It’s mildly embarrassing when you catch sight of a title like DROS and immediately associate it with Bros. Sorry, emergeWorlds; it’s merely a word association as the adventures of the Captain and Little Dros have way more substance than Chocolate in the Box. Another Bros reference for you.
Yeah, that was an interesting introduction, but first impressions and what-not. While the boy band comparison shoehorned its way into this write-up, we can immediately leave it behind as the gameplay and gorgeous presentation soon occupied my peanut brain.
Jeitaro
DROS is a ‘dark fairy-tale’ where you play as the bounty hunter Captain. Their task is to ascend the Machine and defeat the Alchemist that’s been a little bit naughty and let all that power go to their head. A swift punt to the testicles should suffice, alas, the Captain dies early on.
What the hell!? Yeah, thanks for the spoiler there. Fear not, angry reader, this is based on the demo, and it’s in the prologue. I haven’t spoiled the adventure for you as I know not where it will go. However, I highly recommend you play this and get on board by wishlisting it (link at the bottom, heh, of this post).
So, Captain cops it, but we soon switch to our new character, Little Dros. She’s managed to escape from her captor, but to survive, she needs a shell. The best way to visualise her is as a larger, gloopy makkuro kurosuke from the Ghibli films.
When Will I, Will I Be Fa-mous?
Though fragile, she’s able to jump in and out of her adopted shell to reach parts other beers cannot, so when she stumbles across Captain, the two join forces. Little Dros can reanimate his body, but as he’s a white armoured knight, he can’t jump, so at the press of a button can leave his body, hit a switch, then return to push big blocks or slash as the enemies.
Jeitaro
DROS is a top-down adventure puzzle game set in an enchanting world. The artwork here is wonderful. For me, the illustrations were a highlight, but the world they occupied are equally stunning. The pair will encounter a few NPCs that result in a visual novel-like scene (the cool illustration bits), sometimes alluding to a path you have to take; another instance will be for exposition. Marinated with its fine score, it’s a very pleasant experience.
One thing I noted about the visual approach was the text. It’s rather large. For those dialogue exchanges, they’re normal, but ‘in the wild’ the text is large and will only should a couple of words at a time, so you have to wait until the monologue has finished before carrying on. It’s nothing major, just a bit unusual. I kinda liked it.
Jeitaro
Combat in the demo is straightforward enough, as are the puzzles. Switching to Little Dros to hit a switch, moving a block with Captain to reach a new level… The stages were relatively small, but enough to whet my appetite to look up the store page for a release date. TBA. Bugger.
The closest comparison for something I’ve recently played/reviewed would be The Lightbringer – also an excellent, satisfying puzzle adventure. If that’s your bag, try the DROS demo for yourself as it shows a lot of promise and is well worth your time if you like a casual puzzler that massages your eyeballs with all its lovely artwork and animation.
The DROS demo is currently available on Steam, but the game will also come to the PS5, Xbox (assuming the Series S/X), and Nintendo Switch.
