Tetris has had a long history of Nintendo but most of the time it is focused on the early years and how they won the rights from the USSR. But there’s not enough focus to the other releases that Nintendo did witht he license. Alexey Pajitnov is very much a part of Nintendo like Gunpei Yokoi was; And Tetris has that Nintendo DNA that their first party IP has. So let’s take a look at Nintendo’s integrated history with the IP.
Through out the decades Nintendo has had quite a history with Tetris so let’s take a look at all the games that Nintendo has made for the IP. Most people think of the Game Boy when they think of Tetris as they should. NES Tetris while not as big was also a hit, and to this day Classic Tetris World Championships are played on the Nintendo NES version of Tetris. The iconic music that you associate with Tetris was pretty much thanks to Nintendo even if russian folk music had already been used before.
Nintendo couldn’t help having a bit of a Nintendo brand on the game and you do have Super Mario make an appearance in Gameboy Tetris. And for the NES edition you don’t only get Mario but the whole gang of Nintendo franchises. In a way this is the precursor to Smash Bros as far as a Nintendo crossover. I like to re-create this screen in the level creator of Smash.
Tetris of course went on to appear in the Nintendo World Championships game cartridge and event. And while Nintendo tried to create their own puzzle games during the NES era with Wario Woods, Yoshi & Mario etc. Mone of them were able to match the success of Tetris. The most successful was Dr. Mario and Dr. Mario did get a re-release on the SNES with none other than a 16 bit version of the original Tetris. A rather obscure version that most forget exists. Sadly the crossover is only in the actual name as you select each game separately instead of having something like Tetris Puyo Puyo where each person gets to battle the other in their puzzle style.
We do have Yoshi’s Cookie that while a Nintendo IP was developped by Bulletproof Software later known as Blue Planet Software, the official developer of most Tetris games, they are part of the Tetris Company now. Oddly enough it was a different Yoshi puzzle game that had the Tetris name and that’s Tetris Attack also known as Panel de Pon in Japan but NOA decided to market the game as a Tetris Spin-Off. Nothing related to Tetris besides the name on the title screen.
Nintendo was the first to ever dare to make a sequel to Tetris, a numbered sequel that is with Tetris 2 which they released on the NES, Gameboy and SNES. Not many people remember it since they changed the formula a bit too much and it’s not well rembered. This is likely why when the Game Boy Color got a more traditional update to the original, not just a color remaster but a brand new Tetris by Nintendo.
Nintendo has had far more Nintendo like Tetris games with their release of Tetris DS which featured plenty of NES and Nintendo characters through out it. And finally we have Tetris 99 the exclusive NSO Tetris that did get a physical release on Swtich. They have had plenty of events where you can get Nintendo IP screens, fromt he original GB/NES looking ones, to Pokemon, Mario and Zelda. Even some third parties as well.
For a more portable and obscure versions of Nintendo Tetris while there is a prototype for the Game & Watch, it never actually came out. However we did get a Game Watch Nintendo of Tetris. The other is the Pokemon Mini console that is a very small game boy that had a few games and one of those is Pokemon Tetris. the only collaboration of Pokemon with tetris exclusive to this console.
There’s also some Tetris games that are exclusive to Nintendo platforms although it’s unsure how much they had to do with the decision. Tetrisphere, The New Tetris, Tetris Axis, Tetris Party, 3D-Tetris, V-Tetris. As mentioned some of these are clearly exclusive because they decided but it’s not clear to me if any of them might’ve been a collaboration and essentially a Nintendo Tetris like say Tetrisphere. Tetris Blast & Tetris Plus were not exclusives but I did want to quickly mention them as two other Game Boy tetris that came out which is just astonishing how many Tetris games that handheld got.
Tetris is very much a part of Nintendo’s DNA and feels at home. If I were in charge of Nintendo and buy The Tetris Company and make it an exclusive game for Nintendo.