Graphics:
4 out of 5: Definitely the best looking puzzle game ever. The polygonal Robot characters are so detailed and well animated that they look more like CGI rendered sprites than polygons. The rays of light emanating from a freshly uncovered Tetrisphere core are impressive and futuristic. The sphere itself is sharp and colorful, as are the backgrounds. The only fault is that there is excessive polygon pop-in at the edges of the sphere. It's not uncommon to see whole chunks of the puzzle pop-in/out while rotating the sphere.
Music:
4 out of 5: Tetrisphere is the first N64 game to feature real music that sounds like stuff you'd by in the store. The sound fidelity and instrument samples are exceptional. Most pieces start out slow and then pick up to an overly hyper ending. Others are just hyper. All of it is techno. While this music would be perfect for an upgrade of Ridge Racer, it is extremely annoying when trying to concentrate on a puzzle game like Tetrisphere. Fortunately, there are extensive tracks and music options before and during the game, so you can adjust the tunes to suit your liking.
Sound FX:
4 out of 5: Most of the sounds are pretty solid and effective (I actually flinched several times from the crash sound of a bad drop), but the robot noises are high pitched and annoying.
Play Control:
5 out of 10: Tetrisphere's gameplay is fairly complex, and the controls add to this. It's easy to move the cursor one spot too far without realizing it, resulting in a bad drop. It's also extremely easy to think that the cursor is locked onto a piece for sliding only to realize (after moving the cursor far away) that this was not the case. It can also be hard to see the cursor at times. Most of the time that I messed up in Tetrisphere it was because of the controls, not because of challenging gameplay.
Frustration Factor:
7 out of 10 (10 being the worst):
If you feel that you must finish all of Tetrisphere, then it could be fairly frustrating. However, I think most people will lose interest long before they finish. It's fun for a while, but gets kind of dull fairly quickly. On the other hand, the Puzzle Mode is quite challenging, but there are only 100 puzzles (this means a quick finish for experts), and they can be fairly difficult for beginners.
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