Gamespot's review of Planet Puzzle League (a Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon clone for the DS):
However, this leads to an odd flaw in the gameplay. To set up a sweet chain reaction, the screen must be mostly full of blocks. Yet, if the screen is nearly full, you're nearly dead.
That's not an "odd flaw"; that's the entire POINT of the gameplay. To balance the need of having a lot of blocks to prosecute any sort of real offense, and the risk of losing if the pile rises too high.
In the early going you have time to work sweet magic, but as the game accelerates, you're reduced to simply flinging blocks around, praying for random chain reactions.
Umm, not if you're any good, Gamespot. I used to panic when I got in trouble, but one of the "lessons" the harder modes of Pokémon Puzzle League (another Tetris Attack clone) imprinted in me was to keep in control and execute chains and combos with just as much patience when I'm in trouble as when I'm ahead. You stay alive as long as you keep clearing things (which isn't instantaneous, so you have a little time to look for more opportunities), and clearing chains gives you a lot of time.
This creates a perverse sense of guilt every time you do something cool, because like a bee setting up a perfect sting, you're hastening your own demise.
This sentence has nothing to do with the previous sentence.....