Tetris Attack (SNES)

Tetris Attack
Also known as: Panel de Pon (JP), Yoshi no Panepon (Satellaview) Developers: Nintendo R&D1, Intelligent Systems Publisher: Nintendo Platforms: SNES, Satellaview Released internationally: May 20, 2020 (Panel de Pon, Nintendo Switch Online) Released in JP: October 27, 1995 Released in US: August 1996 Released in EU: November 28, 1996 This game has unused code. This game has hidden developer credits. This game has unused graphics. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has anti-piracy features.

Yoshi takes the center stage in Tetris Attack, a puzzle game that really doesn't have a whole lot to do with Tetris at all. That's because it was originally Panel de Pon, which had the misfortune of being a game about precious little fairies coming out at a time when most western gamers were male and/or believed girls had cooties. It was rebranded as a Tetris spinoff (which Henk Rogers of The Tetris Company would later regret allowing Nintendo to do), receiving additional changes and new features. Funny enough, Nintendo ended up pulling a Super Mario USA and brought this version of the game back to Japan, albeit under the Satellaview service.

Despite an increasing amount of cameos and references in other Nintendo games, most prominently the Super Smash Bros. series, the original Panel de Pon stayed in Japan until getting an international, albeit untranslated release via the Nintendo Switch Online service (notably in lieu of Tetris Attack itself, probably due to licensing issues over the Tetris name).

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Regional Differences Tetris A-Hack!

Satellaview Event Versions Three contests are known to have been held.

Rev. 1 An updated version used in the Virtual Console and Switch Online releases.

Developer Credit

The following string, used for initializing RAM, is present in both Tetris Attack and Panel de Pon:

ﾊﾟﾈﾙ ﾃﾞ ﾎﾟﾝ BY B-CRASH

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Graphics

Found Only in Tetris Attack

Tiles for thicker gray garbage blocks. These are never used because, like in Panel de Pon, the gray garbage blocks in Tetris Attack are only ever one block thick.

These tiles indicate that these larger blocks would have used a mixture of bumps and craters rather than just bumps. Most intriguing of all, the blocks would have also had Shy Guy faces! The tiles are loaded in the spot where the second player's garbage block graphics were located in Panel de Pon.

This graphic reading "Yoshi" is loaded in VRAM alongside the graphics used for the title screen. Perhaps it would've been used had a different title been decided for the game.

Found Only in Panel de Pon

A speech bubble reading "LET'S GO!" (in English) gets loaded in VRAM alongside the sprites for Lip in VS. Mode's overworld.

It also contains an extra tile that can be used to arrange it in a way that lacks the "tip" that would point towards Lip.

In Tetris Attack, the majority of the tiles that would've composed this speech bubble have been overwritten by Yoshi's head.

Extra Music Test Songs

Panel de Pon	Tetris Attack

All special ending themes can be accessed in the sound test with Game Genie code 4C27-C70A (Tetris Attack) / 4C20-3F62 (Panel de Pon) or PAR code 83D23D2A (Tetris Attack) / 83D7462a (Panel de Pon). Just press Left on song 00 or Right on song 23 to gain access to the six additional tunes in Tetris Attack or seven additional tunes in Panel de Pon.

(Source: nensondubois)

Error Messages

Anti-Piracy

Panel de Pon	Tetris Attack

Like many late-era SNES releases, the game runs an SRAM check upon boot-up. If the cartridge contains any SRAM (highly likely if one has used a cartridge copier), it will display the above screen and freeze. Notice that "information" is misspelled as "infomation" here.

Tetris Attack additionally checks for several signs of a "dirty" system state on boot that would also indicate that the game was being run from a copier.

Region Error

Attempting to play Panel De Pon or the US version of Tetris Attack on a European console and vise versa will lock up the game on this screen. Unusually, this error seems to be intended for detection of cheat devices.