A new Tetris 99 event is on the way, and it’s another major piece of fanservice.
As Nintendo America tweeted earlier today, the Tetris 99 event is for Super Mario RPG. This is what Nintendo tweeted:
“The #Tetris99 36th MAXIMUS CUP event will run from 11/9 at 11:00pm PT – 11/13 at 10:59pm PT!
Once you’ve accumulated a total of 100 event points, a new theme will unlock, featuring art, music, and Tetrimino designs inspired by #SuperMarioRPG! @Tetris_Official”
For those who haven’t tried it yet, Tetris 99 is one of the games included in the Nintendo Switch Online subscription. It’s battle royale Tetris, but taking things further from older similar versions of Tetris. Rather than playing against different Tetris players one game at a time, you and 98 other players fight in a game of VS Tetris simultaneously at the same time.
It’s been a successful formula that Nintendo has used on many other games, including, most recently, F-Zero 99. But Tetris 99 has also proven to be a great way to provide fanservice to Nintendo’s other games.
A few Tetris 99 themes are a few generic original themes, but most of them are based on Nintendo’s own original properties. So, it’s more than fitting that one of the newest such themes is Nintendo’s latest classic game revival.
Super Mario RPG is one of the most seminal games in both the history of the Mario series and for RPGs as a genre. While many fans were looking forward to a Super Mario RPG 2 that didn’t happen, it should be said that the Mario and Luigi and Paper Mario video game franchises only came about to fill the void created by its absence.
In turn, Nintendo influenced the way Square co-developed this game, modifying the turn based gameplay with action commands. Square, before merging with Enix many years later, used this opportunity to refine their own gameplay systems for their Final Fantasy games moving forward.
For a limited amount of time, players can play rounds of Tetris 99 with the Super Mario RPG theme taking over as the game’s default. You can play to collect event points, and if you get 100 event points, you can get the theme for free permanently
It’s one of Nintendo’s most creative ways to advertise new and upcoming games. Super Mario RPG’s remaster is releasing on November 17, 2023, exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
