Drill Dozer

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Drill Dozer is a game by Pokémon creators Game Freak about a girl and her drilling machine. One of the GBA's finest platformers. The cartridge has a built-in rumble motor for that realistic drilling experience. For some reason it never saw the light of day in Europe until over 10 years after its original release, when it suddenly showed up on the Wii U Virtual Console fully localized in five European languages and with rumble functionality intact.

Build Date#

Present in the US version, at 0x4F99D0:

2005 09 07 17:49

The EU version also has what appears to be a build date embedded in the ROM at 0x595058. Interestingly, the year on it is 2006 -- meaning that the actual localization was finished almost 10 years before it was released!

2006 02 02 19:25

Unused Rooms#

Watch on YouTubeThere are two unused rooms left in the game, accessible by using the cheat code 32000015 00XX, where "XX" is the room number.

Room 07: Uses an incorrect tileset. There are two enemies at the beginning, then a lot of normal blocks to drill, plus two tunnels with opposite colors which are revealed from the wrong side. At the very end is an invisible wall.
Room 0D: In the background is a "1-1" written with non-solid red blocks, plus it has a weird water tile. You have three scripted messages: the second one is blank, and the third triggers a mini-boss. The left side exit is functional, and leads to one of the used rooms.

(Source: Cadohacan)

The S Button#

Sprites for a S button are loaded on the Red Dozers' Hideout on memory. Weirdly, no Nintendo console has a S button. The S could either stand for START or SELECT, these buttons being available on the GBA.

Regional Differences#

Miscellaneous#

Japan	USA

In the Japanese version, the title is larger, but is a static image, unlike the spinning drill in the US version.

Japan	USA

The RED.D on the trailer is missing on the US version for unknown reasons.

Japan	USA

The O was changed to an Ok! in the US release.

Japan	USA

Lv. 2 and Lv. 3 were changed to 2nd Gear and 3rd Gear in the US release.

Japan	USA

DRILL UP! became SHIFT UP! in the US release.

Costumes#

Some of the costumes that you can unlock with passwords after beating the game were changed in the North American version. Most of them were changed to references to other games developed by Game Freak or Nintendo. These changes did not carry over to the eventual European version.

Japan/Europe	North America

The school clothes were changed to resemble Leaf, the female protagonist from Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, which were also developed by Game Freak.

Japan/Europe	North America
	It's-a-me! Jill!

The blue overalls were changed to look even more like Mario, as if the resemblance wasn't obvious enough yet. Game Freak developed Mario & Wario, which may be the reason for its inclusion here. The main difference is with the ties being recolored from blue to having a Super Mushroom pattern as well as the addition of white gloves to the hands.

Japan/Europe	North America

The stylish skirt added a stylish hat to one of Jill's pigtails to resemble Mimi from Mendel Palace, Game Freak's very first game.

Japan/Europe	North America

The futuristic clothes were completely changed to resemble Pulseman, one of Game Freak's older non-Pokémon titles.

Japan/Europe	North America

The nurse outfit was tweaked slightly to resemble Misaki Hayama from Click Medic, an old Game Freak game for the PS1.