My first portable console was a yellow Gameboy Pocket that my Mother got for me in the late 90s. We had a handful of titles for it like Tetris Plus, Super Mario Land 1, Kirby’s Dreamland 2, Turok 2 and even a Tomogachi game. I still have that Gameboy and hold nostalgia for it but I remember a few years later, a childhood friend of mine got this new thing called a Gameboy Advance. She had two games for it, Super Mario Advance and Tom and Jerry in Infurnal Escape. Despite it being the original model that wasn’t backlit, I was still in awe at what kind of games you could play on this thing. They reminded me of games on my Sega Genesis! Shortly thereafter, I got my hands on an SP model for my birthday and from then on, I became a diehard GBA boy. I remember rejecting the DS when it first came out thinking Nintendo was silly to dump their superior handheld for this gimmicky touchscreen junk, IT WON’T LAST!!! Years later, I now own every model of the handheld, various accessories and a treasure trove of games. I considered going for a complete set, but the quantity and price of that became too much (Game Gear instead for me!). Now I could’ve used this review to talk about a host of classic games I’m familiar with like Metroid Fusion, Wario Land 4, Minish Cap or shine light on a lesser known game like Scurge: Hive, Lady Sia, Pinball of the Dead or Rescue Heroes: Billy Blazes, but I wanted to use this opportunity to play a game I was not familiar with. A game that always intrigued me but its high resale price kept me at bay, Drill Dozer. Thanks to the power of emulation, I was able to play this for free and keep the near $200 in my pocket for other things.
Drill Dozer released in NA on February 6th, 2006. Developed by Game Freak, they had some free time between Pokémon games to craft something truly unique. For those who don’t know, I am not the biggest fan of the Pokémon series. I had a copy of Red back in the day and played it a fair bit, but the magic that series has on millions and millions of people in my age group never seemed to hit me. Instead, I look at the series from a distance, as a perfectly fine monster catcher JRPG that should be held to a higher standard for how beloved and successful it is. Yet, I find the studio that makes these games to be a fascinating one. Game Freak, founded in 1989 and based on a self-published video game magazine of the same name, had games before that gigantic success like Pulseman, Yoshi, Mendel Palace and Mario & Wario that showed their capability as developers of other styles of game. During the development of the Gen 1 remakes FireRed and LeafGreen, they jumped at the chance to make something that wasn’t a Pokémon game and the result became Drill Dozer. Originally debuting at E3 under the name Screw Breaker, it caught the eye of many at the show and even won some awards. When it was released, reviews were solid and over time has been considered one of the best games for the system, despite not selling very well. Since then, it was released on the WiiU Virtual Console but has yet to come out on the GBA Nintendo Classics App for Switch. Now, what does ol’ Thrakington here think of Drill Dozer?
We’ll start with a plot synopsis. You play as Jill, who is a member of a gang called the Red Dozers and you are attempting to steal a red diamond from this museum. As soon as you do so, a rival gang called the Skullkers takes it from you and then it’s up to you in your Drill Dozer vehicle to get it back. Along the way, you travel to various factories, vaults, ruins, metal cities and even escape from prison as well as collect various other jewels. The game overall ended up being about 8 to 9 hours in length which I found to be on the longer side for a portable level-based action game. That’s probably due to Game Freak trying to shove every idea they had for this concept in here.
This game comes off as a rare break for Game Freak and they saw fit to make it as jam-packed with ideas as possible. The main concept of the game is you control this robot with a giant drill in front of it. That allows for all sorts of unique combat encounters, platforming challenges and some neat puzzles. The drill is controlled with the L and R buttons and which one you press determines the direction it turns. At the beginning of the game, this isn’t much to write home about, but as it goes further along, this becomes very important. There are moments where you are drilling through a tunnel or even multiple connecting tunnels and being chased by an enemy so you have to make sure you hit the correct directions or you are screwed, no pun intended.
The levels in this game are maze-like where you have to find your way around in order to get all the gears and progress. You are also able to revisit levels with newer abilities you acquire to find extra goodies along the way. Each level has you finding two new gears for your dozer. This allows you to shift up and give you a more powerful drill that lasts longer. When you hit level 3, you can hold it indefinitely and be a true force of screw if you so desire, but it never becomes that big of an issue. You also can knock yourself back by drilling in one direction, then hitting the other turn button. The higher your gear, the farther you’ll travel. There is just so much crammed into this game and while that’s amazing, by the end of the game it can start to wear a bit. For me, it never truly refines the gameplay. It’s very imaginative and creative, but comes off a bit ADHD as it never fully settles into a solid core gameplay. For example, near the end you have to fight this big robot by fighting him on the outside, then going inside to destroy various power sources. You are timed while you are inside so you have to drill through platform puzzle challenges as fast as you can and the controls can sometimes fail you, as they did me, and cause you to redo sections over and over again. It’s like this game gets crushed by its own ambition.
I do wish this game got a sequel because it really could’ve smoothed out some of my issues and given a second chance, make a truly masterful puzzle platformer. Instead, we got a very good game that has too many little flaws that bring it down for me. The bosses range from clever to frustrating with one in particular that stands out. You fight this giant robot in an arena where they are shooting bombs at you. The screen behind the fight has a timer and when it goes down to 0, the bomb blows up. Naturally, you have to get the time down when she is catching the bomb so she takes the damage. The way you shoot these back at her is catching them with your drill, charging it up and shooting them back. The problem I had with this is as you go, she starts shooting bombs that need to be caught by your drill spinning in the right direction. Up to this point, you learn that Red means Right ( R button ) and Blue means Left ( L Button ), yet this boss flips it! That makes the boss so much harder for me as the muscle memory I had developed up to this point gets thrown out the window for this one boss fight, which was frustrating.
On the more positive side, I think the art style and music are very well done. The feeling of drilling and enemy is done fantastically well. This is one of the few Gameboy games in general to have a rumble cart and this game makes good use of the rumble. You are able to buy upgrades like more health and stronger drills as you progress. There are some secret levels hidden throughout the game that can be hard to find, but if you play them, they’re a lot of fun, which is my overall feeling about this game.
Despite it having issues, I found this game to be an idiosyncratic game to enjoy. This shows me that Game Freak are capable of making great games that don’t involve trapping little rats to kill each other for your own amusement. Drill Dozer gets a solid B+ grade from me and is worth your time if you love this top-tier library. Thanks for reading and enjoy your gaming!
