This would have made a fantastic licensed game back in the day. (I’m imagining what the box art would have looked like.) Picture this: you just grabbed this game cart and popped it in. You mash A to get past the options and just start the game. You are presented with fun, solid-feeling game of Tetris in a beautifully presented medieval setting.

Then you see the Kraken.

It selects a column and places a tentacle under it. Every few seconds, it’ll push up the blocks in that column by one row. Leave it alone too long and it’ll topple your column, but you can fight it back by clearing a row through its tentacle. All this time, you’re listening to epic demoscene music.

I’m no Tetris expert, but the controls feel really good. I haven’t even played the classic (no kraken) and battle (kraken makes a move every time you do) modes, but I can already tell that this game is a fantastic addition to any NES library.