Boulder Dash is one of those enduring franchises that never seems to quite fade from the mental landscape of gamers. Ever since the original game was released a whopping thirty-seven years ago in 1984, it has been a perennial favorite of gamers everywhere. The series manages to tap into the simplicity and fun-factor of what gaming is supposed to be, a fanciful romp that entertains and engages. Now, there’s a new Boulder Dash in town for the Switch. Boulder Dash Deluxe has just released from BBG Entertainment and there’s one big question. Does it manage to scratch that same itch that the original does?
For starters, let’s take a quick look at the franchise. After the original game was released and ported to various systems and computers, there have been a plethora of other releases. Notable among these were Boulder Dash EX for the Game Boy Advance, Boulder Dash XL 3D for the 3DS which took the port into a new visual mode, and the recent Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary (reviewed here) from 2016. If you’ve played these, you’ll have realized that while there are plenty of new gimmicks, the core mechanics haven’t really changed in the franchise. You dig through levels, collect gems, use boulders to crush enemies, and get to the exit once you’ve mined enough gems. More recent versions up the ante with extra items and tons of unlockables but the basic game is similar enough.
Boulder Dash Deluxe doesn’t shake this formula up much. In fact, if you’ve played 30th Anniversary, you’ll find that the assets from that game are literally identical to this new version. Enemies, gems, and other visuals have been recycled into new levels for Boulder Dash Deluxe, as have the sound effects and gacha-style unlockables, creating a collect-a-thon that will take weeks to complete fully. Rockford, our intrepid hero, has been completely redesigned as a googly-eyed blonde kid and it’s a bit disconcerting. Honestly, the square, almost voxel-like Rockford from 30th Anniversary was cooler, but luckily, Boulder Dash Deluxe gives you the option of switching to a voxellized 8-Bit Rockford based on the character from the original 1984 game!
Whichever Rockford you choose, you’ll be digging your way through levels with abandon. Starting out in the MacMarnua Sea, you’ll see all new worlds of Boulder Dash, even if the visuals seem somewhat familiar. Each world consists of 20 levels, and each level has a maximum of three stars you can achieve if you score high enough within the time constraints. That makes for a lot of gameplay over nine worlds! Only three worlds are open at the start of the game though. As you play, you can trade in your stars to unlock new worlds, or if you’re determined, playing through a world will unlock the next one when you get far enough! Prices to unlock go higher and higher, but you can bypass that with gold bars found within levels. 50 gold bars will unlock any locked level, allowing you to skip to wherever you’d like! Be warned however! Each level’s difficulty rises rapidly and by the time you get to the Monngo Mountains or Urath Castle, chances are you’ll want to throw your Switch!
In addition to the basic mechanics of Boulder Dash, there are several more modern elements involved in Boulder Dash Deluxe. While digging, you can come across random treasure chests. These open after stages, much like a mobile game and you can get Rare, Ultra Rare, or even Legendary Loot out of them. This loot is used to unlock 8 add-ons for your character, making them more powerful and dropping the difficulty curve of those later levels. But don’t think getting all that stuff is going to be easy! You’ll need to replay a lot of levels to find enough loot to really have an impact. Even just getting the roller skates (the first item) helps a lot and that takes quite a while! There are also items in the treasure chests which you can use in levels, including dynamite to blow up rocks and walls, a spy glass to look around the level, and a 2x reward that doubles the points value for levels, allowing you to complete them easier. All of these are mapped to the Switch face buttons so it’s easy to just hit one by accident!
The best part about Boulder Dash Deluxe though is the inclusion of the entire original 1984 game with original visuals. You can play the old game in its entirety and you get stars to use in the main game as well! On top of that, there’s a second original style mode called The Bouldering Comp , designed by Peter Liepa, one of the original creators of Boulder Dash. This was previously included with 30th Anniversary but having it on the Switch collection is absolutely excellent. Retro gamers will definitely approve of these additions even if the main game doesn’t do it for them.
While the visuals in Boulder Dash Deluxe are smooth and clean, it’s hard not to feel like there’s something missing. These sanitized graphics lack more than a bit of the heart and style that the original game had, and especially when playing Boulder Dash Deluxe and then shifting to the original, the discrepancy is noticeable. There’s a missed opportunity here where the devs could have gone an extra step and added a button to shift from modern graphics to retro ones or even a voxel version of the same game that more closely resembled the original. The cutesy animals and odd gatcha items that you build up feel somewhat out of place, and some of the more creative worlds from 30th Anniversary would have been solid additions, but since this is a different studio, perhaps that wasn’t an option. Either way, there’s a lot more potential with the franchise that isn’t capitalized on here. We’ve seen this sort of thing recently with games like Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX (reviewed here) and Lode Runner Legacy (reviewed here), but Boulder Dash Deluxe falls a bit short of either of those. It’s not that it’s a bad game by any means, rather that there’s a lot more that could be done here that would really up the ante of the series!
Between the recycled assets, the odd loading circle, the strange redesign of Rockford, and the mobile-style gacha inclusions (thankfully with no micro-transactions), there’s a definite feel that Boulder Dash Deluxe started off as a mobile game and got shifted to the Switch. The sound effects and music are weaker than they could be as well, but perhaps that’s simply part of that overall mobile tack the game has taken. However, that’s not to say that the levels aren’t challenging and you’re not getting your money’s worth at $15! This is a good game with hundreds of challenging puzzles and some neat little tricks and surprises as well as the entire original game and if you love Boulder Dash, you won’t hate the collection. For newbies, maybe wait for a sale or try an online version to see what you think of the franchise, but this is a solid collection of challenging levels for the money. Let’s just hope the devs over at BBG take the next step with the series for the next game!
This review is based on a digital copy of Boulder Dash Deluxe provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well on both. Boulder Dash Deluxe is also available for PS4, XBox One, and PC on Steam. All screenshots are of actual gameplay.