripped out and 16-bit Dr. Mario was broadcast for Satellaview and later made available to download on SFC flash carts at kiosks.

While Henk Rogers and Nintendo’s Tetris success is often celebrated thanks to the overwhelming success of the Game Boy and NES entries, this NES entry was a victim of a labyrinthine network of licensing, sub-licensing, and confusion around exactly which companies held which rights as agreed with Russian-state-owned ELORG, the sole handler of Tetris rights until the mid-1990s.

Atari Games’ 1989 version (published under the Tengen label) boasted a two-player mode that Nintendidn’t, yet legal issues led to it being pulled from store shelves after only a month. Thanks to its short shelf life, copies are worth a decent amount these days.

The story of Tetris’ convoluted journey to the West (deemed exciting enough to adapt into movie form, although we much prefer the BBC documentary Tetris: From Russia With Love) is a thrilling combination of guile, subterfuge, and blind luck that went on to shape Nintendo and the video game industry at large. Tengen Tetris was one of the casualties along the way.

This Jaleco-developed spin on the formula came to various platforms (PlayStation, Saturn, and arcade) and bundles your common-or-garden Tetris mode with the ‘plus’ bit, the latter in the form of a separate puzzle mode which introduces a world-hopping professor and his assistant hunting treasure in exotic locales.

The plundering prof frequently finds himself in the bottom wells with spikes descending slowly but steadily from above. It’s up to you to clear lines in the usual way to open the path to his goal and getaway at the bottom.

Tetris Plus isn’t a life-changer, but it’s a cute variation on the theme and is fondly remembered.

It’s Tetris, in colour — what’s not to like? The colour helped differentiate the pieces and a couple of new modes were added, plus a save feature, but this was really just the original Game Boy entry with added hues.

In any other case that might feel like a disappointment, but a quick bash on Tetris DX is enough to make you forget you’ve played it for hundreds of hours before in black and white green.

The Game Boy version of this video gaming titan might be the most iconic — and certainly more convenient to play when you’re out and about — but the ability to relax with Tetris on your TV wasn’t to be sniffed at, either. Some prefer the Tengen version, which disappeared from stores soon after release due to a licensing snafu, but this non-controversial port is also a winner.

It’s Tetris, just on the NES. ‘Nuff said, really. There’s no shortage of ways to play, but this very first Nintendo-developed home console version was never re-released – until its NSO appearance in December 2024.