Author: Darlinganddeath
Date: 04-25-2023
Welcome!
Welcome to our first Game Review in Article style! Today we're talking about an Indie, Action-Adventure game named DROS. This game takes inspiration from Diorama puzzle games such as Captain Toad and meshes it with a combat style similar to Zelda Links Awakening. It gives off those good old 80s movie vibes such as Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal while mixing in some quirky humor and a steampunk aesthetic.
This game does have a Demo available on Steam which we played through, but before we get to our thoughts, let's go over the Steam description.
DROS Steam Description:
A mysterious Tower is being constructed deep within the forest. Villagers have started to disappear... Never to return.
Dros is a story-driven action adventure about an unlikely partnership. Two heroes must overcome their differences to rise to the top of the Tower and defeat The Alchemist.
Introducing Captain and Little Dros. A dubious team; one a bounty hunter clad in metal, the other a slimy ball of goo. Each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Meet a cast of quirky characters, solve utterly mind-bending puzzles, and battle all sorts of creepy enemies.
Story
Let's talk first about the story of this game. Right from the start we're presented with a little slime who's trying to escape a lab. It's not clear why or for what reason, but there's a bunch of other slimes telling us to get out while we can and if we don't, an evil alchemist is going to be the end of us. So, we do as we're told and escape. After that though, it switches gameplay to a Bounty Hunter whose dressed like one of the Knight Statues in Harry Potter, and we're attempting to get into some creepy tower that all the townspeople are terrified of, but we insist on going anyways.
Without spoiling too much for you guys (we're firm believers in story parts of the game going un-spoiled, if you want to experience the story, definitely go check out the demo), bad things happen and Sir Knight and the little slime become the "best" of friends. It's actually more of a life-or-death thing, but it's a symbiotic relationship so it's for the best. Afterward, we get to continue on through the tower and story, and that's as in detail as I'll go about the story. It's a quirky yet fun story that's quite enjoyable and relevant to the gameplay and levels themselves.
I do actually want to compliment the game on its storytelling. Sure, they're the simple readable cutscenes and text lines that you can skip if you want to, but it does an effective job of getting the story in. Some games honestly fail completely to get the story baked into the first hour to the point of it feeling like an afterthought, since that time is usually spent learning how to play the game and what you need to be doing, but the dev has taken the time to implement the proper tutorials and introductions of characters in a way that feels fluid and un-forced.
Gameplay
Now, I honestly usually suck at platformers and 3D-style games. I get disoriented easily and I tend to button-mash my space bar when jumping around, which just messes me up completely and... don't get me wrong... that absolutely happened to me here, but I felt as though the game is pretty forgiving. Once I got the controls down it was completely doable for me to get through the levels and get to the little secrets inside them. I didn't 100% them and got nowhere near the time achievement for them, but I had no trouble completing them so that's a good thing. That's not me saying this game is "easy" either. It feels quite balanced and while I'm sure the game gets harder the more you go along, the puzzles and challenges of the starting levels are relative to what they should be for the first hour of a game.
I actually quite enjoyed the gameplay style of the dual characters in this game. You use the little slime character to go around and open doors, collect secrets in high places, and manipulate the map, then jump back to Sir Knight to slash away enemies and destroy all the boxes you can possibly find (yes... we're getting the Link destroying everyone's pots feel for sure).
All-in-all, the gameplay was easy to understand and felt challenging where it should. I'm quite pleased with it and I'm nit-picky when it comes to gameplay.
Characters
This game definitely rocks those steampunk vibes with its characters and their art and I can see how it pulls inspiration from movies such as Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. The edgy yet cartoony look of all of them is quirky and cool. I will say that the characters absolutely fit the aesthetic of the game. Everything meshes in this department well!
The other cool thing was that none of the NPCs felt "out of place". They all served a purpose to the story and lore and built upon the game itself. Some were even introduced in multiple levels within the first few of them, so props to the dev for ensuring even the little characters get a voice. Yeah, sure, it's cool to see a game with a bunch of well-created NPCs, but if they serve no purpose, what's the point? So... Kudos there.
I also absolutely adore all the silly slime characters that are in the levels. They're much more of the one-appearance characters but their diversity and silly art style make them feel unique and oddly important. These slime characters are a huge part of the game and without too many spoilers, I'll say to see each of them have a unique personality and art to match was pretty cool.
Combat
DROS definitely has that more slash & dodge combat style. The evil slime minions come in a few different varieties and challenge levels, though, I didn't have any real difficulty with any of them. I will say in the Demo there is no "boss" to face, so we don't get to see what a potential boss fight might be like but I will say from what I experienced of the combat, it was simple yet fun. It's your typical slash a few times, then put up your shield and block, rinse repeat. There isn't a huge emphasis on combat in the game either, at least in the levels we experienced, so that was nice. It's much more of a puzzle-based 3D map with a few slimes here and there, rather than waves of enemies and constant battling.
Once the game is out and we can experience some boss fighting, we might be able to provide further insight as to what that looks like, but for now, this is all we can really say about it.
Bugs
The only bugs we experienced were:
The sound sliders in the game menu did not actually operate, we did have to turn down the game via our Windows sound bar.
We had a couple of parts where our characters half fell into the floor, but the game did end up correcting itself and it didn't lead to any deaths or glitching through the map itself.
There were a few times when picking up collectibles or items that the pick-up would be lagged and take as many as 3-5 seconds for it to actually show us picking the items up.
Conclusion
As someone who hasn't played a whole lot of 3D or platformer games, I'm newer to the genre, but I have enjoyed things like Mario 3D World, Ori, Ender Lillies, etc... so I have some experience, just not a ton. For someone of my experience level, it was actually quite fun! The characters are quirky and unique and the gameplay is challenging enough, but not hard. I can foresee this game becoming a speed runner's dream with how the dual characters interact and the unique movement between them. Also, the levels are easy to replay as you can access them directly from the menu, but the story keeps them intertwined and feeling seamlessly together. There isn't that "oh yeah, this is a level-based game" feeling every time a level ends the way some of the Mario games do. I appreciate the work the dev has invested into the story to keep the game flowing and feeling guided, but providing access to previous content in an easily accessible way, it makes for high replay value.
I have high hopes for this game and we'll definitely keep you updated as to its official release date. Maybe we'll get lucky enough to play more of it prior to launch and provide some thoughts on gameplay further in, but for now, we'll leave you with this article.
Don't forget to wishlist the game on Steam which can be done by clicking this little word HERE
You can also follow along with the development on the Dev's Twitter with this word HERE
Disclaimer:
Please note that we have not been paid or promoted for this review and are not affiliated with DROS officially in any way. All thoughts are based on our own genuine experience of the game.
All footage is based on the Game Demo in its current state as of 04/25/2023 but is subject to change or be completely excluded prior to the game release at the developer's discretion.
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