Trivia / Tetris: The Grand Master

• Artist Disillusionment: Ichiro Mihara, the designer of the series, hates the Western TGM community for using emulators and clones rather than legitimate hardware, and is very vocal about it. This is despite the series being Japan-only and having not had any rereleases or consumer ports for the longest while, thereby making playing the series in a form that doesn't violate copyright nearly impossible without spending copious amounts of cash on hardware that is not as mass-produced as consumer games. This seems to have changed in 2014, with Arika holding a location test of TGM2015 in the United States before doing the same in Japan; Mihara has since changed his mind about Western TGM players and would be fine with bringing TGM to the West, with the first game eventually seeing an Arcade Archives port in late 2022.
• Channel Hop: The three entries were published respectively by Capcom, Psikyo, and Taito.
• Creator-Driven Successor: To Sega's Tetris games.
• Development Hell: TGM4. It's been over a year and there's been very little word of its release in months, culminating with announcement of cancellation. It seemed to have been Saved from Development Hell with TGM2015, which is TGM4 in all but name, but that also suffered the same problem.
• Dummied Out: The original TGM has English text for the game demonstrations (which are in Japanese) buried somewhere in the game's memory, suggesting that TGM was going to have an overseas release.
• Executive Meddling:
  • TGM3 has Super Rotation System available, but not by the developers' choice; The Tetris Company mandated it.
  • Tetris: The Grand Master ACE. The Tetris Guideline, a series of rules that games carrying the "Tetris" name must abide by, forced significant changes to the gameplay mechanics. On top of that, Microsoft wanted Arika to hurry the game to make it a launch title for the Xbox 360 and incorporate downloadable content; as a result, proper ARS can only be unlocked if you have an XBL Gold account.
  • For the same reason, Mihara has been unable to get a fourth TGM game published, as the TTC would probably look at it, notice its various Guideline violations, and say "no." The multi-platform exclusivity deal between Ubisoft and TTC between 2014 and 2019 would further delay any home console versions of the games.
  • Arika has, on two occasions, had videos of TGM clones (such as Heboris and Texmaster) removed from YouTube. In the case of the second wave of removals, Arika denied doing so of their own volition, claiming that The Tetris Company made them do it. Since then, most, if not all, videos of TGM clones have been put back up, with no further action from Arika or TTC.
  • In November 2018, notable U.S. player KevinDDR announced that he would be deleting all of his TGM-related videos, citing that Arika was about to go on a major crackdown (including takedown notices) on any video uploads of the game which do not adhere to new and onerous terms.
• Fanwork Ban: A variation. Arika declared that, effective January 1, 2019, they will start enforcing their TGM YouTube video guidelines and shooting down any non-compliant videos with DMCA takedowns (and 3 copyright strikes will result in a loss of the affected YT account). Their guidelines include, among other things, a ban on videos of TGM clones/simulators such as NullpoMino.
• God Does Not Own This World: Arika has been unable to print or release TGM games since 2006; the last "proper" TGM game was Tetris: The Grand Master 3 in 2005, with the 2006 Tetris: The Grand Master ACE being stripped of a lot of the iconic TGM mechanics due to The Tetris Company's growing control over the Tetris brand and guidelines dictating what a Tetris game must have, with TGM violating many of those guidelines. A fourth TGM game was to be released in 2010, suggesting that the TTC issues were somehow worked out but cancelled for reasons unknown, with the most common theories being that SEGA was to publish the game but they were already releasing Giant Tetris within the same year and they did not want to publish two arcade Tetris games within the same year, so they decided to just nix TGM4. When TGM4 was rebranted as TGM 2015 in the eponymous year, it saw a few location tests but never got released; Mihara stated that the problem is finding a publisher.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: With TGM1 And TAP finally averting this trope after two decades thanks to their Arcade Archives releases, only time will tell whether or not a port of the third installment will be possible. But as for now, TGM3 is an arcade exclusive release, and cabinets of this game are extremely rare outside Japan.
• Late Export for You: TGM1 would finally get a proper international release in December of 2022, with an Arcade Archives version on Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 starting off a series of 32-bit games for the line, as well as being the first official home console version of the first TGM. TAP would receive the same treatment in June of 2023.
• No Export for You: Most of the games in the series have never been released outside Japan. Most players outside of Japan use clones or emulators to play, and a few are lucky enough to live near an actual TGM machine (such as Pittsburgh, PA), and even fewer are able to find and afford to own the actual hardware. Mihara, the director of the series, openly hating Western players for pirating the game so heavily (never mind that they have literally no other options to play it), doesn't help. When the website tetrisconcept.net decided to enforce a clone and emulator discussion ban, he called out the members for not deleting their own existing videos of emulators and clones. After Tetris the Grandmaster 3 Omega and TGM 2015 were teased for a Western release before falling prey to becoming Vapor Ware, a port of the first TGM was released on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 worldwide in 2022, followed by TAP in 2023, averting this trope.
• No Port For You: The original, non-PLUS version of TGM2, as well as TGM3, have yet to be ported to consumer platforms.
• Revival by Commercialization: Although the memetically popular "Invisible Tetris" video and the like have been floating around since 2006, the series hit a second popularity spike amongst Westerners when it was streamed on Awesome Games Done Quick in 2015. Having the game be demonstrated by and explained by Westerners certainly helped a lot.
• Screwed by the Network: It's widely speculated that TGM4 was cancelled because it was to be released alongside Tetris Giant and SEGA, the publisher, didn't want to release two Tetris games in one year.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Word of God alleges that there is a way to surpass level 1300 in TGM3's Shirase mode, but leaked data confirmed that those extra levels don't exist.
• Vapor Ware: In summer 2015, it looked as if the lack of international releases that has plagued the series since the beginning would finally end with the announcement and location tests of remakes of TGM3 and TGM4 in the United States... except those limited location tests in very specific places were the only thing to ever come of them. Mihara stated that one of the problems is finding a publisher for the game.
• What Could Have Been:
  • TGM 1 was going to have a US release, as hinted in Dummied Out English-language text and manual. For whatever reason, the game ended up never leaving Japan.
  • The series has had various home ports cancelled while in development, including ports of TGM1 to the first PlayStation and of TGM2 to the PlayStation 2. In 2020 Mihara posted some footage of the PS2 port of TGM2.
• Word of God: The original TAP runs at 61.68 Hz, which is slightly faster than the NTSC standard of 60 Hz. However, the Arcade Archives versions run at 60 Hz. Mihara explained that the reason for this change is to avoid the visual problems that arise when attempting to run the game at its original speed.

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