Back during my days as an EB Games employee, I didn’t even know of Mr. Driller’s existence until it came out for the Playstation 1 and Dreamcast. As an ongoing joke me and my coworkers would reserve copies of games for each other that we had no interest in, and when I saw my reservation for that, my buddy said he decided on it because it sounded like a possible “adults only” title. I’ll let your imagination run with that one but really, anything can be turned into a double entendre these days.

Anyways, Mr. Driller is very much *not* an adults only title and is a fun little arcade-y puzzle game where you play as this little guy who has to drill these little blocks as deeply as possible without running out of oxygen or getting crushed by the many blocks he’s attempting to dodge. They kinda look like those sour warhead cubes – which by the way are delicious and a wonderful way to destroy the enamel in your teeth.

So this newest game is called Mr. Driller: Drill Land and it’s actually a re-release of a 2002 Gamecube game that never made it to the states. Being that I just don’t import like I used to, I’m going to treat this like a brand new title. The whole thing is basically the world’s best drillers going to an amusement park that’s deep under the surface of the earth. Strange things are afoot behind the scenes and as you progress through each set of levels more of the story opens up. The presentation is bizarre but adorable and what little animation is during the cutscenes is handled surprisingly well with the characters still looking around and emoting while talking.

Being that the game is set up like an amusement park, it’s divided into several themed areas. You’ve got your haunted house, hidden temple, space themed area, OG Mr. Driller land called “world tour”, and a Tower of Druaga themed land, which is just an awesome nod to that particular game as it’s another well known Namco property. Each game has its own set of objectives except for World Tour, which is a pseudo-parody of “It’s a Small World” at Disney with different countries and such, but it’s otherwise the same gameplay as the original game. The one change to this is that each character you’re using has different proficiencies, like Puchi the dog being able to climb 2 blocks instead of just 1 like the others, things like that.

The other themed lands, however, bring an added layer to Mr. Driller that really was needed at this point because just releasing another game without any real changes would’ve gotten stale really fast. So in the Drindy Adventure land, for example, you have to collect idols and dodge boulders that roll downward once you’ve cleared a path. The space land let’s you touch question blocks to get a random item that helps or hurts you. Tower of Druaga land is the most unique in that there’s actual enemies to fight who have health bars, and you have an HP meter. You’ll have to actually collect the key at the bottom of room, warp to another area and search out the exit in order to fight Druaga and then win. Lastly you’ve got the haunted mansion that has you using holy water to take out ghosts and clearing each 100m usually results in listening to a ghost scream her ass off.

If you want a break from playing the game and for some reason don’t want to turn it off, there’s also a…parade that you can watch? I have no use for parades personally, and this one somehow struck me as even more boring and useless than a real one. But you can speed it up or slow it down with the analog sticks so…there. Maybe there’s a secret I’m not aware of, I don’t know. I thought it was stupid.

There’s 2 difficulties, casual and classic, and you’ll definitely lose a lot more often on classic mode as it’s basically tuned with the original games. In either difficulty if you’re having problems, then there’s several vendors in town, one of which will sell you items to help you on your way. Barriers to save you from getting smooshed, extra lives, faster drilling, things like that. The rest of the money can be used to purchase stamps and other collectibles, and then there’s also access to the soundtrack, cutscenes and more.

There’s a lot of times where I’d start with all my lives, make it to the last couple sections of a level and end up losing all my lives in a very short span over what felt like dumb luck.

Speaking of sounds and music – the game’s cutscenes are voiced in Japanese with subtitles. Even with listening to a language I have no understanding of outside of things shouted in Street Fighter, the characters’ banter is lively and fun to listen to. The music is a mix of new content and old – it was a really nice surprise to hear the theme from the original game back in all its glory. The rest of the music is really well done with each theme suiting its respective land really well and there’s also fun new versions of the classic songs you’ll hear in the menus.

The game also has a multiplayer mode – it’s basically the classic Mr. Driller where you’re racing up to 3 other players to the bottom, or you can battle it out for medals. It’s hectic and a great time.

So, I’ve got a few problems with the game – some of which are really problems with Mr. Driller in general since at its core it plays the same as it did 20 years ago. First off, I can’t stand playing with the joy-cons and had to use a pro controller. There’s something about the analog on the joy-cons that just doesn’t feel accurate, and I’m not saying that because I’m terrible at the game, which is totally true, but playing on the pro controller just felt tighter to me. This is a game where you’re switching on the fly between plotting a safe and short course to the bottom of the level, and just franticly trying to fly down as quickly as possible as other blocks from above are falling down. There’s times where you just don’t have a lot of time to think, and control is vital. The game felt great on the dualshock and even the dreamcast controller, and it feels better on the switch pro controller, but the joy-cons themselves just didn’t feel good to me and there was a big difference in my success rate when I switched.

On top of that, I wish the controls in general were just tighter and I’ve always felt this way. When you’re trying to drill downward and the game doesn’t recognize your input because you’re stuck over 2 blocks at once, then that time you’re trying to nudge the analog in your desired direction is the difference between life and death. So personally, I think the character should snap to blocks a little more to prevent this. There are lots of times where I know I would’ve lived had I not have to fight with the controls in that situation.

Also the randomness of the blocks can be frustrating at times. There’s a lot of times where I’d start with all my lives, make it to the last couple sections of a level and end up losing all my lives in a very short span over what felt like dumb luck. You can definitely chalk that up to lack of skill as well, but I’ll just tell you now that there’s times where you’ll be really close to victory only to lose and want to break your controller. Buying items certainly helps with this but then you only get credit for clearing the level and not getting your score to count.

Lastly, and this isn’t a big deal at all but you don’t ever really find out how much money you’re getting whether you win or lose. Like I had no idea I even got anything for losing until I went to the item shop to buy some stuff to help me with my next try at one of the levels.

Leading up to the game’s release here in the states, Mr. Driller’s been on my mind a lot as I was wondering what they could do to freshen up the gameplay and this was really the best way to do it. This has a lot of content in it and is a fun, challenging puzzle game that’ll test your ability to think on your feet (and also your patience) and the different goals in each land gave the game a breath of fresh air that was needed after all this time. I think fans and newcomers will enjoy this and for $30 at launch I also think I got my moneys’ worth out of it.