Something else was happening in mid-March 2025 too on the Nintendo Switch: Tetris 99 was also holding the 46th Maximus Cup—this time, the featured game was Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. I don’t know that much about the series, so I don’t know how this ties in to Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2, and 3. Just that this is about a group of people who colonize a new planet and immediately run into a lot of native hostility along the way.
I do notice, however, that we have a sort of futuristic military sound set going on here, with loading bullets for the rotation sounding, radar pings when you’re targeted, and computer sounds when Minos move left or rght, among other sounds. KOed players are the “X” in the logo—cyan if you KOed them, gray if otherwise. The playfield itself assumes aa holographic display look too, and the badges are what look like in-universe police badges, metallic shield shapes with “PEACE” written on them. Each Mino block has an emblem of some sort on them, a different one for each color. Interestingly, unique to this skin (so far), your playfield background darkens whenever your stack reaches a certain height, darkening ahead of time if it’s caused by imminent arrival of Garbage Blocks.
Something I was surprised to hear, however, is that every song on this skin has English vocals. We had nonsense lyrics in the past, like with the one about Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but I think this is the very first time we have lyrics in a real language in Tetris 99. This includes not only all three songs in normal gameplay (at the beginning, when 50 or fewer players remain, and when 10 or fewer players remain), but both the song when you place 2nd or below and the song when you place 1st. All in all though, they give a kind of edgy vibe to the whole skin, for better or for worse. It’s very Sonic-like in feel (especially the boss Titan themes in Sonic Frontiers), though the lyrics, being mostly about complaining about being stranded on a distant planet, have more of a Shadow the Hedgehog kind of edginess to them. Would certainly be out of place in a Pikmin game!
00:06 Match #1
Skin: Special Theme 38 (Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition)
Mode: Normal
I was taken aback to hear the vocal theme of when you place 2nd or lower, so I decided to stick around for a little while. Feel free to skip ahead if you like.
08:40 - Match #2
Skin: Special Theme 38 (Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition)
Mode: Normal
This is not a match I feel too proud of, but it is the one where I got the skin unlocked for permanent use, so I’m obligated to put this one up. There were some lengthy duels with the people who finished ahead of me. Ordinarily, I replace it with my own music, but some of the choices I came up with might have trouble with copyright idenfitication, so I left it silent. The losing theme (2nd place or lower) already has this, and I didn't want to get in further trouble!
15:06 - Match #3
Skin: Special Theme 38 (Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition)
Mode: Invictus
Yikes! I wasn’t sure if I could still prevail in an Invictus match over a human opponent in 2nd, but here it is! This was really drawn out, and they were doing this with one badge? I had trouble seeing the Tetriminos against the background there. The shades are definitely designed to contrast with the regular background of this skin, dominated by muted blues, whites, and greens.