Welcome to our review of the latest Nintendo game released for 3DS! Dillon’s Dead-Heat Breakers!
Showdown in the post-apocalyptic frontier.
Eighty years ago, a cataclysmic event devastated the world. Holed up in “The City” and outlying frontier towns, no survivor is safe now that a mysterious ship has unleashed an army of supercharged monsters. So, prepare for battle: gather resources by helping local businesses and winning races. Then stock up, man the towers, and strengthen barricades to protect each village’s livestock! Discover new strategies to take out over 30 different types of enemies: some swim, some dig, some are electrified, poisonous, armored—even flying. Monsters transform into wheeled forms, racing into action-packed, high-speed chases!
As a team, defend a post-apocalyptic wild west from an invasion of transforming rock monsters alongside your Mii™ character, Dillon the armadillo, and his squirrel engineer, Russ. Recruit hired gunners to back you up in battle, and then roll into fights and high-speed chases and take down waves of enemies as Dillon—the “Red Flash” himself!
The eShop has a demo available for anyone looking to try out this game, something I highly suggest you do. Some may say the 3DS is on its’ final breath, but games like this do prove otherwise. I realize my review might come over as a mess, but that is just because there are so many things happening!
At first, enter the tutorial! It will teach you how the basic movements, read that as rolling, work. Dillon is an armadillo and he just speeds around the highway and you are in pursuit of basically yourself, in my case, my username is Pasicci, so Dillon is in pursuit of Pasicci. Not to defeat him, no, to keep him from being damaged. The monsters are in his pursuit and it is up to Dillon to defeat them. You can do this by speeding into them and then grind away at them or as you later learn, by performing slash attacks. Once you defeat all of them in pursuit of Pasicci, you get to face the big boss of the tutorial. I will not spoil how this works, I always believe this is up to you, the player, to find out and enjoy! Afterward, you are introduced to each other and all three of you finally meet face to face. Once that is over, you move to the big city, which will be the hub for in between levels, so to speak.
After arriving in the big city, the game switches from a fighting atmosphere to more an RPG style city atmosphere. You are in the hotel at first, in a backroom where you previously parked the big rig Pasicci was driving. As we are now switching from Dillon to Pasicci, the game is now you walking around town. You get minor missions like getting more money, which you need for the missions later on or go play games in the arcade style building at the end of town. It is clear from this point on, that this is not just your every day tower defense game, though that is the main “gaming” part of the game. When you are in the hotel lobby, you can either go upstairs for a nap in your room or hire a gunner. A Gunner is someone to help you defend a base in the Dillon part of the game. As you need money to hire a gunner, you can’t just waste all your hard earned cash for defending a base, you need to plan ahead. A more expensive gunner at a good strategic place might be more beneficial than 5 lower cost ones after all. Flipping from one mode to the other, it becomes clear that it is your mission to save everyone in need, defeating monsters along the way. I loved the versatility of the game, but sadly I also had some annoyances. I did not find a way to speed up the text. The talking is sometimes too long and the inability to speed it up, in a game where speed is everything, it is a little bit of a letdown.
Another thing I encountered, when you are fighting as Dillon and you get a message from one of the Gunners on a base, it takes soooooo long for those to disappear. They take up a big chunk of the playing screen and it is possibly the most annoying of both issues I encountered. Especially when you are facing off with a red monster, I really prefer having a clear view of the playing field when battling those.
In conclusion, aside from some minor annoyances, Dillon does hold up as an experience on 3DS that is battling the Nintendo Switch in its own right. I really applaud the availability of a demo as this allows everyone to try out the debut for free. Do download it and see where you stand, for me, I think the game holds up but does not bring me a game-changing experience. It brings a smart approach to a genre like tower defense by introducing an elaborate storyline.
My rating for Dillon’s Dead-heat Breakers is 70%
