Tetris: The Grand Master 5 is one of two nonexistant things:
TGM5 was originally going to be a commerical game developed by Arika called Tetris: The Grand Master V, but during the Tetris wars of 201X, The Tetris Company successfully took over hijacked the Tetris: The Grand Master series and sued Arika into bankruptcy, and released a dolled up Tetris Worlds 2 as TGMV, with the most broken scoring and rotation systems of all time. The most broken scoring and rotation systems of all time!
In response, the TGM fanbase's programmers got ahold of the original design document of TGMV and took it upon themselves to mod a popular TGM clone to finish off what TTC trashed. The result is Tetris: The Grand Master 5 - Gotaru. In addition to being a continuation of the TGM series, the PC port offers a Versus Campaign mode in which you take on various Tetris players and, ultimately, the folks currently behind Tetris.
Neither game exists, except in Ray Ayanami's mind.
TGMV contains examples of:
- Artistic License – Statistics: Outright averted; the game decides on a permutation of the 7 tetrominoes when the round starts and just gives you that same permutation repeatedly until the round ends.
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Critical Backlash: Despite poor reviews, it still managed to sell a million copies because "dude, it's just Tetris." - Dolled-Up Installment
- Easier Than Easy: Monomino mode.
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Executive Meddling: And how. - Nintendo Hard: Classic mode, which offers Nintendo rotation (the rotation system used in the NES and Game Boy incarnations of Tetris). It's hard for the wrong reasons.
- No Fair Cheating: If you hack the game to change the controls to anything other than "left/right to move, down to soft drop, up to rotate", the game deletes your achievements.
- Scoring Points: Singles are worth 100 points per line, Doubles 150, Triples 200, Tetrises 201 (or 301 when in a back-to-back). Also, the combo scoring system has been tweaked to work best with singles to encourage the same sort of "4-wide" stacking that burst onto the Tetris Friends scene back in mid-2010
. - Scrappy Mechanic: Every one in the book.
- Sequelitis: Holy piss.
- Take That!: The following names are banned from name entry — "KAN", "JIN8", "ARIKA", "TGM", "REIMU"note .
TGM5 contains examples of:
- Awesome, but Impractical: D Rotation (aka DTET Rotation), imported straight from DTET with the author's permission. It's basically a more flexible version of A2 Rotation (TGM3 rotation), with more wallkicks, easy 180-degree rotations, and appearance delay cancel, but has quirky autoshift and doesn't have firm drop like ARS does.
- Berserk Button: To most fans, VOID mode, perhaps the mode idiotic mode to grace a TGM clone.
- Big Bad / Final Boss: Versus Campaign brings us Henk Rogers.
- The Man Behind the Man / True Final Boss: Ichiro Mihara. No, not the one from Angelic Layer.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The last two bosses of Versus Campaign. They have extremely low appearance delay, can slide pieces at a rate faster than 1 cell per 1/60th of a second, fill up their item gauges three times as fast. Also, Henk has "Deep Drop", the power to drop pieces through overhangs, and Mihara can alter the rules of A3 Rotation in mid-round to his liking.
- Cool Old Guy: Alexey Pajitnov in Versus Campaign. As the inventor of Tetris, he's too cool to be a villain.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: If you use the S* rotations in Speed Mania, the music is replaced by Top 40 hits.
- Fan Sequel
- Harder Than Hard: Versus Campaign 2. [[supersecretspoiler:The unlock method for it is to get a Secret GM in Speed Mania, then type "imamoetard" as the stack fades out. VC 2 is the same as standard Versus Campaign, but all the female moe characters vanish, all the male characters become extra pretty, and the final boss, instead of being Mihara, is Kimys. Kimys has a special attack that floods your playfield with one of his boring visual effects. If you defeat him, you'll be given a special password you can use on the secret webpage of the Platinum Crew website that disables all the generic Kimys videos. If you lose, you'll get unskippable credits that consist of reading names from a phonebook, superimposed against a Kimys video. Oh, and during this entire sequence, you cannot ALT+TAB, close the game process via Task Manager, or turn off your computer.]]
- Interface Screw: Reach the 900-999 section of Speed Mania, and the background will turn purple and all foreground elements will turn black.
- Moe Anthropomorphism: Each rotation system is represented by a different character:
- A1 Rotation (TGM 1 and 2): A Yamato Nadeshiko in a kimono.
- A2 Rotation (TGM 3 Classic): The son of A1 Rotation, he is an Ordinary High-School Student with mildy daring tendencies.)
- A3 Rotation (TGM 4 Classic): The rebellious younger sister of A2 Rotation. She dresses like a punk and likes to take it easy in life.
- AA Rotation (TGM ACE ARS): The cousin of A3 Rotation. Is adopted.
- AA2 Rotation (TGM ACE ARS2): AA Rotation after being reunited with his long-lost parents.
- D Rotation (DTET): A skater with bruises here and there. Looks kinda like Beat.
- S1 Rotation (Tetris DS): A high school dropout and a Badass Biker.
- S2 Rotation (TGM 3 World): The more disciplined (though Genki Girl) older sister of S1 Rotation.
- S3 Rotation (TGM ACE SRS): S2's cousin. Is a bit clumsy.
- SX Rotation (Heboris Unofficial Expansion SRS-X): S2's twin sister. Goes out with A2.
- Nightmare Fuel: One of the songs can be best described as "Korobeiniki" meets Eversion.
- Pinball Scoring: ONE SHIT mode, unlocked by defeating Att in Versus Campaign.
- Rank Inflation: Inverted. Grades have been scaled back to TGM1 scale (9 through 1, S1 through S9, then GM).
- Shout-Out: The subtitle Gotaru is a portmanteau of one of the Japanese pronunciations of the number 5 and a significant TGM player's nickname.
- In level 500-599, the background is a remix of the Stage 7 background from Desu Shi.
- Some of the special titles you get:
- Top out in Master at level 100 or higher with a grade of 9 = "Baka"
- Top out in ONE SHIT with score >=100,000,000 and <101,000,000 = "You're a real liar!"
- Have a versus record of 0-99 = "Glass Jotaro"
- On name entry, enter "Yuno" or "Gasai" = "Snow Lover"
- On name entry, end your name with "taru" = "o"
- On name entry, enter "Shinji" = "I musn't run away", and force quit becomes un-disableable
Thankfully, unlike in Wangan Midnight, if you get a title, it is saved to your user account so if you replace that title with something else, you can change it back the next time you log in.
- Stalked by the Bell: At a level stop, you must clear a line within 5 seconds or 5 pieces, whichever comes first. Otherwise, you will lose one grade (in Master), get garbage lines (in Speed Mania), or lose points proportional to your current score (in ONE SHIT).
- Stuff Blowing Up: Fail a torikan in Speed Mania and your playfield explodes. Afterwars, you get depressing Game Over music.
- Take That!: The following names are banned from name entry — "HENK" (becomes FRED), "ROGERS", "TTC", "O", "FART", "LEINYAN"note .
- You can unlock Jewelry Master 2 by completing Sakura mode. As a jab at Jewelry Master Twinkle's Dating Sim elements, JM2 also features Dating Sim elements...but with male characters instead.
- Take That, Critics!: One reviewer's complaint: "Just what were the developers thinking? Making an evil Tetris clone that only the Japanese can stand a chance at, when there's already the wonderful TGM V?" Said reviewer was sent a restraining order that prohibited him from coming within 50 meters of a TGM player, a Japanese person, or one of TGM5's developers for 12 months.
- What the Hell, Player?: In Versus Campaign, you can choose to side with Arika or The Tetris Company. Side with TTC and fellow TGM players will berate you and challenge you to a Boss Rush. You'll skip Henk Rogers, but now you have to team up up with him in a doubles battle with Mihara and jin8. Oh, and Henk's AI is rather idiotic and you two are stuck with S1 Rotation while Mihara and jin8 get to use A3.
- X Meets Y Meets Z: Versus Campaign is TGM's versus mode meets DJMAX Portable's Club Tour mode meets Shin Megami Tensei's Visual Novel-esque decision making.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Lose to Mihara three times in Versus Campaign and HE SHUTS DOWN YOUR YOUTUBE ACCOUNT.
