Old Games: Encyclopedia Bombastica: Tetris Battle Gaiden X MAGFest

Bittersweet memory: The first time I met Ryan was at CAX and I pointed out the weird Arm Wrestling Punch-Out!! spin-off to him. He and Jeff later talked about how much they loved it on the Bombcast.

I really wish I could favorite comments on this site.

This one too.

Having guys named Paul sit on the couch seems to be the winning formula for 2015.

Best tetris video ever ever.

He sounded to me like Nick Kroll (Kroll Show, The League, I Love You Man, Get Him To The Greek, etc.).

I love the crap out of Brad, but wowee is he painfully bad at Tetris. Who would start a game like he does at the beginning?!?! That's literally the worst strategy I can imagine.

This inspired me to finally grab a copy off eBay. Thanks you guys! It does a really good job of explaining why the game is so great. Can't effing wait to play this.

BTW what is that Crystal setting that they adjusted at 1:09:45? I'm guessing a FAQ will explain what all the menu options mean?

I think high level Tetris is very interesting to watch, it was by far my favorite segment from the Awesome Games Done Quick streams. Regular Tetris as played by normal people isn't super interesting but the reactions from all of the battle tetris shenanigans is still really fun.

Paul is like what I imagine imaqtpie will look like in a few years

Great video. I always love seeing Brad getting really competitive and have a good time. (Dan too, but for him it's always on anyways.)

Paul's a pretty cool guy, so would love seeing him as a guest again at some point. Also I'd be all over MAGfest if I lived in the US.

It's hilarious to look up that D&D fighting game he worked on the port of, watch a short video of it, look up reviews, click on gamespot's, and notice the one and only Jeff Gerstmann reviewed it back in 96.

Really fantastic Bombastica.

@flstyle: Yeah, most people just can't comment over it in an interesting way.

@7x_ said:

@bunnellius said:

The YouTube comments are super negative

Negativity on YouTube isn't a surprise, but the point of general interest (for mob psychology) tends to be in what they're being negative about. Rather than just the usual "Brad is bad at games", "Dan is a moron", "Patrick sucks" bladiblah, it was mostly targeted at Paul in this case, so I was curious how many people here actually felt the same way. I never know how to get an accurate idea of the community's attitudes without a lot of cross-referencing...

It is absolutely incredible how casually Paul kicks Brad's ass in the beginning

Great video. Great guest. I love the awestruck look on Dan's face when he sees how rensa mode works. Then he's just laser focused trying to win.

no magfest people here? I always go to the opening panel where Paul talks about some of the shit involved with running a convention. Killer Queen was sweet this year and constantly had a full game. I actually setup an 8 gamecube lan at magfest this year and 8/16 player mario kart was going for days, full every time I looked at it. Bit Brigade speed ran metroid and it was awesome. Anyone near the maryland area should look into magfest. It's a great time.

Well, having only ever played regular Tetris, these spin-off versions make no sense to me at all. I´ve watched quite a few of these videos by now, but I still have no fucking clue what´s going on.

@bob_omb:

It's not that hard.

Two players play tetris, pulling the next tetrispiece from the same queue instead of having a queue per person.

Sometimes you'll see a 'magic' block in a tetris piece. When a line is cleared that contains a magic block you can cast a level 1 ability. You can decide to keep clearing lines that contain magic to use higher level spells or you can use the magic to cast a spell, which will bring your total magic to 0 again.

Each character has 4 abilities. Some abilities are helpful for your tetrisboard, some are bad for the opponent's tetrisboard or controls and some spells do crazy shit

Boom, now you understand Battle Gaiden. Getting a sense for which character has which skills is just something you get from watching the game a lot i guess.

I like Brad's friend. He seems super chill.

This was my favorite quote from the whole thing. By. Far.

Brad has the best friends!

Man, this video was pretty informative. Not sure how I feel about that because I kind of liked watching these guys flail while playing this, but at the same time I feel like I understand this game better now. Either way, hopefully we see more of it, because it's one of my favorite returning games on the site.

I got to shoot a small vid of MAGFest in Baltimore last year. The last song by the way is Aquatic Ambiance from Donkey Kong Country in case you were wondering. One of my fav video game songs, so I was glad to see The X-Hunters do it when they typically do more metal.

@bunnellius: seems like everyone here genuinely dug him. Which i guess goes to show the average youtuber is a jackass hiding behind almost total anonymity.

@bunnellius: Most people here seem to be positive on Paul. No surprise that the Youtube comments are negative though, at this point I wish GB would just close the comment section on their YT channel. It's mostly just people being assholes, and GB never moderates YT so awful shit gets to be on there for years. Unmoderated YT comments contribute nothing.

I've been to MAGfest the past couple of years. Paul is a really cool guy. He hosts a late night discussion panel that is very interesting.

@amyggen: i think there's probably some merit to leaving the youtube comments as they are, if only so people who want to make angry shitposts do it there instead of bringing that stuff to the site and the forums. i don't think anyone's ever looked to youtube for healthy debate.

I'm surprised the music was able to play at all on that Retron since it didn't last time, the music is key to the Tetris Battle Gaiden experience.

I'm kind of glad they stay open since I tend to watch QLs there more frequently, and it's nice to be able to drop a quick impression afterwards. There's always just enough people who aren't vicious malcontents that I don't feel it's an unredeemable environment.

I was watching this yesterday evening around 1am, kind of drunk, and pulled the trigger on an Amazon purchase.

Time to finally rip those plastic tabs out of my SNES.

.... (as I drank a little more I went on to buy Pop'n TwinBee. I managed to force myself to bed before I started buying Rockman games, but I think I'm only delaying the inevitable now that I've broken that seal).

An excellent video. Paul's a really cool guy. I really like the idea of Battle Gaiden being a competitive battle game that happens to use Tetris as its interface. He did a great job of nailing down what makes playing straight Tetris such a bad idea, and even makes the characters seem a lot more balanced than I've been giving them credit for. Like how Wolf has a lame level 1 and an underwhelming level 4 magic, but gains amazing board control from his 2 and should try to play defensively to keep his magic around that level to effectively render the opponent powerless. Ninja Kid is still BS, but now I understand how more skilled players using other characters would still have a chance at beating him. Cool stuff!

This was great! Paul seems like a really cool dude.

Come to think of it, Brad and Dan were pretty good together with Paul chaperoning. :P

Thanks for the Killer Queen Arcade recommendation. Turns out one of the five locations listed on the website is literally one train stop away from where I live. Totally gonna check it out some time.

Dear Giant Bomb: More guests please. I loved this video!

Brad should always smile this much, it's infectious.

The best Bombastica yet. Happy to have been given a glimpse into the Hippie Origins of Brad.

Just realized jeff and brad have almost the same pose and facial expression on their respective thumbnails on the front page.

great video... but doesn't feel very

Encyclopedia Bombastica-ty

Man, fuck YouTube, this video was great.

Nice job Brad!

Also good to see Brad and Dan have fun together!

2015: The Year of Paul. I can get behind this.

Great video! This was a ton of fun to watch.

This guy is cool

I need a giant bomb premium video series called "The Guru" where Paul plays games with the guys.

Great video Brad. Glad you were able to get Paul in. :D