Mr. Driller is one of Namco’s lesser-known franchises. The series has made an appearance on virtually every console and handheld platform since its first arcade appearance in 1999. Its latest incarnation, Mr. Driller 2, has finally been released for the GameBoy Advance in North America, after an initial Japanese release in 2001. The four-year delay hasn’t hurt the game because its design is so simple. However, Mr. Driller 2 is ultimately a shallow experience that only die-hard fans of the series will truly enjoy.

There are four modes of gameplay. The first is Mission Driller (story) mode, comprised of three stages of varying difficulty: India (Easy), America (Normal), and Egypt (Hard). There’s a fourth Very Hard stage that is unlocked when these three are beaten. The stages differ primarily in length (India is 2,500 feet deep while Egypt is 10,000 feet deep), but the Normal and Hard modes also introduce automatically disappearing blocks that make things a little more hectic. The other modes are Endless Driller (go for the highest score possible), Time Attack Driller (clear a stage in the allotted time), and a single-cartridge two-player battle mode (see who can complete the stage first). There’s nothing new here to surprise long-time puzzler fans.

In fact, Mr. Driller 2 is more of an action game with puzzle elements than a true puzzler. Blending the subterranean roaming of Dig Dug with the block-clearing play mechanic of Columns, its premise is that several cities of the world are being “overrun by colored blocks” from the “depths of the earth”, and it’s up to you to eliminate them all and save the planet. You choose between two different characters (a boy named Susumu or a girl named Anna), each playing exactly the same. Gameplay consists of moving your player steadily downwards, destroying blocks while making sure you don’t get crushed by falling blocks or don’t run out of air (by picking up strategically-placed air canisters). Every 500 feet, you’ll come across a checkpoint that you can drill through to move on to the next area. Drill down far enough and you will complete the entire stage.

Blocks are destroyed in two different ways. The first is, of course, by shattering them with your drill. No matter the size of the block (some of them stretch across the entire screen), one tap from your drill will cause it to disintegrate into dust. The second way is to connect four blocks of the same color. For example, if a chunk containing three orange blocks falls onto a single orange block (or even aligns itself alongside it while it’s falling), they all disappear. Combinations of these techniques can lead to some chaotic chain reactions. A neat trick is to remove a huge block that’s holding up a dozen others underneath you, causing you to ride the avalanche down the screen as block combos are set off all around you.

Controls are as basic as they come. The D-Pad aims your drill and moves your character left and right, while the A button destroys blocks. This makes Mr. Driller 2 incredibly simple to learn and very easy to pick up and play. While perfect for on-the-go gaming, with extended play time you realize that the simplicity of the control scheme actually limits the scope of gameplay. Since the ultimate goal is to get as deep as possible, there’s nothing stopping you from drilling straight downwards as fast as you can with no strategy whatsoever. You could methodically destroy blocks to maximize your score, but it’s not at all necessary. As long as you don’t run out of air or get crushed, you can keep pounding the A button until you’re finished. There’s no incentive to remove blocks in a creative manner because that’s not your primary objective. This makes gameplay fast-paced, but at the same time it robs the game of any real depth. You’ll soon be wondering if there’s any more to it.

Sporting a colorful look and light-hearted feel that will remind many of a Powerpuff Girls episode, Mr. Driller 2 is definitely meant to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible. Its graphics are clean but plain, using no effects whatsoever. It would have been nice to see some sprite scaling or maybe a transparent layer of dust on certain levels. Music is a disappointment, with the limited range of tracks getting repetitive quickly and sounding like they were ripped from an NES game. There’s a surprising amount of digitized speech (all cutscenes feature spoken text), but the dialogue is read so robotically that you can’t help but shake your head. There’s nothing overly bad here, but nothing outstanding either.

The same mediocrity extends to its replay value. As was previously mentioned, you can unlock a fourth level in Mission Driller mode. You can also unlock reverse versions of the ten levels in Time Attack mode, as well as collect up to twenty “Driller Cards” that contain information about the characters in the game. The problem is that these levels are really nothing new, and the Driller Cards feature characters from the game that most players aren’t going to care about or even recognize. If there was ever a game that didn’t need collectibles, this is it.

An area where this game shines is its save features. You can save high scores and record times, but what’s most useful is a “Freeze” function that takes a snapshot of a game that’s in progress. The next time you turn on your GBA, you'll start the game from the exact spot where you saved. This is extremely helpful when you’re just about to beat a level and need to run off to a meeting.

Admittedly, many of the criticisms of Mr. Driller 2 that I've raised here can be charged against numerous other puzzle games. As a genre, puzzlers typically have simple controls, mediocre music, and are technically unimpressive. Gameplay is what makes or breaks a puzzle game, and that's where Mr. Driller 2 falls flat. It can't seem to decide if it wants to be an action game or a puzzle game. Strategy takes a back seat to being quick with the A button, resulting in a shallow game experience that gets tired fast. Mr. Driller fanatics won't be disappointed, but those looking for more strategy and less button-mashing should look elsewhere.