Hatris

Been too lazy to blog anything substantial this month, but I wanted to put something on here. The USA and Japanese versions of Hatris seem the same, but are different. I recently beat both versions and put the endings in my NES endings guide but haven't submitted the latest update to gamefaqs yet, so if you are curious about the 2 Hatris' endings, read on:

HATRIS (Bullet Proof Software)
-This is a neat Tetris style game where you have to arrange falling hats in order of what type they are. I enjoyed the game quite a bit, but it seems to get a bad rap for some reason. At the beginning of the game you can select which Shop and Stage to start on. There are a total of 6 Shops (0-6) with each Shop having 9 Stages (0-9). Every time you beat the last stage of a shop you will get a quick intermission scene and it will go on to the next shop. When you finish Shop 5, Stage 9 (it says Shop 59 on the screen) it will show the two characters from the game (Alexy Pajitnov and Vladimir Pokhilko, the programmers) on the bottom of the screen. Alexy takes off his Abraham Lincoln top hat and pulls out letters and throws them into the middle of the screen to spell out GREAT GAME. He then floats up and bumps his head on the letters and his hat falls off. Alexy and Vladimir then proceed to run back and forth across the top and bottom of the screen. You can watch this for awhile and see both a smiley face and a bunny chase them at various points. Anyway, when you press A it will go tot he High Score screen. Enter your initials here and press start to return to the title screen. That's it??? Actually, not quite. You may have noticed on the High Score screen that it lists the Shop and Stage that the High Scorer's reached. Some of the Shop numbers have a T or an N in front of them. I wasn't sure what this meant, so I found the manual on line and discovered there is a Turbo mode to this game! At the title screen you can press DOWN and Start at the same time to trigger Turbo-Speed Mode. It won't seem like the code worked at first, but when you choose your Shop and Stage and start the gameyou will notice the word TURBO at the bottom right of the screen, above Vladimir's head on the wall. Unfortunately, you will get the same exact ending when you beat the 59 stages in Turbo-Speed Mode, so the ending to this game can officially be described as lame.

...and now for the Famicom version:

HATRIS (Bullet Proof Software)
-Wow, I wasn't expecting this. This game is made by the same company that made the USA NES version of Hatris (BPS) but even though the game looks similar, there are a ton of things different. Your helpers Vladimir and Alexy aren't in the Famicom version. You have a score instead of $$ cash. The intermissions are totally better and there is a cool ending here. I wonder why they butchered this game for the US?? The Shop/Stage layouts are kind of similar. Assuming you started at the beginning at Shop A0, you have to complete 9 stages before moving on to Shop A1. When you beat Stage 9 in Shop 0 you get an intermission showing the BPS Orchestra with a conductor but only 7 musicians in the orchestra. Now play through the 9 stages of Shop A1 and the intermission will have 11 people in the orchestra. As you keep progressing, more musicians are added to the BPS Orchestra during intermissions until you finish Shop A5, Stage 9, which is the last stage of the game. It will show a full BPS Orchestra (with 28 musicians) playing a nice little tune. It will then bring you to the High Score screen where you can enter your initials. When you do this it brings you to a screen that shows you a beautiful view out the window of a beach and ocean with a hot air balloon floating by. The credits will flash by at the bottom of the screen. As the credits roll the sun will set, butterflies will fly across the screen, a dog will walk by (and stop to scratch at fleas), the moon will go across the horizon while a volcano erupts in the background. Basically youjust get to see a bunch of cool sunsets, sunrises, lightning storms and even a rainbow. Eventually seagulls will flock across the screen and a cool sailboat will float by. It then repeats it all over again until you press reset. You can also play a Turbo-Speed Mode by pressing Down and Start at the title screen but it will not say TURBO on the screen when you start playing, but you will know it works because the Shops all start with the letter B instead of A. You do get the same exact ending that you got when beating the regular game though so this is only for people who love the game. This version of the game definitely should have been released in the States.