Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 187: Drill Dozer

Episode Date: December 14, 2018

After Pokemon took off in a huge way, developer Game Freak didn't exactly have the time or incentive to dabble outside of their cash cow. But all that changed in 2006, when they created Drill Dozer: a fun, compact little game built entirely around the concept of drilling. Unfortunately, Drill Dozer's release on the Game Boy Advance well into the DS's lifespan means very few people got a chance to experience Game Freak's inventive platformer. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, Nick Daniel, and Chris Daniel as the crew explores Drill Dozer and ponders whether or not drilling truly is horizontal digging.

This week on Retronauts, hold me, thrill me, kiss me, drill me. Mackie. I've said that before and I'll say it again. Today's topic is drill dozer. And before I go on, who is here with me today? Hey, it's Henry Gilbert and I love drilling. Who else is here? Broken index finger, Nick Daniel. Yes, that's what you get from playing drill dozer. And who is our final guest? My hands are still rumbling, Chris Daniel. It's true. We all have the drill drosers now and throbbing middle fingers. And the broken GBAs. And broken GBAs just hurt a little across the room. Just the shoulder buttons. Yes, it will destroy your GBA. But yes, We're talking about the Game Boy advances

Amazing Game by Game Arts Drill Dozer. Before we start, I've got Nick Daniel and Chris Daniel on the show. They're my old buddies from way back at Youngstown State University. Yes, I'm incriminating all of us by saying we went there. Go nepotism. Yes, go nepotism. The fighting nepotism. It only took 10 years. It only took

17 years to get you on an audio pod. I guess 10 years. I've been a podcasting for maybe nine years, so yeah. They had to prove themselves, but now they're here. They better not fuck up. After this many long years, we've prove we're not spies. That's true.

You know, Bob, I always knew if I just attached myself to your star, I would eventually arrive. My coattels are very short, and there's room for maybe like half a person, so... One who weighs a lot less than me. Maybe. I'm just going to point out, he kind of fucked up by being sick before showing up. That is true.

Nick got, Nick ruined this all by being sick, but we're going to soldier on. It's the retronauts motto, I think. I'm making it up now if it isn't. But before we go on, I want to ask you guys, drill Dozer, it's a Game Boy Advance game. What is your experience with it. I believe when this came out, I think I got

it for one of your birthdays. I believe you gave it for me. Yes, and I think I gave I never heard about before then, which is surprising, because I did follow all the magazines because yes, kiddies, that's what we had to do in the old days. Yes, I mean, it was a very late Game Boy Advance game, but I think I got Chris Drill Dozer and I got Nick the Game Boy Advance cart that has

Castlevania portrait, no wait. What are the two Castlevania games, Ari of Sorrow, and Harmony of Dissinance on one carts? I think that's what I got Nick. This is all very important for the Listener. I enjoyed those things. Listen, the year... There will be a test. What a deal.

The year is 2006. I'm buying presents for two people who have the same birthday. I don't have a lot of money, but those are great gifts and I deserve credit. Those are a great gift. Yeah, come on. Thank you, Bob. Give her up grave gifts.

I'm not friends with any twins. I don't... And I'm glad I don't have to buy double presents. It sucks. It's a burden. I make it a rule that I don't prefer twins, so I'm not your friend. You're lucky you were letting him.

Henry's apartment to record this. But Henry, well, actually, you guys, like, what was your experience with Dorozoa before this podcast? Like, how much of it did you play? Did you finish it on the card? Oh, man. I mean, back then, whenever I got a platformer, I would just completely 100% it. I'm going to crazy with it. I mean, this game gets really

ridiculously hard with the final levels. It really does. But, you know, I got almost everything on Yoshi's Island. I did get through the Tower of Babel and Konoa. And you also, you also play... Oh, yeah. I'm into it. Then you also play all the Mega Man Zero games and, like, really got into those too?

Yep. Okay, yeah. Chris, after all those, love the Mega Man zeros. I think I S-ranked three. Oh, wow, yeah. Yeah, that's a bit nuts. Those games are way too hard for me. But, yeah, Chris, this is a kind of game for Chris to play. And possibly, Nick.

I don't know, Nick. What was your experience with Drill Dozer? The save files on his cart would indicate that I beat it. I don't remember. I'm actually impressed that you finish this game, legit. I needed safe states in the future that we're living in now. Yeah, no, I didn't, I actually didn't finish it.

I probably moved on. I thought it easy. I mean, the bosses are a bit tedious, but it's attrition. The last three levels. Fake gamers. Yeah.

Well, we're going to find out. We're going to find out. Well, so my history with Daryl Dozer was, I was definitely intrigued by it, reading about it ahead of time as this, you know,

game freak making a game that isn't Pokemon. That just excited me, and it kind of called back to their older history with like Pulse Man and shit. So I was interested in playing it, and then it being a, rumbling game-boy game, which is only two of those. That also pulled me

in, but when I bought it, I think I actually only bought it once it was on sale at like a target where they were just dumping all their GBA games to make room for the DS. And I think that's why I played about half of it.

And then I must have had some other DS game I just moved on to instead. It was secretly a great DS game because unlike the GBA, since your DS was new, it wouldn't break the shoulder buttons. Yeah. That was my experience with this game. It broke my shoulder buttons on my old ass

Game Boy Flip. What a great birthday gift I got you. Yeah, so I had to finish. I broke your Game Boy. I believe I finished on my brother's Game Boy because that's good thing with Evan Twins. You both have Game Boy advances. And I was able to finish that way, but my system got in computes then.

Damn, well, apologies in retrospect. But actually, I think I played a bit of your copy way, way back in the day, but I didn't really play that much of it. That explains the third slot. A few levels. Yes, my Wimp slot. but I would dabble with this on ROMs and whatever, but I never would play much of it.

This is the first time I actually finished the game. It's on the Wii U virtual console, by the way. The Wii U for as much of people to make fun of it. It is the only place to buy Game Boy Advance games, legit digitally. And DS games as well. Yeah, which is weird because you can't buy them for the 3DS. You can't buy 3DS games.

You can't buy DS games for the 3DS digitally. It's weird. That would be too easy. Yeah. No, they just, well, because the Wii U, once they realized internally that they were going to shift all original game development to the switch

they just said well can we just dump every ROM we have on this thing that'll count as content right and they did I mean it's the only place to play all those Castlevania games all the GBA ones which are great except for the first one and also the Mario and Luigi games too

yeah yeah doesn't even have gyromite gyromites yeah what are you talking about the game you play with Robbie the Robot I don't think that's no they've they've don't release those at all ever. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I went too retro. I guess you could play it without Rob.

Oh, I did. Yes, but he's not Robbie the Robot. It's Rob. He's a twin brother, not, you know, so that counts as a robot. That's true. You're barely people. But let's talk about Drill Dozer. So released September 22nd, 2005 in Japan.

And February 6th, 2006 in the United States, one of the last Game Boy advanced games in the U.S. And one of two with a rebel feature. I checked, Pokemon, Pimball, does not have a rumble. in the Game Boy Advance version, just a regular card. So, mystery solved. We look to fools if people

have found our conversation before this. If you heard our conversation a week ago, boy, their faces are red. So yes, Warioware Twisted is the only other Game Boy Advance cart

with force feedback slash rumble feature. But so at this point in America, the DS had launched, but it was sort of a joke. It was not until, I think, May of 2006, I believe, in which Brain Age

was what really shot into the stratosphere in terms of mass market appeal. And then all those people started playing other stuff like New Super Meyer Brothers and things like that. I didn't buy DS at launch. I waited like a year into it when they released the electric blue cartridge,

which came out around when the Brain Age appeared as well as the Advance Wars DS game as well. But I was kind of, the GBA. I love the GBA, but I was kind of done with it at this point because Nintendo was done with it. And they weren't making Super NES-style games anymore. Yeah, it existed independently without another platform for three years. So 2001 at launch, in 2004, the DS was brought out on Source Shelf.

And it's kind of hard to remember that the DS started, it was really a bad launch. It was terrible. It had really weak games. I think at Mario 64 was the best game on it. They had a whole bunch of gimmick games kind of exploring the premise that were awful. Pictopals. Some horrible version of Yoshi. Oh, yeah, Yoshi Touch and Go.

Yeah, which was somehow even worse than that gravity one on the GBA. Oh, topsy-turvy. Yeah, like somehow worse than that. All of the DS launch games are now just like iPhone 99-cent games, but back then they were $40. Yeah, and it was like that for a year. And also, if you got one of the early DS, I believe Nick experienced this, the first two ones he got, dead pixels. Oh, yeah. I was lucky.

I waited until the electric blue model, which was like, it wasn't a redesign, but it was the first, the second wave of systems they made. Nothing is worse than a dead pixel because some companies don't even honor that as a return. I got a PSP for the first time in 2010 and there was one dead pixel and I read the warranty. There has to be like eight dead pixels for you to be able to send it back. So it's like, get out your hammer. At least eight dead pixels and three rat turds in there. You can send it back. If not, you're screwed.

But yes, so this game known as Screwbreaker in Japan, a cool name. Drill Dozer has got alliteration and you're literally in a drill dozer. So I think it's the better title. Dozer is kind of a sleepy name. That's true, but it's got so much power. Yeah, I mean, you were never going to get to release a game with Screw in the title from Nintendo at America. The Screw Attack was just the last time they could use that name, that word in anything. So notably, so Game Freak, they developed Pokemon.

Game Freak is also the name of the fanzine that Pokemon creator Satoshi Tijiri made in the 80s and throughout the 90s. That eventually became a game developer and became one of the world's richest game developers via Pokemon. But through the Pokemon years, they had very little opportunities to make non-Pokemon games. I think before this, they made one game for the PlayStation. It's very rare. It's called ClickMedic. No one has heard of it. It's hard to find videos and information about it.

But this is really the first time since the Pokemon franchise started that they were able to make something different. And since then, they've made things like Harmonites, Pocket Car Jockey, Tembo, the Badass Elephant, and Giggerwrecker. And they're all pretty good. They're not super great, amazing games. but they're all charming and fun. Well, they all have the kind of, they have a similar feel to Drill Dozer in that they're not particularly long, but they have a really cool gimmick at the center of it. Like they take Game Freak really isn't to like take a gimmick first and build around that. Drill Dozer is truly that.

It really is, yeah. Like they do as much as they came with that one concept as possible. I have to say, I only played the demo of Pocket Car Jockey and it could be the best non-Pocomon game they've made. I hear it's incredibly addictive, which is why I didn't play it. but it's like it's horse racing but also solitaire so they have some fun concepts to build games around and i've only just heard of giga wrecker but i believe it is a like platformer but it might only be on steam yeah i played a little bit of that uh i wasn't feeling it okay to be okay to be honest i mean i have incredibly high standards for platformers and they've stopped

making good ones since the 90s so i'm a sad person those are those are fighting words yeah what about what about shovel night sir okay shovel night's good okay there you because it pretends to be in the 90s you belong on retronauts uh so the director of this game is is Ken Sugimori, if you're a Pokemon fan, you don't know who that is. He is a huge Cheez-A Game Freak, one of the initial people that started with the fanzine. He was initially the illustrator, but then he went on to be their art guy. So he illustrated the first 151 Pokemon, including true original fat Pikachu. I don't like how they've got him in shape.

He should look like Garfield, frankly. But, yeah, Garfield lost his shape, too. That's true. That's true. But, yes, Ken, Siggymiri. I'm still going out until they recognize Missin-No as the true 152nd Pokemon. boy oh boy this are you like a missing no truther yes this is a truth he is in there it's a glitch it's a glitch it was it was an intentional glitch put there by god intelligent design in the Pokemon well put it there as a test for us uh to uncover but yes

you've all failed this test you did not believe uh Ken Sugimori still I mean you need more than one guy like there is like a team of people there's like a committee of people that make Pokemon now and he is sort of in charge of them but this is the one time he was given director's chair he possibly just wanted to do it once or maybe they thought he earned the right to have his own game at this point because you know, Pokemon was huge. I believe

the maybe they were on the brink of releasing the DS versions of Pokemon so that would be the next year. But it was like huge. It's never not been huge but he is the art guy. The creator of all the original Pokemon, probably some of the most recognizable drawings ever made on the planet Earth. Yes, even

Jinx. Even Jinks. Hey, Mr. Mime. Jinks is worse. It was a reference lost on us or something. I don't know. Let's move on. But, yeah, I love the art design in this game. I also, speaking of art designers that became, like, game directors, it reminds me of the art designer on Akami who then directed El Shaddai. And it's just, it's a very art-first type of game.

And this, too, like, the designs are just so pretty and cute. and they, it feels more like there is a drilldozer anime and then this is the tie-in game to it. You're right, yeah. It feels like an anime first and a game. Some of the tropes are very anime. It's got a looping vibe there. Yeah, yeah, and

a lot of like, uh, the, the lighthearted enemies who become your friends and things like that. Yeah, it's very kidding. Very stock. Yeah, it's, it's very much of the kiddie anime variety. So other people behind this game, uh, music is by Go, Ichinose, and Satoshi noara. And, uh, would it surprise you to know they've only done music for Pokemon

games. But the music in this game is great outside of one song you hear too much, but it would be great if they would stop playing it. Yeah, eventually in the game they do. So at a certain part of the game, not to jump too far ahead, once you power up your dozer to the max amount, which happens in every stage,

one song plays about 20 seconds long and it keeps looping, but it often plays for like 10 minutes at a time. And that is a big mistake. But it's not a deal breaker for me because this is kind of like I'll listen to a podcast while I play Joel Dozer Thank you. Bob says that,

but that's the music that plays on the Retronauts Elevator. Yes. It's also my ringtone and I go to sleep listening to it. So the story

of Drill Dozer is fun and cute. So you play as Jill. Get it, I guess. Jill, Drill. Jill and Drill. Put it together. Oh.

Yes. I just put together now, actually. I was like, why she named Dr. Oh, okay. So she's the daughter of a leader of the bandit gang

known as the Red Dozers. So her dad was ambushed and is currently laid up. And the rival gang stole the, the red diamond, which was a gift from her dead mother. So Jill has to get it back from the Skulkers, another gang of bandits. And also, there are other diamonds for some reason.

I don't know why. I mean, you say, call it Jill and her father. Her father's name is Doug, by the way. Yes, but don't they have to get times call him big boss and her boss? It's a weird metal gear reference. Yeah, I don't know if it's a metal gear reference per se, but it's like, maybe it's like Pacific Japanese terms of like seniority that didn't translate well. I'm just going to say it's metal gear and tried to disperse.

me internet. You heard Chris. You heard Chris. Find out where he lives. I'll tell you after the break. It's also a terrible gang because it has like one child, two adults, one of whom looks like he's not fighting anybody. And then an old man.

It's true. That old man isn't very helpful. I think we would beat them in a rumble. I had to say it's something. Well, they have the drill dozer, which I think kind of trumps most of our fighting abilities. That's true. That thing is pretty rough. You know what it really reminds me is you ought to man.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I get it. I had to look that up at the double check. But yeah, especially the trio, having a trio of goofy thieves really reminds me of Yotterman, which I only know because of Tatsunoku versus Capcom. That's really the only reason I know about a lot of characters is because of that game that they paid a lot of money for and no one bought it. So this gameplay, as Henry said earlier, it's all about like milking the most out of one basic concept and that's drilling. And drilling through things is fun. Games where you dig are fun. destroying things is fun in a game. That's basically all you do in this game. So the way the game works is you're going through a stage, trying to make it to the end. And you basically, your mecca that you're writing in goes through three stages. You started at stage one. And as you

progress through the stage, you go through stages two and three of your gears. And as you upgrade your mech in a stage, you can break through different stuff. You can backtrack and break down things you couldn't before. And you can also do different things with your mech. And when you beat a stage, you go back to level one again. So the entire stage is a very routine progression of finding the gears in order and then breaking down what you need to break down an order and then fighting a boss and that's basically how the gameplay works in drill dozer it's a really interesting choice because you're just so trained in games of like when i earn something you don't take it away i earned it instead having to reset every time you get the fulfillment

of getting the first time you get the fulfillment of getting the first time you're having the third gear and then they just take it away like oh you got to find a third gear every time in these levels. It's especially weird because Game Freaks, main game Pokemon, is about never losing anything you get to the point that you can transfer it through decades of games

of like, no, you're never losing this Pikachu you caught 20 years ago. This game is all about stealing what you've earned. And there's a story reason too, it's just like, yeah, your drill can't, you know, make it and the gears break. They make the gears out of fudge. When you use them for a while, they get hot and melt. Hot fudge comes out of the back of that thing. It's really just your team

engine, you're being shitty. That's another good explanation So the drilling The controls are very simple And they will break your Game Boy, by the way I'm also going to say The controls are wrong Because the bottom button does not jump

In a platformer The bottom button does not jump The bottom button does not jump Which button is the bottom button? The bottom button is the You can read things, you can interact You can look around It does not jump

It's B and Nintendo system But in the game It's A jumps Yeah, that's because Nintendo puts A as the right button Okay, so what's your point. I'm confused. I'm saying it's a platform and it's wrong. Oh, I guess on the

Wii you, it felt right to me. Like, A was jump and that's where it should be. You want you jump to be the bottom button? Yes. Every time. I don't care for this. It is on every game with an Xbox controller. Okay, well, you know what, they mess up the format. In Nintendo World, it got it right. A jump B shoots, and that's the end of the story. And Eleanor

drill. But yes, L&R, you're doing all your drilling. In some cases, it matters what direction you're drilling, because the drill rates it rotates in two different ways. And as you build up your gear, you advance the next level of drilling by tapping the button at a certain point. And when you start drilling, a little UI thing takes up about a third of the screen. It's kind of like a trance. It's less distracting on a small screen, but when you're playing on a big TV, it's like a giant chunk of your TV. It can be eye straining on a small screen. Yeah. I got used to it, but it could have been a smaller meter. It looks very stylish, though.

Yeah. So this is the game that brings racing gear shift in into a platformer. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And it's like, it's all a time. thing. It's sort of like a golf swing meter where you got to hit it to go into the second and third gear at the right time. It's pretty cool. I think it's cool near the end when they start to utilize it more. The beginning is just kind of a chore. But they do some interesting things with it near the end where you have to be in the correct gear to keep moving. Yes, and those could be very frustrating too. Also, they end up taking a lot of time because there's a, you know, there's always a certain amount of time it takes to go from one gear to the next. Yeah. This is before

the triggers were pressure sensitive. Ah, that's true. So I guess it's good for one thing. And that's it. So you really just drill and jump, but they get a lot out of these interactions with various things like enemies, items in the stage. Non-boss enemy combat is pretty artless. You kind of just drill into people. And some enemies you have to attack from behind or the top. It's what you'd expect.

But I love just the amount of things you can drill into and blast yourself out of, and the various platforms that involve you drilling into them or through them. They do everything you could possibly think of you could do with a drill in a platform level. They will do it in drilldozer. Except for you mentioned before, they don't actually dig very often. That is true. But I guess you dig horizontally. You go through blocks, but you never like just aim at the dirt.

There's no dirt in this game. There is no dirt. But I guess drilling. Sometimes there's walls. Yeah. Drilling is just digging, but not downwards. It's digging in front of you. It's not, it's, yeah, I mean, it's not as digging.

You definitely drill a lot, but it's not like Steamworld dig of just all the digging you have to do. Yeah. Not as much of that. is more of a traditional style platformer and just sometimes there's a wall in your way and you got to drill through that they make it there's generally prescribed path yeah yeah there's some secrets you can find too sometimes and sometimes there's a robot regenerating wall in your way which you have you have to drill past at third gear so you can keep persistently hammering it yeah and they make drilling like i said they make it feel really good they make it fun uh it's the the animations

and the sound effects and the rumble this is a rumble game by the way it even works on Wii it makes you feel like the impact of drilling even though you're playing like a GBA game with tiny characters it's just it's conveyed

very well and it's just fun to just in many bosses you're just like locking yourself into a part of the boss and just like vibrating up and down

as you're drilling into an empty hole in them and drill away I think there's a there's an intentionality behind making the main character a little girl and not a

not a guy yes and I and I love the personality to Jill's like character design like you say super simple pixel art but when she gets a new drill and like throws it into the back of her meck and like kind of cackles to the screen yeah she's got like these bouncy pigtails honestly she should have goggles on or being closed with all the drilling that's happening there's some eye damage also like the way sheer head sticks out of like the dozer becomes sort of like this round body for her yeah and it's got a face on it yeah it's a really cool design

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Yeah, well, I'd say they're more like Metroid style because you don't have to activate them. They're there for the bosses, which are highly attrition based. Yeah, they give you a surprising amount of health. I'm just like, why is this happening? But then you get to like the third or fourth boss. You're like, okay, yeah, I get it. Yeah, I need all these tanks just to figure out how to defeat this guy. Also, even though the levels are peppered with like,

crates with wrenches on them. Very few of those actually give you health. Yeah, there's usually one towards the end that will give you back like an entire meter, but they stop doing that towards the end of the game. Yeah. And the upgrade system kind of seems a bit weird until you get really close to the end, or actually the end of the game, because then it reveals that, oh, I can also get new drill bits to take out some of these special blocks that I saw before, but can never interact with. Yeah, so there is some backtracking involved if you want to get the special treasures in the game.

Also, if you want to get to the secret levels, each area has a secret third level. that you have to purchase pretty much after you beat the game. Yeah, and those levels are not fun. Yeah, it's kind of the Yoshi's Island school of making sure you know what the heck you're doing. Yeah, and I mean, we covered Yoshi's Island, but it's like I played one of those and I beat it after like hours. I'm like, I cannot do any more of these. I'm not, you're rewarded by with punishment in that game. It's like, it's a great troll.

It's just like, you got 100% on every level. Now play this. Well, the whole game is easy mode and then hard mode is experience and the secret stuff. I would say the game is kind of easy until the last two or three stages, and it's pretty tough. But I want to talk about... Especially that timer on the... Oh, God, yeah. We can get to that in a second.

But I want to talk about the bosses, which I think are some of the coolest parts of this game. For a bit, I mean, so the bosses are, for the most part, in the beginning of the game, you kind of wait through an attack phase and then they reveal a weakness. But they get a lot more involved later in the game. They play with the idea more. They realize, okay, we can't do any more traditional bosses. So this boss is sort of like a tennis match where you're knocking a missile back and forth and you have to make sure you're drilling in the right direction

and also it's all timing based so you have to make sure the missile gets to the other person before it explodes. It's an interesting variant on whacking the energy ball back to Gannon because they add different elements. Your whack isn't instantaneous. You can choose within a period when to throw it back. Yeah.

Yeah. And as that match goes on, you're giving less and less time in order to get it over there. And it's a hot potato and it's going to go off and you have to just time it right so it goes off on them. Yeah, yeah. It's one of the coolest sights in the game. Also very frustrating.

Some bosses, like the last real boss is a level that you go into and have to disable things into it. And like Chris was saying, it's full of those tunnels in which you have to be in the right gear to go through them or else they shoot you back. And that is, they give you very little time to figure things out. It's sort of like trial and error. Like, okay, I go one on this one and then two on this one and then two on this one, and then two on this one.

You have to kind of know in advance because you're not given a whole lot of time to figure it out. They're like two or three sections. That one section they do correct. where there's lots of bends so you can see what's coming up. The rest of them, you have to pretty much know, or they actually have these little TVs that will show you you need to shift up or shift down, but you have to be pretty cagey to catch that.

And they're pretty hard to read at speed. They're pretty hard to read, but yeah. They introduce that when it's a time section, so it's not like, you know, you have time to figure it out. You have to figure it out now. Yeah, yeah. It's very much like, towards the end of the game, it starts getting in terms of, like,

difficulty, like old school eight bit difficulty where it's like, this is technically finishable and this is a very well-made game, but it's more like you have to learn this. We're not going to give you a lot of chances. Luckily, the continued system is pretty forgiving for 50-50 drill bucks. You can continue, and you continue where you died, not exactly where you died, but if you died on the second stage of a boss, you will start over on the second stage of a boss. That's fair.

Yeah, which is pretty nice. The colorful bosses, they have a lot of personality, too. It reminds me gun star heroes a bit. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I get a real gunstar vibe from this. but um and with all their like different tricks to them too is very gunstar kind of stuff yeah and they're all like huge bosses too with like lots of moving parts uh any other bosses uh nick or chris i'm freaking about that are cool and interesting i think the uh weather control system has a

awesome fight is that like so one of the stages like halfway through you get a um a propeller and it turns into a sort of hovercraft game where you control way differently you can you basically fly around vertically and you can hover and the entire bosses around controlling you your pilot flying around. Yeah, but pretty much if you want to go down, you have to lose your drilling, you have to go down to zero gear and start back up. So it could be a bit difficult,

but essentially the boss starts out as variations on a maze you have to climb because at first the maze is full of smoke, so it's kind of hard to see your way. Then it becomes full of, I believe, energy. No, they have wind that blows you around. Yeah, winds, and you can't touch the edges too. And then later it gets to wazers,

which means you have to remember you can hover, which unfortunately they told you about that, begin the level and it's possible you can forget. Yeah, because you don't have to hover before that. It's something you can do, but you don't have to, but it's easy to forget, like, oh, I can hover. Also, if you're getting real frustrated with the level, it's like, they bring up the text and you're just like

hammering on the... Shut up, I want to beat the boss, yeah. This game test your reading comprehension. Also, it's really tough with the hovering, the flying part, is that when you had to stop your engine to descend, but you don't immediately start going up. There's a bit of acceleration

to getting there. And it very, and it It varies to pay on your gear, so you don't have the tightest control there. There's a lot of nuance to how the flying works. Also, they're swimming in the game, too. So, again, they do everything they came with the drill. So it's like, you can use a drill to drill through things. How about you use the drill for swimming underwater? And that controls a bit like the flying, but you're not, like, viewing your craft from an overhead perspective.

I feel we should make clear that when you're drilling most of time, you have a lot less control over your vehicle. It starts, you can walk out a crawl. You can't jump. You can't steer it. So you have to know what you're doing before you start drilling. You can walk forwards and backwards, but that's about it. At a crawl. Yeah, very slow.

I like the animation of when you're drilling forward to walking back, which you sort of got her like a shoulder up on the scene and is looking behind her. It's really cool. Like you're backing up a car or something. Yeah. But we're talking about, so this game, I think it's pretty reasonable. The last few levels are super, super unforgiving. That boss we talked about earlier is one of the features of this game that I feel like is a little unfair. But the last level, a lot of this timing-based stuff, I feel like even with safe states, when I just, I want to get to the end for the podcast, I just want to save state my way through.

Like, even with safe states, I'm like, wow, I had two seconds left to go. And I was like safe-stating. Like, okay, I did a perfectly safe state. I did a perfectly safe state. It's like, you really need to like learn this. That last time section on the rocket drill, if you're safe state, you can really easily get yourself on a corner where you cannot beat it. It's true. Yeah.

I mean, I was like through trial and error, I was like, okay, this is the way I, I go now, I'll save state. And, like, I would figure it out. But even with all of those safeguards built in, like, if you took out the safe states, it'd be like the optimal route. It was just like, I had three seconds left for this. So you really have to be on the top of your game. And then there's one part of this final level where you're escaping.

And it's like, you have to do it perfectly because, like, an explosion is chasing you. Well, they stop you at a wall that's impassable. And you have to keep on trying to drill into it because eventually it'll just open a millisecond before you need to get out of there. Yeah. But if you give up, you're just toast. Yeah, and in that case, I'm like, okay, what do I do? But I was like, oh, yeah, it's just very hard.

Yeah, I died several times thinking there was some gimmick or something to get through it, but it really is just hold down the button. Yeah, and it's like pixels behind you. But what I think is really funny is that, no, spoilers, by the way. I'm going to talk about the final boss of this game where, so you, the final, so you drill through the base of the boss and the base crumbles and the boss comes out. Giant mobile base that's crushing the city. Yeah, it's really cool.

And the boss comes out And sort of like a Dr. Robotnik Kupa style like little floating UFO thing It's very Dr. Wiley Because he's done this in a couple games Where he shows up as like an alien dude They all have to fake you out They all the same like personal like egg UFO

That I believe I just saw a tweet I think Friza invented this Yeah that was the theory That Friza first appeared in like 90 in the comics And then it was 91 for Bowser I think it was 89 in the comics maybe Yeah But yes

But yes he appears in this UFO And at this point, your drill dozer is broken. The drills fall off of it. And all you can do as this little girl in a drill dozer is like wind up and do like a little wimpy punch. And basically the boss is a full health meter. You're like, well, how many times I have to hit him? You hit him once. Yes, but it's very tricky.

Yeah. You have to be patient or having incredible time in. I found it was not as difficult as everything that preceded that fight. That was the one continue I used in the whole game. Wow. Wow. But yes, I think it's funny. it's just like oh boy this boss fight but the last boss

it's a little girl punching a guy in the face and he immediately like he falls to the ground his helmet breaks and he runs away crying he is flying into the fist it really should break her arm I agree but I like how it's like that is the big fight that's hilarious ending yeah I think too it's another

well there's so much personality to it that they really get out in a lot of dialogue like more there's you know old Mega Man games that this is kind of similar to it didn't have that much dialogue in it but they they take a lot of moments to really have conversations between Jill and the rest of her team. Yeah, there's lots of like little two sentence codec conversations that have between them.

They're not overbearing or anything. But there's also like what I thought, I thought they were setting up more levels. And I was like, I just wanted this to be over so I could podcast about it. But in the ending, these two villains you don't see, you haven't seen in a few levels. They show up and steal two of the four diamonds and go away. And I was like, oh, do I fight them in like level seven? But no, it's sort of just sequel bait. That never happened.

They never got to make droll dozer two. And those weird characters only exist so you can steal useful items from them. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Because the first time you get the water power, the second time you get the air propeller. I forgot. Yeah, yeah.

They only exist to steal from. And we should clarify, these are two old women heads popping out of some sort of flying contraption. They're sort of like the witches. Everything's a me. They're kind of like the witches. They're kind of like the witch's in the Aquarius. It's true. It could be just heads.

That's why they're stealing the immortality diamonds. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. That diamond is getting that one guy immatria. It works pretty well until it breaks, which you make it break because apparently overuse. It just needed one girl fist away from getting completely destroyed. And the last thing you see in the game, I believe, is you see the red diamond and you see like the ghost of Jill's mother waving to you or something like that.

Yeah, that's a creepy weird reveal where it's like, oh, this diamond I'm looking for, apparently my mother's in it. Whoop, too, no. Or maybe her ghost. And it can make robot sentient. Yeah. Oh, it was her mother and the robot all along protecting her, just like Ava. Wow. Actually, there's a big Ava reference in, like, the last level, the enemy base is drilling down.

And it's, so your dad, Doug, is laid up in bed. It's like, it's going to reach Doug. At the bottom of you, yeah. So. I know, that's 27 layers deep. You are, when crazy with this base. You have to, you have to disable the enemy base that's drilling towards Doug before it hits Doug. So it's very Ava-like.

Yeah, that is exactly. Yeah. No, I mean, it's a mecha show in general, but that kind of like, preventing it digging through multiple layers to an underground base that's that's exactly a central dogma was about to hit listen to what a cartoon so I think like after playing this

I feel like this you could just do an HD remake of this and just put it on Steam it feels outside of some difficulty issues it feels like if this came out it never came out in 2006 people like oh what a fun indie platformer this is great I think like just like the messenger of recent memory and shovel night people would accept it on those terms and I feel like

it does a lot of the same things that modern indie platformers do in that it finds one gimmick and just exploits it to the fullest extent before it gets old like how are you going to swing over this thing well why don't you drill into a hole and it'll carry over yeah how are we supposed to lower this drawbridge well if you

drill this screw in one direction it'll go up and then you get over there or the uh I really love the technique of having the um the different tunnels and like one is the right drip one is the left one's the right drill to hunt a mole

Well, I almost slipped up there, Henry. Yeah, red is right and blue is left. Remember that. It works in real life, too. I really think the one thing that'd be different, if this were a modern game, is that way more of these, like, jumps would kill you if you fell. Why is that?

I'm confused. Just nowadays, more games are made to be, like, you know, brutal mass core. That's true. I guess they could turn up the massive core stuff that actually make the checkpoints more frequent. Maybe. I'm not saying it'd be better. I'm just saying, like, a lot of times in this game,

you know, if you screw up, you'll fall back a little ways. Yeah. Whereas in modern games, I think they'd just kill you. If they ever bring this back, I hope they don't make it harder. Well, this had a real,

they were selling this for a Pokemon-aged audience, too. This wasn't for the mega-hardcore, and that was what they say, the later levels. Well, did anyone know those people existed then? Yeah, that's true. They didn't. I don't think Nintendo still knows those people exist. The hardest stages they make in Mario games

are only for people who have beaten, every single other thing you can do it. And by heart, it's like, well, this is where the game should have started. In a lot of cases. Like with Super Mario 3D Land, they've gotten a lot better about it since then. You're a 3D Land, hate it. I despise that game. I never finished the quote-unquote easy levels.

What are you talking about? That's World, you think. Yeah, 3D World. Get your facts straight before you slander me on the air. So yes. Nah, no, everyone slanders on there. I know. Viewers, listeners, do it too on Twitter.

So any other final thoughts about this game? I think it's a fun little treat. It's not completely amazing, but I had a lot of fun playing it because there's nothing else like it, really. And I like when Gabe Freak gets to do this because they have the privilege of just being like, we made Pokemon, we're making this now, okay? Get out of the way. I think Harmonite is still my favorite of their not Pokemon games, post-Pokemon.

But this is right up there, and I think it got a raw deal in that it was released on the GBA when Nintendo was not going to advertise it for shit. It should have been a DS game for sure. They should just port it to it. It also has been called from the makers of Pokemon. Yeah. And instead, it just kind of got dumped. It got dumped on the GBA.

And then the next time it's available, it's just dumped onto the Wii U, which nobody was playing either. Like the least bought Nintendo system ever. Like it should be, well, they'd really have to do a lot to make it. It could work on the Switch. It's just a port, but they, they, they need HGIFI. What is the Switch's retro plan? It's like, you get Mario 3. Oh, good.

No, not even. that right now it's just arcade games like oh i thought about like i thought they're like monthly plan they're coming up with where it's like you get these two retro games oh yeah and like they were they're openly saying Mario 3 i mean Mario 3 is great but I bought Mario 3 like four times

I'm probably it's seven times now let's see in terms of digitally I bought it for guys piracy exists I know that but um no I'm pro piracy by the way but uh I bought it for the Wii I bought it for the 3DS and for the Wii so I bought it three times

uh let's see NES Super N-ES on All-Stars. I'm just kind of digitally. GBA, oh, okay, never mind. But after you buy GameA time, it's like, yep, steal it. Like, just go ahead. It's fine. It's fine.

But, yeah, I hope the Switch thing works out. Maybe Drill Dozer will make it. God, release a lot of, like, these games are not being played in any capacity because they were late GBA games. No one really knows about them. Probably the more expensive carts. Oh, for sure, yeah. But, yeah, Drill Dozer recommended by all of us.

Check it out. I don't know if you could have made a DS game, though, just because of the big hardware you need to make it rumble. Uh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, there wouldn't be a rumble packs for DS, like, uh, on Metroid pinball, man. Oh, there's a separate rumble pack. Yep. Wow. Yes, Rumble pack. Three games ever used it. What a waste of time. But yes, uh, yes, we approve a drill dozer. It's retro knots approved. I feel like what holds it back, though, is to get to the really cool drill stuff, that's like halfway through the game. So you have to go through, you know, some more standard platform before it shows what it's really great at.

I still had fun with those stages, but you're right. And then it gets too hard. But I feel like, oh, Overall, like, if you were to... That's what it gets the adequate level of hard. For Chris Daniel, maybe. But if you were to melt... I'm talking all tough, but, you know, I can't play the Super Meat Boys, so I'm not that tough. If you were melt... I'm 90s tough.

You're 90s tough. If you were to melt this game down until, like, a slurry, it would be acceptable. So that's my evaluation. And thank you for listening. And ask, go into GameStop and ask for it right now. And they'll throw you out and they'll sell you a funco pop on the way. But yes, thanks for listening, folks. This has been an episode of Retronauts.

And in case you didn't know, we are funded by Patreon and perhaps a listener who is like you, if not you, and if you want to fund us, I'll tell you what, buddy, for $3 a month if you go to patreon.com slash Retronauts. You can get every episode of Retronauts a week ahead of time, and with no ads, and at a higher bit rate, it is the ultimate ideal way to listen to Retronauts, and you will get a code that you drop into whatever you use to listen to podcast, and it will download our bonus stuff, just like it downloads your normal podcast, so you'll be ahead of the game. You'll know what we're talking about a week ahead of time.

You can ruin our opinions for other people who can't. give us $3 a month and that equals out to like 50 cents per podcast. I think I'm worth 50 cents per hour. Honestly, come on people. So check it out. patreon.com slash retronauts and everybody else. Nick and Chris, you're a special guest. Nick,

this is your first retronauts podcast. Hopefully not your last. Where can we find you? By the way, Nick Daniel, I'm bearing the lead here. Nick Daniel does all of my cover art for my episode, so he'll have drawn the cover art for this one and it better be good. So Nick, please tell people where you can find you and support you. And I know you've

Patreon, too. Yes, I'm a Patreon. It's LK.K. Comic. And also, that's for my webcomic, Lachkey Kingdom. Also is available at latchkey kingdom.com. It's about kids in a fancy setting with no adult supervision. It's kind of like Zelda. It did start as a

Zelda comic. Yes, well, we don't want to scaring people off. Nintendo might be listening to this podcast, Nick. There's no sex. No sex. But, I mean, if you want, you could imagine the characters having sex if you want. Up front. No sex. Where can we find you on Twitter, Nick?

That's the button to make Sonic and Tales kiss. On Twitter, I'm a psych with a 5. That's P5YCHH, and I take commissions there at my, the pin tweet as the details for that. Yes. And stop confusing Nick's art for Jeremy's art. Yes. That's an order. You can hire me to make art like that.

If you do one thing, do that. Don't go to his Patreon. Don't go to his comic. Just stop that. Give him free praise. So, Chris, how about you? I don't have much of a presence online. I have my Twitter, which is Chris with the CH, G. Daniel, and there I post sometimes some video game things.

Sometimes I retweet political things and don't do too much. My day job, I am a programmer for video games at high voltage software. Done, you know, games like conduit, Saints Row, Gad out of hell, ported to Mortal Kombat, number nine. Harvey Birdman Yeah Harvey Birdman A million years ago Maybe someday we'll talk about that on Retronauts because it is 10 years old

Yeah Damage Core Which is a great VR game And what I'm working on now I can't say If you have If you have six figures a year to give me You can maybe hire me And get me to work on your games

You heard it I think three bucks a month To give the Retronauts is more reasonable I think $100,000 to give to me Is more reasonable You can put characters in the Lachie Kingdom for as low as a dollar a month

Well, wow. Don't do that. Whatever you do, don't do that. And Henry has a fabulous offer for our listeners, if you haven't heard enough. Well, look, if you like podcasts with me and Bob on them, you can get your fill of those at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, where me and Bob go through a different episode of the Simpsons every week in chronological order. Deep into season eight are we? And you can hear every episode a week ahead of time and at free if you sign up for $5 a month at Patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, where you'll also hear. early and ad-free episodes of What a Cartoon

Where me and Bob do the same thing For a different cartoon each week That includes anime, that includes Batman That includes King of the Hill So many cool things And lastly, on there we have tons of exclusives On the Patreon, like interviews With folks who've worked on The Simpsons for 30 years

Like Mike Reese and Mark Kirkland You'll learn so much if you just sign up today Patreon.com slash talking Simpsons Thank you, Henry, and you're on Twitter too? Oh yes, and I'm I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-R-Y-G. I can't believe I forgot to promote my Twitter. Always be on Twitter, folks.

Always. Never log off. It's never wrong. All the opinions are great. All the takes are hot and good. All opinions represent your employer. You, the listener, even mine. This date, none of us have been suspended from Twitter.

It's true. So thanks for listening, folks. We'll see you Monday with a brand-new full-length episode of Retronauts. Goodbye. Why Walker's Reddened Mazda? Because my life is busy enough and I don't want to spend all day buying a car. Paul went to Walkers. Why will you? Get a 2019 Mazda CX5 Sport for just 25-442.

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The Mueller Report. I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House, a special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand, that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral.

Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officers started showing. shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue.