Video game tier lists

1647228428950.png


  • Dr. Mario 64 is the gold standard for Dr. Mario games, because of the featured games, it is a lot more fully-featured compared to a lot of its contemporaries. It introduces a lot of new modes to try out, and it has a loveably silly Story mode that is something I liked about Puyo Puyo games, though I have to admit that using Wario Land 3 characters is odd. It's also the only one which has 4-players in a competitive environment, which is something you never see ever again.
  • Dr. Mario World is another superb game, mainly for how great of a fit this game is to the mobile format, and also because it's a very revolutionary game for the franchise since the series typically resists innovation for some reason. Not only are the touch controls refined from Virus Buster, but it also introduces a lot of tricky elements that makes it a good puzzle game. Obviously, the addition of many characters is another great thing for the series, so it's not just Mario and Luigi doing pharmaceutical duties (though some people think it diminishes the prestige of being a doctor, which I disagree)
  • Dr. Luigi felt like a good innovation in a long time, which is why he's in the "Great" category. Operation L is a very good twist to the formula, but playing it on High speed is very difficult. It helps that the classic variation is still available.
  • Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure is a good compilation of Dr. Mario and Dr. Luigi, plus it has a decent Miracle Cure mode, and it has pre-designed stages! But it also removes some features for some reason, like selecting music or the ability to continue past Level 20 (except in Virus Buster).
  • Both Dr. Mario games for the NES and GB are merely good, mainly for establishing the basics. The controls can be rather rigid unfortunately, because the capsule lock delay (time it takes before the capsule's position is locked) is incredibly tight, and the capsules move in piece-by-piece increments. This applies to Tetris & Dr. Mario, which strongly takes after those games, though at least that one has Vs. CPU.
  • Dr. Mario & Puzzle League has the standard features of Dr. Mario, and also a Vertical Mode, but it's otherwise a very simple representation of the game.
  • Dr. Mario Express is exceptionally mediocre for how there is little to it: there's only Classic and Vs. CPU. No multiplayer at all, and so the price justified how little content it has. That does not prevent it from being mediocre, unfortunately.
  • Dr. Mario: Vitamin Toss is practically the outlier for how much it does not have anything in common with the other Dr. Mario games, since it's after all a Flash game that is more akin to a minigame than a fully-fledged Dr. Mario game.
Thank you for reading.
 
The tier list I am certain the denizens of marioboards . com were waiting for with bailed breath (Theme: "Failed 32-bits consoles")

1647267439616.png


3DO: Unviable business model, sensible design that anticipated where the industry was heading. Had decent third party support and can claim to have started two legitimately popular game franchises (Need for Speed and Gex). That so many of its games were ported to mainstream consoles after it died show that it left a mark on the industry.

FM Towns Marty: Library is an interesting blend of definitive ports of western home computer games, Japanese computer games and arcade ports. Somewhat lacking in interesting original titles.

32X: A flawed design PITA to set up with so many points of failure. Has a small library of games I happen to tremendously enjoy (I would honest-to-god argue Sega of Japan better supported it with interesting games that showcased the hardware than they did the Sega CD)

Jaguar: Terrible design that wasn't good at 2D or 3D. Has a number of genuinely outstanding games and its active homebrew community makes it interesting nonetheless. Keypad overlays are a cute novelty.

Virtual Boy: Obvious design flaws limit its intended appeal and user comfort ,but it is a cool novelty and has an interesting game library.

PC FX: Design that was good at the very specific thing it was designed for and terrible for where the industry was heading. Has notable games but suffer heavily from the language barrier.

CD32: Very few exclusive original games and most Amiga ports were so low-effort that they didn't fix the "You have to select between music or sound effects" and "Games only support one action button" issue. A not-too-bad way to experience the Amiga library.

Pippin: Atrocious design with basically no good games. I considered making it the very bottom but the Japanese library *might* be of limited interest.

Nuon: Extremely convoluted controller situation and games being incompatible with some models (or compatible *only* with a certain model) makes experiencing the tiny library (only eight games!) a PITA. Tempest 3000 and Iron Soldier 3 are notable games but the former has similar/better sequels on mainstream platforms and the later is much more accessible on PS1.
 
I'll rate and rank The Sims 4 Expansion Packs, and within these ranks, they aren't in any particular order.

I Love
Get To Work
I love the active careers and actually seeing them on the job, my favorite being the Detective one (which does add police officers to the game, hooray!), plus I like having the option to send them off on their own. The Detective career also gave me prison build/buy objects, and those types of furniture especially with the jail bars, are something I cherish. Can't build my dream prison complex without this expansion pack. Oh, and there's doctors and scientists too, but I haven't played them as extensively.

Seasons
This is absolutely a must-have, even for a weirdo player like me. I love the seasons and weather, adds a dynamic to the game such as freezing temperatures or thunderstorms, plus it comes with holidays. Plus it comes with more categories for outfits.

Get Famous
Del Sol Valley, the Hollywood location that provides me with the 64x64 lot, Chateau Peak. Reputation is a bit borked though (if you like, fight evil Sims who were mean at you relentlessly, you'll still get a reputation loss, plus the Neighborhood Brawl holiday isn't even that well implemented). I also like the Self-Absorbed trait as well lol. The Fame quirk and perk system is also pretty nice to play with though some quirks are annoying such as Vain Street or the phone one. You can at least choose to opt out of fame.

Cottage Living
Probably my favorite expansion pack after Seasons. It has CHICKENS. And birds that come from trees! Cows! And the first time we ever get to see the physical appearance of llamas in the series! It's a lot of fun keeping those animals!

It's Okay
City Living
Mostly because a lot of the lot challenges (aka all of the negative lot traits) such as Quake Zone, Mean Vibe, Cursed, Grody, Gremlins, Filthy, and Haunted come from here, plus it added Singing as a skill. Talking toilet is amazing too. But aside from that, I don't really choose to live in a small little city complex, especially in my games where I control a huge party of Sims.

Island Living
The two things I like are Mermaids and the volcano lot trait but that's about it, a lot of the activities here are self-contained, especially the ocean stuff.

I Can Do Without
Get Together
I don't really use clubs. Sure it comes with some nice dancy objects but eh... I do like the Dance Machine trait but that's about it. I appreciate the dancing skill too.

Cats & Dogs
I don't care about neither cats nor dogs, this is my least favorite expansion pack. The fact that My First Pet Stuff requires it is very gross. It's also a major downgrade from Sims 3: Pets. I mean, where is my bird pets, huh? Where are my parrots? And horses?

Discover University
There's not much that interests me here, campus life doesn't really interest me. The overextertion death animation might be the most valuable thing in the pack to me *shrug*.

Snowy Escape
The world of Komorebi and its activities are mostly self-contained, hence why it's not high on my list. I like the Proper trait, thundersnow, and the Japanese culture that comes with it but that's about it.
 
I am now posting my latest Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack tier list.

Untitled.png

Built as a spreadsheet, and then edited using Paint in the hopes it looks a little fancier. I am the peak of image creation.

Soundtracks are ordered by game release date within tiers, as ordering A tier in terms of quality was far too difficult (I love them all). Each tier is only relevant to the tier list, e.g. Sonic Unleashed isn't the greatest music ever made (it totally is though), and I do not have an irrational hatred for Sonic CD US (I totally do though).

Not every game ever is on here, just the ones I think are important enough to be listed on here. This is primarily games that recieved a soundtrack release, though I threw in a couple extra games I considered key to the "classic era", and the Advance games.

I have colour coded each game by the period of time it released in, with a key in the bottom left (the number is the amount of soundtracks I put in that era). I did this to see if I had any particular biases like I thought I did, which ended up not being as noticeable as I thought they were, though I did notice I tend to put more recent (2010+) stuff in the higher tiers of the chart (I'd consider D tier to be around the point where the quality starts to dip for me, though I still enjoy anything there). These eras are primarily split by the people who worked on the music, and the general sound of the series at the time. Main series games play a much bigger role in this decision then spin-offs do. For a full explanation of the eras:
Classic: I'd say this is like the wild west in terms of who was involved. Sonic 1&2 were entirely done by Masato Nakamura, who then never worked on anything else. Sonic CD, 3 & Knuckles, and 3D were all done by people who worked at SEGA, however they were: Replaced by music by someone who worked at SEGA of America when released in that region, had an unconfirmed amount of assistance by Michael Jackson and his producers, and replaced by music by someone who worked at SEGA of Europe when ported to the SEGA Saturn, respectively. This also ignores the fact that there's barely any consistency in who from SEGA actually worked on what game. With the only overlap being Jun Senoue, Tatsuyuki Maeda and Masaru Setsumaru working on both 3 & Knuckles and 3D. In terms of sound? It's mostly just the sound of the Genesis's FM synth, though whenever a chance was given to go beyond that, a lot of influence was taken from 90s Dance music.

Dreamcast: Primarily defined by Jun Senoue. Obviously this involves a stupid amount of rock music.

Modern: Somewhat defined by Tomoya Ohtani. The stage themes in Sonic '06 and Rush Adventure were split between him and Mariko Nanba, while he contributed to Unleashed, Fumie Kumatani and Kenichi Tokoi did most of the work there, and the stage themes were once again split in Colors, this time with Kenichi Tokoi. In fact Tokoi ended up being sound director for Colors, and Jun Senoue returned to the role for Generations. I'd say the sound is primarily influenced by Drum and Bass, with breakbeats having a heavy presence in every game up to Generations. There's also a heavy amount of live intruments, being used to take on a variety of genres besides rock (but still also a bit of rock).

Post-Modern: Almost entirely defined by Tomoya Ohtani. I'd say this is the point where he goes from heavily working with other people, to composing and arranging almost every song in the game (with the exception of cutscenes, which are usually done by Takahito Eguchi). It's sound is primarily influenced by modern EDM, which does make me question the placement of Lost World/Runners, but they're still soundtracks that have little involvement from anyone besides Ohtani.

I just wrote all of that so I am not writing any further details about each individual placement. If you really care about any of my placements that much, please tell me why I'm objectively wrong and I will elaborate with evidence I am always correct.
 
I'll rate and rank The Sims 4 Expansion Packs, and within these ranks, they aren't in any particular order.

I Love
Get To Work
I love the active careers and actually seeing them on the job, my favorite being the Detective one (which does add police officers to the game, hooray!), plus I like having the option to send them off on their own. The Detective career also gave me prison build/buy objects, and those types of furniture especially with the jail bars, are something I cherish. Can't build my dream prison complex without this expansion pack. Oh, and there's doctors and scientists too, but I haven't played them as extensively.

Seasons
This is absolutely a must-have, even for a weirdo player like me. I love the seasons and weather, adds a dynamic to the game such as freezing temperatures or thunderstorms, plus it comes with holidays. Plus it comes with more categories for outfits.

Get Famous
Del Sol Valley, the Hollywood location that provides me with the 64x64 lot, Chateau Peak. Reputation is a bit borked though (if you like, fight evil Sims who were mean at you relentlessly, you'll still get a reputation loss, plus the Neighborhood Brawl holiday isn't even that well implemented). I also like the Self-Absorbed trait as well lol. The Fame quirk and perk system is also pretty nice to play with though some quirks are annoying such as Vain Street or the phone one. You can at least choose to opt out of fame.

Cottage Living
Probably my favorite expansion pack after Seasons. It has CHICKENS. And birds that come from trees! Cows! And the first time we ever get to see the physical appearance of llamas in the series! It's a lot of fun keeping those animals!

It's Okay
City Living
Mostly because a lot of the lot challenges (aka all of the negative lot traits) such as Quake Zone, Mean Vibe, Cursed, Grody, Gremlins, Filthy, and Haunted come from here, plus it added Singing as a skill. Talking toilet is amazing too. But aside from that, I don't really choose to live in a small little city complex, especially in my games where I control a huge party of Sims.

Island Living
The two things I like are Mermaids and the volcano lot trait but that's about it, a lot of the activities here are self-contained, especially the ocean stuff.

I Can Do Without
Get Together
I don't really use clubs. Sure it comes with some nice dancy objects but eh... I do like the Dance Machine trait but that's about it. I appreciate the dancing skill too.

Cats & Dogs
I don't care about neither cats nor dogs, this is my least favorite expansion pack. The fact that My First Pet Stuff requires it is very gross. It's also a major downgrade from Sims 3: Pets. I mean, where is my bird pets, huh? Where are my parrots? And horses?

Discover University
There's not much that interests me here, campus life doesn't really interest me. The overextertion death animation might be the most valuable thing in the pack to me *shrug*.

Snowy Escape
The world of Komorebi and its activities are mostly self-contained, hence why it's not high on my list. I like the Proper trait, thundersnow, and the Japanese culture that comes with it but that's about it.
Where does the Star Wars Batuu pack rank?

(unless you don't own that one)
 
Where does the Star Wars Batuu pack rank?

(unless you don't own that one)

That's a game pack, not an expansion pack and I'll talk about them in a later post.
 
I forgot to add Eco Lifestyle on the tier list.

It's on the I Can Do Without solely because NAPS are broken af, they cause all sorts of autonomy issues with your Sims, and the Sharing is Caring NAP is the absolute worst feature of The Sims 4 bar none. The eco stuff sounds fine such as recycling and the footprint, but it's the NAPs alone that just does it for me and how much headaches it has caused.

tier list of expansion packs coming soon trademark
 
The (definitive) Cars 3: Driven to Win character tier list (part 1)

SS Tier

Miss Fritter

"I hope you all have good insurance!"

Imagine if you will the Magic School Bus. You know, that happy go lucky transforming vehicle piloted by the wonderful Miss Frizzle. Now imagine the Magic School Bus possessed by a destruction-obsessed demon and you get... one of THE best Cars characters ever.

With her collection of license plates dangling from her roof to the circular buzzsaw STOP signs she weaponizes, you'd better think twice before racing against this large and in charge resident of Thunder Hollow.

Chef's kiss.

S tier

Dr. Damage

"Wee woo, wee woo, woop!"

Kicking off the S Tier, we have Thunder Hollow's Dr. Damage. This "Rambulance" is the last thing you want see before you go careening into the air.

Guido
"Pit stop."

Guido doesn't talk in Driven to Win, so I put his most famous quote to fill that silent void.

Guido is the lovable Italian forklift who is a great character in Cars 3: Driven to Win. His small stature may pale in comparison to someone like Mack or Miss Fritter, but don't judge a vehicle by its tires. Guido is a speed demon on the track.

Chick Hicks
"Ka-chicka, ka-chicka!"
Rounding out the S tier is the forever Piston Cup champion, Chick Hicks! This talented and well intentioned racer doesn't cheat his way to victory, only using his AMAZING and EXCELLENT raw driving skills to take home the trophy!

I wasn't paid by Chick Hicks to write this, I swear...

A Tier

Lightning McQueen/Fabulous Lightning McQueen

"Kachow!"

Ah yes, Lightning McQueen, You can't go wrong with a classic.

The Next-Gens (Cam Spinner, Rich Mixon, and Jackson Storm)
"Please, save the photo ops for after the race."

These new high-tech racers dominate the racing simulators. With sleek, aerodynamic designs, they zip across the tracks at bursting speeds. I like Cam the most, with Jackson being my second favorite.

B Tier

Mater/Mater the Greater

"Ooh-wee! I am revin' and rarin' to race!"

Despite being a rusty tow truck, Mater packs a lot of horsepower under the non-existent hood. His air stunt persona makes an appearance as an unlockable boss character.

The Thomasville Trio (River Scott, Junior Moon, and Louise Nash)
"Time to spread some dirt down on the track."

These old timers certainly haven't lost their racing spirit. As the ones who originally raced with the legendary Doc Hudson, they aren't afraid to pull off wild moves and stunts to get ahead of the pack.
 
Rate my taste in fighters!

I rank smash bros fighters on how comfortable I am playing as them
D44D3ABB-DF7E-4B51-B48E-0AAB56A6DFA0.jpeg
 
Make Tier Lists. Memes preferably.


This was meant to be two tier. Cool and Cringe were the original tiers.
Bribery means the characters would pay me to put them higher.
Give His Wife Back tier is strictly for Pac-Man. Makes sense.
Ultimate, Truly Epic, Awesome, Cool, Standard, Ok?, Bruh, and Cringe are all basic. Higher means better.
Joker tier is only for Joker.
Perish tier is for characters I would kill, and Corrin. I dislike Corrin.
Disney Tier is for Disney characters. I hate Disney.
Screenshot 2022-11-15 014100.png
Screenshot 2022-11-15 014129.png

Explaining Characters.
Miis: I made them all different version of my Mii. Miitopia for Sword, Sports for Brawler, and Smash for Gunner. Being a Smash character in a Smash tier list isn't impressive.
Wario: Wario does not feature on this list.
Alex and Steve: I meant to put Alex in ultimate because I use them as my main skin, but I messed it up. Steve is in the correct place.
Inkling: All of the agents were female in the Splatoon relationship chart. I will not accept this level of disrespect towards Inkling Boy, so I put him up a tier.
Red and Leaf: Pikachu told me to put Red higher.
Sans: From Undertale.
Yoshi: Doesn't pay taxes, so he has the money. (Is Yoshi a he?(IDK))
 
what do you have against woman
I don't like playing as the princesses because all the characters in the S tier exist.

I actually don't use them a lot.
 
Booster Course Pass music tier list:

S TIER: Waluigi Pinball, Singapore Speedway, Moonview Highway, Vancouver Velocity, Madrid Drive Bowser Castle 3, Wii Rainbow Road
A TIER: Coconut Mall, Shroom Ridge, Ninja Hideaway, Sydney Sprint, Sky-High Sundae, London Loop, Boo Lake, Rock Rock Mountain, Berlin Byways, 3DS Rainbow Road, DK Summit, Yoshi's Island, Waluigi Stadium, Koopa Cape, DK Mountain, Piranha Plant Cove
B TIER: Toad Circuit, Tokyo Blur, Sky Garden, New York Minute, Snow Land, Mushroom Gorge, Maple Treeway, Amsterdam Drift, Riverside Park, Bangkok Rush, DS Mario Circuit, Daisy Cruiser, Squeaky Clean Sprint, Los Angeles Laps, Rome Avanti, Rosalina's Ice World
C TIER: Choco Mountain, Mario Circuit 3, Kalimari Desert, Merry Mountain, Athens Dash, Sunset Wilds, Daisy Circuit
D TIER: Paris Promenade, Peach Gardens
 
I am now posting my latest Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack tier list.

View attachment 24464
Built as a spreadsheet, and then edited using Paint in the hopes it looks a little fancier. I am the peak of image creation.

Soundtracks are ordered by game release date within tiers, as ordering A tier in terms of quality was far too difficult (I love them all). Each tier is only relevant to the tier list, e.g. Sonic Unleashed isn't the greatest music ever made (it totally is though), and I do not have an irrational hatred for Sonic CD US (I totally do though).

Not every game ever is on here, just the ones I think are important enough to be listed on here. This is primarily games that recieved a soundtrack release, though I threw in a couple extra games I considered key to the "classic era", and the Advance games.
update: Frontiers B, Shadow Generations C, Superstars D. Rumble might be A? we'll see how I still feel when the game actually releases (which is never).
 
my-image.png

Toby Fox games that he finished but I forgot Arn's Winter Quest, I don't know much about Arn's Winter Quest. Don't expect full essays.

Undertale

JRPG monsters get haunted by their world's messd up metaphysics, morally dubious scientist gets ripped apart by said metaphysics, proceeds to haunt high school children of an alternate reality with metaphysics, teams up with the fourth dimensional being that haunted a previous kid... that used the aforementioned world's messed up metaphysics. There's something darkly comedic about UTDR's story to me.

This game tries to crack actual jokes and falls a bit flat a lot, Toby's comedy writing definitely improves with Deltarune. Too many jokes feel forced, the timing and pacing can be way off, it suffers a bit from irony poisoning.

What makes this game special is the meta elements that technically aren't even meta, it's ambitious, video games are awesome dude, hold the memories made close to your heart, there's more to them than their mechanical functions.

Halloween Hack

Internalized homophobia Andonuts is an interesting character. You can see some of the seeds planted for Fox's future projects, besides that this game sucks lol.

Gee... That was a bit short.

Take this UT character tier list, just with some of the main characters... and some side ones I really like.

my-image (1).png


S Tier

Chara, Asriel, and Flowey.
The emblematic of the games core message twins, I love these two, their mental illness is so intriguing. The min maxer who cares only for a game's utilities and the story brained perversely sentimental kid who's explored every possible route of his world. I think about these two on a daily basis.

I find the idea that the surface of the under tale being our world fascinating as well, especially because Asriel is turned into a flower exclusively found there. All of the former prince's whimsy for his fantasy land dying when he literally loses any ounce of magic within him? That goes incredibly hard.

Chara's unique sort of sociopathy representing a gamer's attitude towards a new game just makes my brain go apeshit, the little demon you have to convince this world is worth something. Personally, I think the red soul represents the concept of LOVE, that layered messy feeling, what do you LOVE about Undertale? Will you persist? If you don't care you won't.

A Tier
Alphys

Alphys. Anxious. Weeb. Liar. Lover. If you think she's annoying I think you have bad taste, admittedly... I sympathize with this character like 80% of the fanbase, a lot of the hate she gets online feels undeserved. I'm going to be real here, a good amount of said hate comes from people like the person who gave me the sapphick, when, they also complained about being reminded of queers when they see rainbows. That was a real internet interaction. Besides that there's some complaints I sort of understand, her internet posts and calls are cringe or something, it's on purpose, I guess what matters is if you find that endearing or not.

The True Lab plot is just *Mwah*.

Mettaton

Who is this diva? A TV show host, a narcissistic nutjob, attempted child murderer, and a trans masc icon. He's a very very entertaining character, I love him in the winter alarm clock stories. When it comes to presenation he's the king of the game, his designs, his themes, love this guy.

Mad Dummy and Mad Mew Mew
Character that turns you into a girl, hell man, post transition in like 2022 I was hyperfixated (no hyperbole) on the ghost cousins for the longest time. Coo coo kitty, she's fun :3.

Sans
Very well executed character, I don't think about him as much as other characters but he's good. I think why I don't personally care for him as much as I theoretically would is oversaturation, saw his face a little too much. He has some of the better joke lines out of the whole cast. I don't think I have much to add to the discussion around him.

Papyrus
He underestimates himself and overcompensates, it's hard to dislike him. He's one of the stronger characters, like, physically and emotionally stronger but he doesn't genuinely recognize that himself. The dynamic between him and his brother became so popular for a reason, they're more similar deep down than people think.

B Tier
Frisk
The more I understood Chara the less I understood Frisk, why are you here? Why are you built almost identically like the humans before you? Very mysterious, very mischievous, I don't know enough about them to place them higher on the list but they're cool.

Toriel

I like what she represents more than her herself, she's the Holy Spirit to Asgore's the Father and Asriel's the Son. She's our guide, who introduces us to this new world, Asriel's our journey through it, and Asgore is the man who we all meet at the end, who, in a sense, crafted the situation we're in. It's nice to have a mom in a video game who's more than symbol, we see how parenting affected and still affects her, she's well-meaning but dismissive.

catty's hotter

Asgore
Same deal here as well, well-meaning but flawed, in short-sighted rage he declared war on humans who fall into the Underground. He's a child murderer, nothing can quite justify that even if he didn't like doing it, not a fan of how he instantly becomes a joke in True Pacifist after the fight. I think his love for his own children and goofy side makes him likable to a degree but he was definitely a tyrant as lord of his kingdom.

Undyne
Fish warrior of the underground, the TRUE hero, the one the earth itself gave power to fight evil in its refusal to die, the woman who inspires those around her to keep on living. I find her a bit too one note sometimes on most routes but ultimately yet a character's who's concept is mostly well executed

Napstablook
Thinking again idk why I put them on this list lol, I'm sorry Blooky fans they don't do anything for me I'm afraid.
 
As I gradually lose my mind playing Mr. Driller Drill Land, why not create a tier list for every Dristone in The Hole of Druaga? Note that I'm playing in Casual Mode, so the difficulty of the game is general is toned down. Entries in each tier are unranked.

Destroys all X blocks within a radius slightly larger than the current screen. X blocks are the single greatest threat to the players HP, as destroying one requires the player to spend 5% HP and the the destruction of one by digging does not chain react into adjacent X blocks like with the other Colored Blocks. So if there's more than one X block in your path, you have to spend 5% per block. While the default means of destroying them by matching four or more still works, Blast X gets you out of binds where that is difficult or impossible because there are not enough X blocks around. Also if an X block would crush you, this can save you.

Heals 20% HP. Since you spend HP to dig, lose it in chunks of 10% or 20% when you take damage, and die when you're out, obviously these are critical to any run. You should be going out of your way to grab them even if you don't need them, as unlike the mechanically similar potions the Dristone can be held until your HP is lower than 100% and then heal you to full. You can also save them to make the couple of Dristones that have a cost of halving your HP safer to use.

Teleports the player to the top of the first chamber of the dungeon. Said first chamber is extremely simple, so its easy to find potions and HP +20% Dristones to recover HP. This is the best panic option for if you are overwhelmed or low on HP, and its existence alone justifies never passing up a blue Dristone.

Changes the color of one of red, blue, yellow, or green blocks within a radius slightly larger than the current screen into blocks of the specified color. Favors choosing the color of blocks that are adjacent to the player. Digging cost 1% HP, but all blocks of the same color adjacent to the block being dug away also get destroyed, and this chains to other blocks adjacent to those blocks. Further, if four or more blocks of the same color land together after falling, they all get destroyed. In other words, smart use of this multiplies the number of blocks you can dig away with only 1% HP spend, especially if you save it for sections which only have 2 or 3 of the 4 listed colors.. Also if you're fighting Druaga, which only occurs in non-endless modes, these Dristones can change their color. Since they only take damage when hit with a Blast Dristone of the corresponding color and change color after taking damage, the Recolor Dristones allow you to bend probability to your will and ensure you can always hit them. I advise having one of each Recolor Dristone ready to ensure you can blitz Druaga into submission.

Destroys all blocks and defeats all enemies in the same column as the player within a radius slightly larger than the current screen. A shortcut to the bottom of each section, straight and to the point. Further, the range means there's no way anything can fall on top of you after using it, which is good because getting crushed costs 20% HP. Heck, you can even use it as a universal counter, destroying any kind of block(s) that would crush you just before they connect.

Destroys all blocks and defeats all enemies of the specified color within a radius slightly larger than the current screen. Can destroy a lot of blocks for no HP cost. It is more consistent than the recolor Dristones, but perhaps not as destructive compared to it. It can save you from being crushed by falling blocks, but mind that if there's more than one color falling onto your head you have to spend a Dristone for each. Defeating enemies this way is great because then there's no risk of the enemy hitting back, or for quickly digging toward the enemy in question resulting in a possible crushing hazard. The green version is slightly stronger because green wizards and green knights always drop HP +20% Dristones when defeated. Also if you're fighting Druaga, which only occurs in non-endless modes, the only way to hurt them is to hit them with the blast matching their color, which causes them to change color. So you should be hoarding these for a swift boss battle.

Allows the player to see which blocks have a Dristone hidden inside of them. Such blocks will sparkle and oscillate between their normal color scheme and a darker shaded one. Stops working after digging 100 times. Can be stacked. Technically, this doesn't make any more Dristones appear but functionally the player cannot go around breaking every block because of the HP cost. This Dristone means the player can efficiently find every Dristone in a chamber, handy if you are running low on resources and need to restock. It's not in a higher tier because it's hard to run out of Dristones, at least in Casual Mode, but finding HP +20% Dristones can be very important.

Increases your max HP by 5%, does not provide corresponding healing. Has no effect if your max HP is 200%. These take an already easy breezy endless mode and neuter the difficulty by allowing the player to stock up on HP. Use these the minute you grab them. Once you have the true maximum health of 200%, then your Warp Dristones just doubled in efficacy by letting you refill to your increased cap. Max Boost can't really get any higher because of the 200% cap, but if it could the endless version The Hole of Druaga would be flat out broken.

Shrinks the player character, and makes it so that they lose 1% HP for every two digs instead of every dig. Stops working after digging 30 times. Can be stacked. This one is good to have when you're low on HP and need to make it last so you can find a potion of +20% HP Dristone.

Destroys all blocks and defeats all enemies in the same row as the player. Probably more useful against enemies than blocks, though X Blocks are pesky things and this can carve an opening. It's just that progression in Mr Driller is generally downward and the same goes here too. Horizontal is just less useful. Move it like half a tier up if you are not playing endless, as chambers can be connected to the left and right and this can really help you reach the doors. Though if you plan ahead, you should never be in a situation where you need to use a Blast H for that.

Destroys all white blocks within a radius slightly larger than the current screen. White blocks are annoying because they do not stick to like-colored blocks and are not cleared by matching four of a kind. Basically, they're the second most likely kind of block to wind up falling onto you and costing you 20% of your health. However, they're less common than X blocks and The Hole of Druaga does not have time pressure like other Mr. Driller modes. This means that if you plan ahead you can neutralize the threat of white blocks long before they're in your way or trying to flatten you, or make calculated digs such that they fall but do not land on you. In a pinch, you can use this Dristone to remove a white block that is about to crush you. In non-endless, bump this up by half a tier because a mid-boss dragon guarding a mandatory key attacks by dropping white blocks. Getting rid of all of the blocks at once gives you a lot of breathing room to hit the boss and dodge the next couple of volleys.

Makes your digs better by destroying the blocks and damaging the enemies to the left and right of the direction you are digging in in addition to the normal dig range. Stops working after digging 100 times. Can be stacked. Digging for the same price of 1% HP but removing three blocks sounds like a good deal, especially as you can reach around X blocks with this, but the drawback is that digging becomes more chaotic. The lack of control increases the risk that a block lands on your head, and that's still -20% HP. I only ever want to play the odds if there's a potion of a +20% HP Dristone just out of reach of normal digging but within reach of a Tri-Drill dig, but then you're saddled with the triple dig effect

Destroys all blocks and defeats all enemies in a 1, 2, or 3 block radius from the player. The generalist method of destruction, trading in the range of the ones based on specific colors for very precise control. Your preference on which one of these you like best, and if you put Blast H above or below them, will vary by playstyle. I think Blast 3 is a little risky but it does provide the most distance downward per stone.

Changes the color of one of red, blue, yellow, or green blocks within a radius slightly larger than the current screen into crystal blocks. Crystal blocks disintegrate after a short time, with some variance on exactly when. This is basically a Blast R/B/Y/G but on a time delay, except that the color that gets destroyed is random. It's worse, and since the timing isn't consisitent reacting to the blocks that disappear might end with a different block crushing you, but at least this is still helpful much of the time. My advice is to use it earlier in a chamber to minimize the possibility of this loosening blocks above you.

Allows the player to jump two blocks high instead of one. Stops working after 30 two block high jumps. Can stack. This is actually surprisingly useful, it's just that it gets redundant when there are so many Dristones that can destroy the blocks penning you in. Also, because it only depletes for each high jump rather than each dig as with the other yellow Dristones, it's practically impossible to run out of Jump. Which makes every further Jump Dristone less exciting. Seriously, in my current endless run I have 753 Jump charges. I'd lose the game before running out.

Increases the players movement speed. Stops working after digging 60 times. Can be stacked. It's fine, but the main use of movement speed (separate from digging speed) in Mr. Driller is avoiding being crushed. With the sheer destruction Recolor and Blast Dristones can create, and the lack of time pressure the HP system presents, planning around never being in a situation where you could be crushed is an legitimate tactic. And even if you are about to get whacked, a Blast Dristone can save you. Having Speed up preemptively would grant it some value, but in practice Speed will run out before you end up in a hazardous situation where it benefits you. I am purposefully discounting dashing to reach or escape enemies, the player is better off engaging enemies slowly and carefully anyway.

Grants the player one barrier. If the player would be crushed or take damage from an enemy while they have at least one barrier, the player is not crushed or does not take damage and one barrier is lost. That barrier turns into a block for a short time that is intangible to the player. This offers them reprieve from the offending block, if any, but the barrier turned block eventually vanishes and lets the block(s) it was holding up past. Can stack. You would think that Barrier is really good. Since being crushed costs 20% HP, and this prevents you from being crushed, Barrier is basically a 20% current and max HP increase. It isn't a practical HP increase for two reasons. The first is that enemies are noticeably more aggressive when the player has a barrier, usually striking first if the player is in range rather than being so slow they let the player attack first. The second is that when a wizard casts a spell while the player has a barrier, instead of transforming or destroying blocks there is a chance it simply causes the player to lose a barrier. The latter is incredibly unfair, with the only way to counter it being to kill the wizard first. Doing that is difficult, because Digging quickly to reach the wizard puts you at risk of getting crushed normally, and expending a Blast Dristone on sight of a wizard is not always available because of ranges, colors, and having a limited supply to use. Just assume a wizard will cast a spell at least once before the player can defeat them, which usually means a barrier will last only a couple of chambers before being lost. Barriers are just not a good investment.

Destroys all blocks and defeats all enemies within a radius slightly larger than the current screen, but it costs half your current HP. The most powerful Blast Dristone in terms of raw power, but the drawback is equally massive. There's no reason to ever use Blast A except in as a desperation ploy: in a case where your HP is too low to reach a potion or a +20% HP Dristone without running out, but one of the latter two items is on screen. This will ensure you get the healing. In any other case, a combination of other Dristones approximates Blast A well enough to invalidate it completely, be that destroying blocks of various colors or supplementing colored Blast Dristones with the non-colored Blast Dristones.

Increases the player's max HP by 5%, does not provide corresponding healing. Has no effect if your max HP is 200%. Non-endless modes are not long enough or difficult enough for these to really make a difference. I mean, they're still an upside, but these are more disappointing than interesting. Use them anyway, for obvious reasons.

Changes the color of one of red, blue, yellow, or green blocks within a radius slightly larger than the current screen into X blocks. Remember that X blocks are the run enders, due to their way of being a large inconvenience, especially in groups. This makes a group of X blocks. Why would you use this? Well, perhaps to match existing X blocks with blocks turned into X blocks, as most blocks in the game vanish when matched four of a kind. This is still incredibly risky, and when used incorrectly can leave a costlier mess to clean up than when you started. Yes, you could combo this with Blast X, but just digging out the red, blue, yellow, or green blocks in your way is probably more efficient than spending two Dristones.

The player gains three barriers, but this costs half your current HP. All the same problems as Barrier, but now you have a drawback. Unlike Blast A, there is no way this can instantly benefit you, and wizards can very quickly cause this Dristone to have no tangible positive effect by bleeding your barriers away before you get to use them against crushing damage. The only way to remotely positively use this Dristone is to save it for when you are low on health and have multiple +20% HP Dristones ready to recover the spent health. If I'm simply low on health without healing available I'd rather use any other Dristone for a desperation play.

Changes the color of one of red, blue, yellow, or green blocks within a radius slightly larger than the current screen into white blocks. This is just throwing the game. White blocks do not stick to other blocks and cannot color match. So either this is making an existing blockade more bulky, causing blocks that were stuck higher up in a chamber to come crashing down, or both! Have fun being a pancake! I mean, you could combo this with Blast W, but even then any other Recolor Dristone is less likely to cause blocks to tumble down. For two-step Recolor into Blast solutions, use the other Recolors!

Teleports the player to the top of any chamber they have entered previously. One of these shows up at the bottom of any chamber that does not connect to another chamber below it, allowing the player to escape from dead ends. It also appears after defeating the dragon mid-boss guarding the key to Druaga. It's impossible to rank a Dristone that is fundamental to game progression like this. The Hole of Duraga is a dungeon crawler where the player cannot backtrack because Mr. Driller gameplay enforces moving downward, with Warp splitting the difference by letting the player backtrack. Without this Dristone, the mode simply wouldn't function, and I feel having a Dristone be S Tier by technicality defeats the point.
 
Last edited:
Back