The actual best Game Freak game, and it might not even be close.

Drill Dozer is such a creative and interesting game. The goal is to tear through lairs of enemies while regaining your lost treasure with your trusty lil drill mech, pressing R to spin clockwise and L to spin counter-clockwise. There's a lot to unpack from all the levels due to just how well the levels force you to utilize and understand the mechanics of the drill and its various interactions. Unlike most Game Freak games, Drill Dozer is also more than happy to test you, through both knowledge of game mechanics and tight execution. Yet it's also fairly forgiving thanks to Energy Tank upgrades you can purchase inbetween levels and quick and simple restarts after failure states. I really can't overstate how great this game feels to play either; make sure to play with rumble, because there's nothing like feeling the quaking as you drill your opponents into oblivion.

I blew through the game in about 6 hours or so after messing around with it the night prior and losing my mind over how ridiculously fun it was. It's short and sweet, and there's tons of post game content through challenge maps and drill upgrades should you wish to test yourself and venture further. With colorful spritework, well animated and static characters, and phenomenal level design, this is a true gem left collecting dust in Nintendo's 2000s catalogue. Yet another example why I consider the 2000s to be my favorite era of gaming, and Nintendo was at its creative prime.

Jogo com controles criativos que funcionam em torno da mecânica de perfurar coisas com um robô-furadeira (R gira a broca em sentido horário, L no sentido anti-horário). O level design é muito bom e aproveita bem a mecânica da broca, e o mesmo se aplica para as batalhas contra os chefes, que são bem variadas.

Os gráficos são bonitos, com personagens carismáticos e ambientes variados, com uma trilha sonora cativante (ainda que uma faixa em específico se repita um pouco, o que me incomodou um cadinho).

O jogo em si não tem uma dificuldade muito alta, e durante a campanha regular é raro ocorrer um game-over. A coisa muda no pós-jogo, caso queira fazer 100%, em que obter todos os tesourinhos demanda um uso preciso e criativo das ferramentas do jogo. É um desafio bem difícil e igualmente satisfatório.

Gostei bastante e recomendo com convicção.

A lot of people direct a ton of malice towards Game Freak, mostly due to the more recent Pokemon games. Hell, for the most part, people only recognize Game Freak as "the creators of Pokemon". This kind of mentality doesn't really do their studio justice, seeing as Game Freak has created a decent amount of non-Pokemon titles in their time, games that are typically founts of creativity. In my opinion, Drill Dozer is one of their best.

You play as Jill Dozer, a young girl running around in a robot called a Drill Dozer. She's part of a family of thieves whose greatest treasure, the red diamond, has been stolen by a more nefarious gang of thieves. It's your job to go wreak some havoc and make them wish they never crossed you.

Before I go any further, I just wanna recommend you play this game with some form of rumble. It genuinely adds to the experience. The game cartridge has some meaty rumble built into the cartridge, but that can cost a pretty penny. The Wii U Virtual Console release of this game supports rumble as well, surprisingly enough. If you don't own a Wii U (understandable), then the emulator mGBA also supports the rumble feature. Just...play the game with rumble, trust me on this.

Drill Dozer is an action-platformer with a heavy emphasis on the L/R buttons. R spins your drill clockwise, L spins it counter-clockwise. It's a simple concept that's put to extensive use with a steady stream of level gimmicks and setpieces across the game's stages. Every level introduces a unique new way to use your drill, and a new boss fight that puts your skills to the test in a unique way. The game is a bit on the short side, but it makes up for it with extra areas to explore once you upgrade your drill, featuring more challenging stages, and hidden treasures to discover.

The presentation of this game is extremely solid. All the character designs are colorful and memorable, and the sprite work for the levels and backgrounds follow suit. Heck, the game came with a prologue comic book that you can read here. The music is excellent, using the GBA Pokemon games' soundfont to create one hell of a soundtrack. It's all wrapped up in a story with dialogue and events that feel akin to a Saturday morning cartoon, and it's a very enjoyable package overall.

Drill Dozer represents a lot of things to me, but most of all, it represents the need to let devs flex their creative muscles. Having a team make the same thing over and over can burn them out fast, but on the other hand, giving them a chance to create something wholly unique can bring something excellent into the world.

Kudos to Ken Sugimori, Go Ichinose, Junichi Masuda, Hironobu Yoshida, and all the other people working at Game Freak. Don't let all that creativity get snuffed out by Pokemon overdose.

Great little experience all-around. I didn't really have a lot of confidence going in considering the fact I've played Pulseman, another platformer by game freak, and thought that while that game looked and sounded great, the gameplay was a bit bland, so I was expecting the same here. Turns out, this game doesn't have that problem at all. The game looks extremely charming, has a surprisingly great OST, and best of all, has really intricate level design that not only implements all of its mechanics in unique and interesting ways, but also encourages the player to replay levels and master them. The story is also very charming as well. Definitely a recommended GBA title.

You know how people complain about Kid Icarus: Uprising or The World Ends With You inflicting hand pain? Drill Dozer is that game for me. Claw gripping the GBA just sucks, even on the original wide model, and it taints the whole experience to the point where I just can't enjoy it on its home system. Any game where ibuprofen is a required component is a no-go.

"Play it on the GameBoy Player!", I hear you say, and I have! That solves the hand pain but then you're left with the game, which isn't all that great. It's slow, clunky, and constantly sounds like a dental drill. It has great music, but in the climactic moments you'll barely be able to hear it because, you know, drill. The charm of the game is in the visual spectacle and the constant rumble but man, you can do so much better on the GBA. Wario Land 4 is right there.

I gotta play something good soon or I'm gonna lose my marbles.

Cómo transformar diversión en trabajo a través de presunto buen diseño. Convertir cada obstáculo y mecánica y nivel en una sucesión de ejercicios a aplicar. Todo en incrementos, progresivamente. Que se note lo concienzudo detrás de cada acción que realizamos, que se vea la mano de los diseñadores. Y pulido, que nada quede fuera de sitio. Then rinse and repeat.

Uno de los videojuegos más útiles como ejemplo de la diferencia entre lo considerado buen diseño y lo que realmente lo es. Una lástima, me encantaría ver este mismo taladro en un buen videojuego. Qué desperdicio.

As much as I wanted to like Drill Dozer, the game has very significant flaws that I cannot overlook. The platforming is extremely bad and the drilling mechanics gets incredibly dull and repetitive a few hours into the game. It got to the point where I felt I wasn’t having a good time and wanted to wrap the title up. The last half of the game has some absurd difficulty spikes, making you wonder how did the devs at Game Freak expect players to react to certain situations when the platforming is so mediocre. That sky area, especially, is the absolute lowest point of this game to the point where I had to question if it’s even worth continuing this game. It was a very frustrating experience and I question if it was even play tested.

While I did love the music (it’s probably a more realized sound coming from the GBA era Pokémon games) and the beautiful sprite work, the last half of the game dragged so much for me that I will probably never be returning to this game ever again.

The first three worlds are extremely easy to the point where I was referring to this game as "literally for toddlers." The last three worlds shift between "literally for toddlers" and "annoying trial-and-error." The moment to moment platforming is nothing special. The best part of the game is getting 3rd Gear because holding the button and hitting guys actually feels satisfying. Getting 3rd Gear is also the worst because you usually have it for so long that you get to used to it, and then it resets you back to 1st Gear every level. It's a neat idea to have the same kind of progression every level, but ultimately I didn't feel that it added much. There was maybe one time any exploration ended in me going "Oh, I need to go back and find 2nd/3rd Gear because I can't progress." If there was more of that, maybe the game would've been more fun. It also does that platforming thing where some bosses are fought in completely different ways than you'd be used to from playing the game for hours prior. One of them is a maze that you navigate by flying, which is kinda cool, but the flying controls just aren't very good. The fish boss was fine, but it suffered from being way too simple (like the entire game up to that point). Overall, it's just not a super enjoyable game and I don't think you should pick it up if you're not really curious what that one assist trophy in Brawl is about.

Drill dozer is a really unique experience on the GBA. The world and characters have a similar vibe akin to Starfy or maybe Warioland while still being it's own totally unique thing. Drill dozer surpassed my expectations very early on with it's charming art and music, and the story, while simple, is still engaging enough to make you wonder what will happen next. The controls feel a little heavy as if you were really piloting a big mech but the sluggishness never feels like it impedes on the platforming or level design too much. Drill dozer had some easy sections and some more challenging ones (looking at the bosses) and overall I'd say it's a fantastic Game Freak title to try out if you haven't already. I really enjoyed my time with this charming gem!

First log of the year, yay!

I can't belive nobody told me how cute and full of charisma this game is, I was only promised good platforming, it's a time capsule to the 2000's visually in the best way. Jill is adorable, in her interactions, animations and small vocalizations (the progressive excited tone of the "HIYA" as your drill gears up is so cute and hypes you up a little), how she both contrasts and complements the Drill Dozer is incredible, bot are small and kinda cute, but have an undeniable edge to them, a spark of playfulness that tells you that they should not be taken lightly.

This extends to every character honestly, even that weird little critter that appears in some of the menus. This is from a time Gamefreak figured it out when it came to character design, everybody has it's quirks that make them very nice designs to look at, with details that tell you about their personalities but aren't THAT out there, something that for me has become more difficult for the human characters they've been making in recent years.

I was very surprised by the gameplay, which is what I think deserves more praise and it's the reason for this five stars, because even if the levels aren't that long, when I was in a "good" section I could only think that this game was five stars, the way the drill gives tou movement is amazing, wether it is advancing nonstop with a fully powered drill through walls and enemies, or carefully yet quickly making jumps guided by the way you control the direction of your drill to traverse very creative and dynamic platforming sections.

It's honestly a shame how short this game is, the story and characters stay enough to feel short and sweet, but I wanted to explore them more, I wanted more funny interactions and mayhem with this child boss of a crime organization and her family, I wanted more platforming, I wanted more bosses and enemies, I wanted more of the main villain and the connection Jill's mom has with the diamonds...

Apparenlty Gamefreak has been trying to go for more IP's so as to not only be the Pokemon guys, and with the right team of talents the answer is right here.

I want more Drill Dozer man, I'm gonna 100% it sometime soon...

Drill Dozer est un jeu plein de charme avec un choix de gimmick intéressant, les foreuses, qui seront exploité de manière intelligente dans un level design plein d'inventivité. On a un joli chara design bien retranscrit en jeu avec des animations propres et adorables et une ambiance plutôt cool.

Le jeu possède une bonne rejouabilité, après la fin du jeu il est possible d'acheter des niveaux secrets et une meilleur foreuse débloquant d'autres routes dans les niveaux classique afin de partir à la chasse au trésors.

Cependant, les contrôles ont tendance à manquer d'inertie rendant certain mouvement plutôt lent lors de certaines actions et esquive, ce qui peut se montrer frustrant dans les derniers niveaux quand le jeu demandera d'avoir des réactions rapide ou pendant les passages à faire sous timer.

Cela ne retire en rien son mérite, Drill Dozer est un jeu réussi, et montre que même à coté de Pokémon, Gamefreak était capable de produire de bonne petite surprise quand ils en avait les moyens. Et puis, jouer à un jeu ou tu contrôle une petite cheffe d'une bande de voleurs qui se bat dans un Lagann, c'est forcément cool.

Drill Dozer is clunky and slow - this is not a negative! It's fun to stomp around in this machine of destruction for that exact reason - the gameplay loop is really addictive, you collect semi-permanent power-ups throughout each level, and then lose them in the next, it's a loop I'd love to see in more games, and the game utilises backtracking very well, with the mystery of an inaccessible area, that you can go back to and demolish before you forget about it. A lot of fun ideas and set pieces are done with the drill too, I really like the jelly blocks and lifts. The graphics and character designs are fun and vibrant - there's a bit of Powerpuff Girls/Teenage Robot vibe to it, even if drawn a lot more smoothly instead of in the sharp UPA style.

Why is it missing a whole star then? Well, it's a 2000s platformer, and with that naturally comes two things: the first is genre swaps, and god damn the flying/underwater stages are the worst in this game. Might be the worst underwater levels ever, and you occasionally get some bizarre mini-game-kinda-not-really thing like opening a safe that just drags it down. The other platforming burden of the time this game is infected by is tutorials. This is a game-length tutorial, even in the final levels they're teaching you what to do instead of just trusting you to figure things out.

Cutesy GBA-platformer with a new and interesting gameplay mechanic? On paper this should be something I would be all over, but in the end it just somehow didn't manage to hold up as much as I initially thought. It's fun to play through, the drilling mechanics are comfortable and fun to solve puzzles with and the platforming action feels smooth and mostly uninterrupted, but after the first couple of levels, I just didn't feel like this game has enough to pull me in. There wasn't really anything to keep me engaged further in the game, especially with every level stripping away the gear upgrades and making you start collecting those again. This is perfectly fine way to keep each level as a separate adventure, but that felt just an unnecessary chore having to do the same thing over and over again.

The story isn't really anything new or great, the normal fetch quest type of deal having you collect six diamonds and beating the big bad evil guy, some of the bosses were a blast and some even managed to be challenging, but others just fade without having any real impact. I don't regret playing through it, it's a pretty decent game for a handheld system to set down and return to beat little bit every now and then.