Mr. Driller
Mr. Driller brings to WonderSwan Color one of the most addictive ideas Namco came up with at the turn of the millennium. The player controls the driller Susumu, boring ever deeper below the surface through a mass of colored blocks. The rules are simple and treacherous at the same time. Adjacent blocks of the same color merge and disappear when touched, but everything above them immediately collapses downward, so a careless drill can bury the hero. On top of that, oxygen keeps running out, replenished only by collecting capsules scattered in the depths, and the game constantly forces you to choose between the safe, slow route and a risky headlong descent for another breath.
This combination produces a pace that puzzle games usually lack. Mr. Driller isn't played calmly, it's played in mild panic, because every second spent deliberating means less oxygen. At the same time, it's a game where you can visibly improve. An experienced player reads the columns ahead, knows where to create a chain that clears half the screen, and when instead to leave blocks alone so as not to create a trap overhead. The color display of the WonderSwan Color is an absolute necessity here, since the whole game rests on distinguishing shades, and the handheld version, thanks to its short descents, fits sessions of a few minutes better than many other ports.
The original came from arcade machines and quickly spread to home and handheld platforms, so the version for Bandai's console was part of a larger brand push. At the time it helped show that the WonderSwan Color wasn't just a colored variant of the same hardware, but a console capable of hosting titles built on fast visual perception as well. Today Mr. Driller is still eminently playable, because its rules haven't aged a single day. It's the kind of game where you tell yourself "one more try" and only realize an hour later. Alongside the flood of serious action titles, it also stands out with disarming humor, since the main hero treats drilling into the depths as perfectly ordinary work, and the game happily pokes fun at its own desperate situation.
Game 20 of 27 for Bandai WonderSwan
The same title elsewhere (2)
The 1999 Dreamcast version is a faithful port of the arcade original: full colors, clear graphics and music matching the arcade arrangements give players a good view of what awaits deeper in the shaft. The 2000 WonderSwan Color port had to adapt everything to the handheld's small screen — lower resolution means a shorter view ahead, which noticeably hurts comfort in a game built around planning your next drill move, and a simpler sound chip replaced the richer melodies with plainer tones. The upside is that Mr. Driller could now be played anywhere on the go, but for the experience closest to the arcade original, the Dreamcast version is the one to pick.
