DROS

When I was a kid I enjoyed both action and puzzle games, though I didn’t play many that combined the two, at least on the NES. The closest I can think of that did would likely be Kickle Cubicle, Boulderdash, and Adventures of Lolo, where completing the stages had some puzzle elements while you avoided enemies, but I still considered them more puzzle than action titles. Today I’m taking a look at DROS, which on the surface looks to have a decent mix of puzzle and action elements.

In DROS you play as a little slime creature called Little Dros and a human bounty hunter named Captain.  Little Dros has escaped captivity and needs a “shell” to inhabit in order to survive while she escapes the tower of a rogue Alchemist, while Captain wishes to retrieve a magical flute that the Alchemist uses to control the other DROS in the tower. However, the Captain has his arm cut off and is left for dead until Little Dros comes across him. Seeing a new shell, Little Dros inhabits Captain, helps retrieve and reattach his arm, and the two work together as they make their way up the tower to confront the Alchemist.

DROS is a 3D isometric action/puzzle game in which the core gameplay mechanic involves being able to separate Little Dros from Captain to explore parts of each area and help Captain progress. Little Dros can double jump, go through small pipes and holes in the wall, and activate switches that Captain can’t reach as he can’t jump due to his armor. Little Dros is defenseless on her own, but Captain can use his sword to attack and defend against the other DROS that are trying to kill them. Due to Captain’s situation though, he can’t move if Little Dros isn’t with him so in each stage Captain and Little Dros will have to work together and separately to get to the elevator at the end and proceed through the tower.

Throughout each stage you’ll find a couple of types of items to collect, the most important of these are little yellow orbs called Prima. Your health bar has five segments and you lose one when you take a hit. You can spend Prima to restore your health at the rate of about five Prima per health segment. If Little Dros gets hit or she or Captain fall off the stage, you’ll be put back on solid ground with no damage, so only getting hit by enemies seems to do any damage to Captain. If he happens to run out of health, you have to rapidly press a button to move a slider over enough to bring him back to life. The catch is that each button press uses one Prima so it’s definitely worth it to make sure Captain’s life is topped up. That is, unless you’re going for a certain stage goal.

Aside from just trying to clear each stage, there are three to four goals you can try to complete. These are collecting bloodstones, finding a Moderat piece, clearing the stage in a certain amount of time, and leaving the stage with a certain amount of Prima remaining. You don’t need to do all four in a single run of a stage, as you can replay a stage as many times as you wish. While I wasn’t able to complete every goal in each stage yet, I didn’t notice anything outside of getting some in-game lore for a couple of the goals, or at least for getting all goals in a single stage. If you wish to try to get everything, you’ll have to do some exploring and careful platforming as a lot of the bloodstones and Moderat pieces are in very precarious positions.

DROS takes place across five parts of the tower with several stages in each part. Each stage isn’t just “get to the end”; as stated earlier, DROS is an action/puzzle game and the path to the exit in each stage requires different solutions from other stages. With Captain unable to jump, a lot of the puzzle solving requires Little Dros to separate from him and find ways to let Captain proceed, while you’ll occasionally need to use Captain for tasks that require a bit more strength. I like this as it makes the stages feel unique, and there’s a bit of a heightened sense of difficulty since Little Dros can’t fight the DROS she comes across so she has to sneak by them undetected. If Little Dros is spotted or if she falls off the stage and “dies”, she just gets put back into Captain and the stage continues. The only way to really get a “Game Over” is if Captain runs out of health and he doesn’t have enough Prima to revive himself, so when Little Dros is separated from Captain, feel free to pretty much do whatever and explore to your heart’s content.

With everything I enjoyed about DROS, there is one thing that can make things a tad frustrating and it pretty much comes with the genre: platforming in a 3D environment. While Captain moves at about a normal pace for a human wearing armor, Little Dros moves a bit quicker since she’s a small blob. Thankfully, her aerial movement while jumping is pretty tight but a lot of places require some precise jumping onto small platforms. You can rotate the camera freely but you can’t really move it vertically; instead you can zoom in a out, which helps a bit, but can still make certain jumps a little difficult, especially when you still have a bit of momentum when landing making it very easy to accidentally slide off of a platform or cause the player to “panic jump” once they land, making things worse.

Despite the platforming being a bit frustrating at times, DROS a lot of the time felt a little too easy. As stated, the only time you can really “die” is if Captain runs out of health. When fighting other DROS Captain can guard against attacks, meaning unless he’s completely surrounded he can guard until he gets an opening, then attack. You have a spin attack by holding the attack button and releasing it but I didn’t really need to use it all that often. If you’re not worried about the “leave the stage with a certain amount of Prima” goal, you’ll find plenty of Prima to keep Captain’s health up since it only takes five Prima to refill a segment of health. As the game progresses Captain and Little Dros can both learn new abilities such as Little Dros being able to see more of a level zoomed out to find secrets or Captain being able to dash faster and parry attacks.

DROS is a fun game that doesn’t overstay its welcome and, due to how the stages work, can be enjoyed in spurts. It does feel a little too easy at times. That said, he platforming can be a little rough if you’re looking to collect everything and falling off the stage doesn’t result in a death. There doesn’t seem to be any reason outside of some extra in-game lore to collect all of the bloodstones and Moderat parts. If you’re looking for a action/puzzle game that you can play in spurts that’s not too difficult, definitely give DROS a shot.