Tetris Battle Gaiden differs from classic Tetris in its puzzle-fighter style game play. A player will draw tetrominos from the same 3 piece preview as his opponent. The goal of the game is to complete lines of horizontal blocks to clear them from the field. As in most Tetris versus modes, clearing two or more lines at once will send "garbage lines" to the opponent, making it advantageous to set up situations where two or more lines are cleared at once. The player wins when their opponent is unable to place a tetromino into their playing field. Removing lines from their own field and adding lines to their opponent's is also possible through the use of character-specific special abilities. These abilities are obtained through the collection of magic orbs. After a set number of tetrominos passes through the piece preview, a piece containing a magic orb will appear (the default setting is every 5th piece, although this can be changed in the options). These orbs are collected when lines containing them are cleared by a player. When the player activates an ability, the number of magic orbs they have (ranging from one to four) determines the ability they will use. Abilities are unique to each character, and include an earthquake, orbital laser, mirror shield, or the ability to knock away an opponents piece.