Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS

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Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS is among the more "expert" versions of Tetris, well known for both its word salad of a title and its shameless, sadistic cruelty on harder settings.

Debug Mode#

This delicious word salad of a game title has a debug mode, enabled by the following button code: (Player 1) C, C, A, C, (Player 2) A, A, C, A, (Player 1) B, B, (Player 2) B, B, C, (Player 1) A, C, (Player 2) C. Alternatively, set RAM address $607CF0C to 01.

Now, the following cheats will be enabled:

• Start - Toggles the M-roll between invisible and visible. This overrides other codes during the M-roll.
• Start + Down - Locks drop speed at 1/4 G.
• Start + Right - Increases your current level by 100, but game logic drops it back to _99 after the piece locks (functionally, jumps to level 99 of the current section).
• Start + Up - Sets all M-roll flags, sets your grade to S9, and changes your level to 899.
• Start + Left - Sets your grade to S8 and changes your level to 899.

Revisional Differences#

Title Screen#

Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2	Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS

• PLUS was added to both the title screen and the main gameplay screen of Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS.

Mode Select#

Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2	Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS

• The TGM+ and T.A. DEATH modes were added through Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS, and the Doubles mode was made accessible through the select screen.
• The text graphics for the existing modes were changed along with the addition of the new modes, rendered in a different font from the UI.
  • Notably, these use the system font for the Psikyo board due to limitations with upgrading, as only the program ROMs are socketed, meaning new graphics could not be added.

Gameplay#

• Item mode cannot be activated on Normal mode in Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS.
• The ability to press Start during gameplay to toggle to prevent versus matches ("No More Challenger") was added to PLUS.
  • As an extension, enabling Item mode forcibly toggles this setting on until the game ends.
• The M-roll (the credit roll if the player is on track to get GM) behavior has been changed in PLUS.
  • In the original game, the M grade is awarded when the roll begins. Surviving results in a GM grade with an orange line on the leaderboard.
  • In PLUS, the grade remains S9 until the player either fails (resulting in an M grade), or survives, resulting in a GM grade with a green line on the leaderboard, the orange line now being reserved for clearing 32+ lines during the roll and surviving.²

Arcade Archives (The Absolute PLUS)#

• The game now runs at 60FPS, rather than the original game's unusual framerate of around ~61.68FPS. This was done as running the game at the original framerate would cause visual issues, and ultimately an option to choose the original framerate was not added to ensure fairness in the rankings.³
• The game's music suffers from a minor bug causing a very tiny delay between playing each loop, presumably a result of the framerate change.⁴

Demonstration Text#

Original release	Arcade Archives

• The second text that displays in Demonstration Mode has been changed to say "DEMONSTRATION" a second time rather than linking to ARIKA's website. This was done as the result of a Guideline conflict⁵.

References#