You know, there's something special about having a notification: "Thoughts on Mr. Driller" pop up on you desktop. It's like: "Stop whatever it is you're doing. Now let's talk about mr. Driller."
I like that the player character in Mr. Driller is the son of the guy from Dig Dug, who you can unlock in the later games and digs like a complete speed demon. Fun times with this gem on the DS way back.
I've always loved this series even though I'm horrible at it, which I feel is a rare and unique opinion to have on a game. Usually people hate games they're not good at, but this one is different for me. I love the art style, the visuals, the simplicity of the concept, and as you said, the addicting drive to get deeper. It's very difficult to actually reach the very bottom of a stage, but it's also very fun to keep trying.
From my experience it's annoyingly hard to get people to give puzzle games a try. The flow state you talk about, where the logic in the game becomes pure instinct on your end is the most satisfying feeling a game has ever given me and only two genres, very simple ones, have ever gotten me to that point. Puzzle games and STGs. The moment where you lose that buffer for information processing is like this incredible high. Something like Tetris 99, Cotton 2, Twinkle Star Sprites, Money Idol Exchanger tap into it superbly. It's just a lot harder to sell people on than talking about how badass you can be.
I think this is at least partially to do with what I say at the start of the video. People like to have an avatar rather than manipulating things from afar, it makes the game more comprehensible I think. Mr. Driller might be a good gateway game for this reason.
@@normmcnormalson6952 Cause he didn't want to start every video the same way anymore, he said he'll still do it for commentaries though as can be seen in his Viewtiful Joe one
He really needs to play Downwell. It's a fantastic little game and is literally only descent further and further down a well to see how deep you can get
@@_rykos oh damn you're right. I'm a dumb dumb Well let me suggest he play Exit the Gungeon. The sequel to Enter the Gungeon, obviously. It just came out, and it's not as deep a game as the first one, and it involves climbing up wells rather than going down them, but it seems like exactly the kinda thing he'd like.
I never thought of it that way in regards to controlling a character. In Tetris, I thought that the character I controlled was the grid itself in which I could manipulate subparts to achieve my goal
And now all we have to do is wait until June 25th before it arrives on steam. Too bad it's not on mobile platforms. It looks like a perfect game for a phone/tablet.
Yeah I went on the US switch store (I'm in the UK) and it had a new Mr Driller, so I'm excited about that. Also I keep trying to find info on grhe new Space Invaders Invincible Collection which I really really want, and it's already out in Japan, but there's no news whatsoever about a western release. And I mean it can't need tons of translation to English, it's space invaders for christ sake. But yeah the newer modern space invaders games look so cool, much like the new Pacmans that were essentially the same gameplay but just everything looked much cooler Maybe I'll just go on the Japanese store and buy the Japanese version. And the Japanese release of the new Mr Driller. Because it'll come out first and it's not a text heavy game, you wouldn't need to know Japanese to play it, surely. Unless there's some kinda story mode
@@duffman18 other than the original the only one I played is space Invaders extreme which was so awesome. I hope that's in the new collection but I'll still buy the collection cause it sounds cool!
I love this game! It's so addictive! About the commentary about controlling a character, I think that the ideia that in a videogame you control a character has become such a common place that it feels mandatory and I miss more abstract experiences like tetris where gameplay is not about controlling a character...
I only played Mr. Driller once in my entire life and that was well over a decade ago... Yet when I saw that Mattewmastosis uploaded a video titled "Thoughts on Mr. Driller" I knew to make watching it my top priority.
Aye, I know that feeling. Thanks for the Ys reviews by the way. I know that this isn't really the place to say that but you ended up getting me to marathon the series to completion over the last couple of months lol.
Thanks for talking about this game! I have a lot of nostalgia for it since I watched my brother play it a lot when I was younger. Something that I would like to add to the analysis of the game is that it is a lot of fun to watch imo. There's something strangely hypnotizing about watching someone dig deeper and deeper, which is an image I still remember to this day despite having never touched the game myself.
Another hidden gem uncovered! Love the smaller videos Matthew, they're more than enough to tide over between your larger projects. I hope these let you feel like you're allowed to take some time off!
This game was originally gonna be called "Dig Dug 3" plus the main character of this game (Susumu Hori) is the son of Dig Dug who has a name (Taizo Hori) and is playable in the later titles
There was a game with controllable character who 'drilled' the earth and collected diamonds, its called Boulder Dash and it was huge in previous century. It did spawn quite a few copycats and inspired whole bunch of games, probably Mr. driller included.
Lovely video! I enjoy the "stream of conscious" format of being able to get everything out that you want to say about the game all while being within the realm of just one playthrough. It might have been interesting from an editing point of view to have also ended the video right when the player character dies. Overall, great stuff. I'm always impressed at the amount of games that lie just beneath the surface of exposure, and I'm glad that you have such a passion for providing a bit of that exposure!
@gibbdude _That's fair. I think I just meant it in a "continuous flow" kind of a way where he expresses points linking to one another without having a harsh break in between them. As well the video itself even fits within a larger flow of short videos elaborating on smaller details that would often be taken for granted. I didn't really consider the literary critique connotation. It's been quite a while since I've done anything like that, so I apologize for the confusion. I hope that clarifies things a bit. _I like your profile avatar by the way.
I adore Namco's output from this era. This game, Tekken 2 +3, Ridge Racer Type 4, even Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis, they all had this fantastic sense of style and brilliant music.
Local arcade had a Mr. Driller 2, it was a lot of fun once you got to understand how it works. Sadly since it was in japanese and not a rhythm game no one played it and they took it off the floor to make space for other games.
Hey Matt- would love to see tour thoughts on "a short hike". I played it recently and loved it so much. A very nice exploration game with some really nice bits of simple design thrown in
I saw the thumbnail and instantly thought of Rockman. It's weird how the old games keep being re-sold but not re-made. The last one you uploaded was reminiscent too.
I'm glad your changing it up, doing something new. Not to say that you were getting stale or anything, far from it! It is just from what I hear in a lot of the streams this format is something you have been looking forward to. Stay happy Matthew, you deserve it!
The avatar thing is probably a big contributing factor as to why guitar hero blew up. I know that I enjoyed unlocking new characters, guitars, and arenas to play in. If you were just strumming a plastic guitar with notes flying down with an abstract aesthetic like most rhythm games before it I don't think it would've been as popular.
Ever take a look at the Dig-Dug game on DS that uses the Mr. Driller version of the character? It has this map of hilariously low-poly kaiju to contextualize the arcadey screens. I enjoy seeing devs try to adapt arcadey gameplay to consoley context.
I always really liked the DS game, excited for the Switch game that's hitting soon! Simple can be good as long as they find a way to keep it satisfying and Mr. Driller really delivered on that for me.
Looks like a fun game, had the rom for the second game lying around for some reason for ages but haven't tried it yet. On the topic of blocky puzzle games, anything to say on Lumines? Definitely one of the harder puzzle games I've played but it's very rewarding to chain together huge block combos.
I'm not great at the likes of Tetris or Puyo Puyo but I've played a lot of these types of games at this point, including Lumines and I think it's strange you'd say it's one of the harder ones when I think it's one of the easiest. I could even loop all the way through the tracklist in the first game. Just goes to show that some of them worm their way into your mind easier than others. Anyway, I enjoyed my time with Lumines back in the day but I'd probably rather spend the time with Tetris or Puyo Puyo now. It's a nice little game but I think a single play can drag on too long. The way the music bar sweeps across the screen is interesting though.
To butt in cuz I love the game: Lumines is one of the first games I cared about scoring in, but it frustrated me. You can get locked out of perfect clears/one color clears past a certain point (or at least, cleaning up the board becomes very inefficient in comparison to combos). Maybe it's on purpose for the game to have that arc from slow to manic, but sometimes I'm only in the mood for one or the other and they don't weave together. Lumines is one of the hardest puzzle games just for what it asks the player to do to unlock all the avatars, like getting a perfect run of the Vs. CPU mode (brutal!).
Mr. Driller G is an interesting follow up console release of the series, it’s Japanese only yea, but definitely has some intriguing gameplay twists in its story campaign.
So, I never played this game, but I got so entranced by the descent that I felt really sad when I realized the video was ending. So, should prolly try this
Looking back at this video, i think mr driller is the prototype for the "get the furthest you can" game type Games like jetpack joyride and flappy bird for example. The biggest score of these games is getting as far as possible while avoiding hazards, rather than an arbitrary points system.
I discovered this game a couple months ago and have been grinding it relentlessly. My RU-vid recommended today: SOMEBODY JUST HAPPENED TO MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT THIS 20 MINUTES AGO. We really do live in a simulation...
I enjoyed your speculation on how controlling a character makes a puzzle game more interesting. Mr. Driller wasn't really the first puzzle game to do this, though. Wario's Woods released in 1994 and has you control a Toad at the bottom of the well of falling bombs and monsters to physically manipulate them. I first played the game as a kid, and it was far more instantly fascinating to me than other well based puzzle games just because you could control an actual character on the screen
Hey Matthew, have you ever played La-Mulana? If yes, I would like to hear your thoughts on it. If no, I highly recommend it. It is not an easy game to get into, but it's very rewarding and the world building is amazing.
the sequels to this game get wild, g and drill land really pull a lot out of the simple core mechanics and experiment in tons of different ways without overburdening things too much
What's your opinion on the DS game? I've been thinking of buying it but then there's the Switch port of the Japanese exclusive Gamecube game coming soon.
i haven't really played the ds game but it came out after the initial team pretty much disbanded, so i don't think it adds very much? drill land is easily the best and pretty much the finale of the early mr. driller games, it adds tons of stuff, has some really flashy presentation and amazing music, and has a pretty charming story mode. i actually didn't know they were porting it to switch, but it's easily the one i'd recommend, though i'm sad g isn't getting much love cause that game does a lot of interesting stuff too.
You mentioned the reactive controls and it randomly reminded me of--before the Roguelite boom was kicked off by Rogue Legacy--there was a small movement around 2005-06 to mainstream the roguelike genre on the DS with games like Izuma the Unemployed Ninja and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and their ilk. For some reason they always had movement animation that no matter how limited always made the games feel sooooooo sluggish compared to the more proper indie roguelikes I was playing e.g. Nethack and IVAN. Mr. Driller's movement might have been a good blueprint for how those games should have moved. After all, it's got a lot of the same snap that later entries like Necrodancer had, and we could have had a roguelike boom some five years earlier. That would have been neat to see.
