Should you take to the skies with this drone game?
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When you first come across RV-7 My Drone in the Nintendo eShop, it looks like any other inexpensive game on the platform – a good way to pass a couple of hours, but not exactly engrossing. But RV-7 My Drone is surprisingly engaging for a budget offering and does a good job of introducing you to the world of drones.
The game works on a standard progression formula. And at the beginning, you can only fly up and down, left and right, and forward and backward. But as things progress, you get more options and controls, allowing you to do things like engage enemies and use weapons.
Controls
The controls of the game are also a lot of fun. The developers designed it for use with the 3DS, giving players both physical control and touch screen options. For instance, to aim the gun, you simply glide the stylus over the surface of the screen and the drone will fire the weapon in that direction. You can think of it as a twin-stick shooter, but without the actual twin sticks.
Missions
In RV-7 My Drone, you’re not just in a drone simulator. Instead, you’re actually playing a variety of missions, turning the experience into more of an action thriller than something that’s true to life.
The variety of missions is one of the best aspects of the game. There are just so many to choose from. And each of them has a slightly different appeal. There’s always something new and interesting to keep you hooked. The developers clearly paid a lot of attention to the quality of the gameplay. They weren’t lazy in the development process. Instead, they took the time to think about how they could offer players new challenges in each mission to keep things both interesting and rewarding.
You start off doing supply and rescue missions. In supply missions, you need to dodge enemies and pick up supplies in one base and transport them to another. In the rescue missions, you have to pick up personnel behind enemy lines and bring them back to their barracks. During these missions, the biggest obstacle is the hazards. These are everywhere and make it difficult to know where to position the drone next. You continually have to consider both your lateral movement and your height as some obstacles create 3D barriers that you have to navigate.
As the levels progress, the variety of challenges increases. After completing several supply and rescue missions, you can move onto a range of other game modes, including defending missions, escort missions, building missions and missions that ask you to put out fires.
As the missions progress, the range of objectives expands. Later missions, for instance, have you completing multiple missions in a single sortie.
Abilities
Of course, as the mission difficulty increases, so too does your range of abilities. For instance, once you get to the later levels, you’re able to stop time and transport to anywhere you like on the map. This feature allows you to escape hazards and keep yourself in the air long enough to complete the mission. It also allows you to cut your travel time across the landscape, making progress through the levels substantially easier than before.
The time-stopping ability doesn’t just apply to your drone either. Instead, you can use it to stop various objects on the map and then use them to your advantage. For instance, if you direct your time-stop ability at gun turrets, you can prevent them from firing. Then, when you activate time again, you can commandeer them to attack your enemies.
This feature of the game, though, isn’t obvious on the first play through, so you might miss it. The developers did not take the time to flag the feature. And you only really get to use the skill properly on one level, which is a shame. The mechanic is good, so it could easily have been an integral part of the game.
Tutorials
The game developers tried to make RV-7 My Drone a game that people could just pick up casually and play, without having to read through a massive manual first. As such, as you go through the game, you’ll come across a bunch of drone tutorials where you can learn more. Unfortunately, some of these tutorials can be a little hard to see when you are in the thick of the action. And so many players wind up getting stuck, not quite knowing what to do next.
If you’re in this position on a particular mission, try flying around the map, hovering over various objects that you find. Then look for a pop-up box with an explanation for what you need to do next. In many cases, you have to activate a special ability that will do something that will enable you to move on to the next stage.
Unfortunately, most tutorials are just simple visual cues. There’s no writing or indicators showing you what you have to do next, so the developers mainly leave it to you to figure things out for yourself.
Difficulty
As with most games of this type and price point, RV-7 My Drone starts off very easy. Most players will be able to complete the first few missions without any trouble at all. However, as you work your way through the levels, the difficulty ramps up tremendously. By the end of the game, completing levels becomes almost impossible, thanks to the sheer variety of enemies and hazards in the environment. In this sense, it is a little bit like Sky Force, another popular mobile game with a similar gameplay feel.
Some players will find the latter stages too challenging. There are so many enemies and hazards coming at you from all directions that you can physically run out of escape options. For example, you have to dodge rockets coming out of the ground, drones and tanks shooting shells at you, wind machines blowing you off the beaten track, lava flows threatening you on the ground, and, of course, random laser beams. There are also giant crushing arms located throughout the maps which will destroy your drone in a single shot if they get the chance.
Replay Value
The game can be a little brutal at times. But that’s what gives it its replay value. Most players will be able to get through the 26 missions that comprise the game in about two to three hours. The goal then is to go back through it and try to improve on your performance.
The game also makes use of procedural generation. Thus, every level is different from the last time that you played it, so you never get bored. Challenges are always shifting and changing, which is nice, given that other gameplay modifications are limited. Not only does the landscape change, but so too does the mix of objectives, missions, enemies and scenarios.
Conclusion
So what do we think about RV-7 My Drone on the Nintendo 3DS? Well, given the platform that it is on, the graphics aren’t perfect. But gamers expect that. What they want are games that genuinely challenge them and make them feel a sense of pride.
RV-7 My Drone certainly accomplishes that. It offers a tremendous level of challenge and depth – two factors that make it a must-have game for the 3DS. What’s more, it’s also incredibly easy to get into, thanks to the simple missions you encounter at the start of the game. To improve the drone experience, the developers need to tweak the procedural generation tools so that the game is difficult, but not impossible.