Every year, there’s at least one game on the GBA that one can call great, but because of the lack of a trademark name like Mario or Zelda, it goes unnoticed. It’s happened last year with a very unique RPG in Riviera: The Promised Land, and it also happened with Rare’s Sabre Wulf the year before. This year, it looks like it’ll come directly from Nintendo’s publishing doors with another fun little game by the name of Drill Dozer.

 

Drill Dozer is a game that follows the tried and true formula of most of Nintendo’s great 2D sidescrollers. You play as Jill as she demolishes her way looking to rescue her father and protect the Red Diamond—her family heirloom. Now wait, a little girl demolishing her way through places? As strange as it may seem, it’s true. With the help of a trusty piece of mechanism called the Drill Dozer, developed by the geniuses at the Red Dozers, Jill pretty much has superhuman strength.

 

This is where the bulk of the gameplay comes in. The Drill Dozer has all sorts of special abilities. The most obvious of which is its ability to knock down weak walls or substructures to allow Jill to easily navigate through baddie-infested halls in search of the Red Diamond. Think of the classic game Dig Dug, except Drill Dozer is a lot more lively and colorful. You activate the drill, using the L or R to drill counterclockwise or clockwise. But to be honest, if you’re just drilling your way through a wall or killing an enemy, the way your drill twists doesn’t matter. The actual physics of your drill only matter when you’re trying to solve one of the many puzzles in the game. But even at that, they’re fairly simple, so they’re nothing to really worry about.

 

Each stage has about 2-4 areas to explore. In each area, you start out with a basic drill.  Basic drills are only able to penetrate some metals, but you’ll eventually be able to find other power-ups that go up to a Level 3 drill—which can penetrate the toughest of metals. You activate each drill’s higher powers by simply turning them on by holding one of the shoulder buttons, and once the Shift Up icon appears; you can tap on the shoulder button again to activate its higher penetration level. However, your drill can only be drilling for a short period of time, and that period of time ends when the drill meter dies out. You don’t have to worry about the drill being overused though, since you only go back to the default drill after you finish a stage.

 

Throughout each stage, you’ll be able to find money that’ll allow you to pick up upgrades for your Dozer in between levels. The best of which include extra energy tanks, as well as bonus stages to explore—and of course, they’re a lot more challenging than the default areas.

 

So you know that Jill can use her drill as a tool for battle and for getting around minion-infested hallways, but the craziness doesn’t really end there. At about the fourth world, you’ll start to be in completely new surroundings. You’ll find yourself having add-ons to your Dozer such as propellers so you can use your Drill Dozer like a helicopter in the air. You’ll even find yourself as a submarine navigating places underwater. With areas such as these, as well as fun bosses to kill, this game takes unique fun to a whole new level.

 

As stated before, the game is as colorful as colorful gets. When the main character’s hair is pink, that’s pretty much implied. Aside from that, the backgrounds are nice, the environments are smooth looking, and the sprites are actually pretty well done. While the images can get a little grainy on the Game Boy Player, it all really looks like something you can eat when played on the Micro, and that’s probably what Game Freak was aiming for.

 

As for the sound, it’s pretty much what you’d expect. The music is good, but it’s nothing particularly as catchy as any song you’d find in Pokémon. The drill sounds like a vacuum cleaner, but this is a GBA, so nobody can really be that picky when it comes to sound. But if there ever was a weak point in this game, the sound has to be it.

 

After nearly a decade of developing Pokémon games for Nintendo’s systems, Game Freak has finally broke out of its shell and created a game that doesn’t involve Pokémon. The result? An incredibly solid platformer that’ll probably go unnoticed and can quite possibly be a favorite when it comes to mentioning the year’s most underrated titles. Rest assured, you won’t be making a mistake if you pick this game up. And once you beat it and think it’s over, you’re dead wrong as the length practically doubles with as many secret levels as there are in default.