Tetris (Game Boy, 1989)

Tetris was bundled with the European and North-American release of the new Game Boy handheld. It’s until today in the top 10 of most sold Nintendo games of all time. There are many older versions of Tetris, including the original release on the Sovjet Electronika 60 and later versions on Western and Eastern arcade machines around the world (most of the time, arcade releases were far superior to home console ports).

While it had been ported to all the newer systems (and reimagined), the Game Boy one is the definitive edition for me. The old handheld version has a simplicity that matches the requirements of the game. It’s completely distraction-free and even in colour if you run it in a Game Boy Color handheld (or emulator)! Later releases killed the magic completely. The native Game Boy Color version was nearly identical except disturbing animated backgrounds (!). The worst offender was the Nintendo DS version that uses a second full screen (!!) to shows an animated but mocked Super Mario Bros. game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Have a look at “How to play retrogames?” if you don’t know how to play retrogames.