Reviews

Yoot Tower Hawaii Hotel — A representation of my modest Hawaiian Yoot Tower.

I’m not sure if I have ever seen a Hawaiian hotel feature a ocean facing billboard for aquarium simulation software before (Aquazone); but thats the exact fantasy you can live out in Yoot Tower! The 1998 Sega published sequel to SimTower from director Yoot Saito. The goal is to build as big of a retail/hotel/apartment tower as you can while keeping everyone happy and maybe toss a little flair into the works. The flair is whats going to stand out to anyone wondering why they should give this 20 year old title a chance. I am sure many other Sim/Design games have come along with far better quality of life options and customization, but no others are going to have the quirks and charm that Yoot Saito brings to the table. He’s got a proven track record at this sort of thing; show me a luggage sorting simulator that is more charming than his 2012 3DS release Aero Porter! Don’t get me wrong, the Maxis titles in the 90s were certainly charming, thats why I assume Yoots initial “The Tower” grabbed their attention to fold it into their Sim line. I’ve never played the initial SimTower title, but my internet research has made me believe that Yoot Tower improves on SimTower – still features all the strengths, fixes a few weaknesses, and maintains a bit of the obtuse and confusing economics of the game. My lack of instruction manual made it a bit of a challenge to understand how to accomplish a lot of the basic initial goals, but with some research and some time to fail and experiment i’ve begun to get a hang of things and have my visitors saying aloud “I hope to get the Potato” or “I have a lower back pain”

Above is an illustration of my modest Hawaiian hotel. Its got a few floors of twin rooms, a few suites, and some condos for sale on the top floor. There is a burger restaurant in the basement. Its turning a profit. Plus, as mentioned above, a nice big billboard for the real life software “Aquazone: Desktop Life” on the outside of the building to get some exposure to anyone buzzing by on their Sea-Doo. Why bother with the real thing below the waves when you can go inside and load up “Aquazone 2: Deluxe with Guppies!” Err, wait, no — thats from the OTHER series of series of aquarium simulation software called Aquazone, not OPeNBook9003’s (developer of Yoot Tower) series of aquarium simulators. Ive gotten myself distracted! Lets get back to Yoot Tower, here is an inside view of my hotel:

The empty concrete corridors were left as such to ensure no ones view could be blocked by the Aquazone billboard outside. And yes, there is a dolphin in the lagoon.

Yoot Tower holds up quite well in 2019, it has a lot going for it if you can allow yourself some of the learning curve. Plus, this 1998 Windows 95 game still works (mostly) perfectly fine in Windows 10! I did read some people having issues with save files getting corrupted in Windows Vista/7, but mine have loaded with no issues in Windows 10. There is some graphical issues with the daylight transitions, but that is not too distracting. Its an extremely relaxing a charming title, and you can just let it run in the backround — maybe a V.I.P. will show up to honor your efforts!

PRO TIP: Use CRTL+SHIFT+ALT+D to get a huge “Debug Bonus!!” of $500 million dollars to give you all the leeway you want. However, it does seem to be a legit Debug Mode because all of the visitors comments change to what their programmed route and goal is, rather than the usual fun phrases like “Run or miss the bus”, but it seems to revert to standard speech when you load the save.

Is this the 99th Tetris sequel? Or has there been more than that and this is simply the 99th gimmick thats been applied to the long-standing formula? Either could be accurate, but it doesn’t matter, because they’ve managed to make Tetris fresh and new once again (for the 20th? time) with Tetris99.

The concept is that this is Tetris’ answer to the Battle Royale craze thats take over FPS and 3rd Person Action games; brawl against a horde of real world players and be the last survivor. Though not with parachuting or guns you find on the floor, but rather with falling Tetriminos and garbage. If you’ve ever played any multiplayer Tetris in the past, its the same rules more or less. Eliminate lines efficiently and in quick sets of combos to generate mounds of waste to be dumped all over your opponent. But now there is 98 of them all doing the same thing. To assist you the computer will take a few command parameters to direct that trash, or you yourself can monitor everyone’s status and choose an individual from the on-screen grid of Tetris boards. As the number of players dwindle, the speed of the game ramps up, and eventually only one is left unburied. If you’ve played Tetris you can jump right on and feel the hooks sink in.

While the Battle Royale concept may have came from the world of FPS, this very much has an arcade feel to it. Which makes a lot of sense because its been developed by Arika who had long ago brought Tetris to the arcades with their Grandmaster series. The graphic elements at play also are rooted in the arcade with bright blinking indicators, combo numbers racking up, laser lines and swooshing yellow clouds criss-crossing the play area, warnings of “WATCH OUT!” alert you. The music is remixs of the classic Tetris theme that ramps its pace when you graduate to different benchmarks of survival. Its a fantastic presentation thats been generated from the mechanics rather than pasted-on elements like in PuyoPuyoTetris or TetrisDS. This is JUST Tetris.

Understand this is purely an online experience, but its maybe one of the more lonely ones you can engage in – especially considering you’re in a room with 98 other people. You can’t queue into the battle with your good-time buddies, or even have any idea who you are competing against until you either lose or take first. Thats when you can sit back and watch other people lose just a bit better than you and find out that “NoJobAge34” or “Family” passed you by. But unless you got into the top 10 its unlikely you’d wait around to find out who the champion was because you’ve already left the arena and walked into another one. The champion hears no cheers.
While it seems impossible for this to pay off to the same degree that having Tetris as a pack-in title for the original GameBoy turned out to be, this was a genius move by Nintendo to offer Tetris99 as a Free download for those subscribed to the Nintendo Online Service. It certainly pushed me into finally plunking down $20 for the yearly subscription, and I feel confident in saying if I don’t use the service for anything other than Tetris99, its been money well spent.

Final Result: 99/99 Big SCORE!

Further Reading (viewing): Theres been some other great Tetris developments in the recent months: Specifically centering around new “Classic Tetris” (NES) Champion, 16 year-old Joseph Saelee who dethroned 7 time champion Jonas Neubauer. This video of the championship match is everything you would want from Championship Match of any contest.

In even more recent Joseph Saelee news, he recently achieved a first in Classic Tetris by advancing to Level 33. The key to Joseph success is that he is extremely proficient in a new movement tactic called “hyper-tapping” where the player has to press the d-pad direction extremely quickly but with a proper rythem that allows the pieces to move at a maximum speed.
NOTE: In the video below the game doesn’t have the proper labels for Levels beyond 29, so the display gets glitched, thats why you will see some odd labels for levels 30-33.