To be completely honest with you, I don't think I enjoyed the previous Dillon games.
Now don't me wrong, I am not going to sit here and say the games are bad, but the original
games left me feeling flat.
The tower defense action in Dillon's Rolling Western wasn't too hot, and the variety present
felt a bit depressing.
The sequel, The Last Western, didn't enough to win me back over and I ended up not even
finishing it.
So... why oh why would I even be discussing Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers?
Because it is good, darn good in fact.
It still suffers from a slow pace, but this armadillo gets moving before you know it.What
immediately stood out to me was the change in tone.
While I was not against exploring the wild west, the threat never felt truly there.
In Dead-Heat Breakers, the whole game is dipped in a Mad Max mentality.
Dillon stands out a silent hero that fights against the interests of an authority as well
as the outlandish Grocks.
Sure, the Grocks were in the previous games, but they never felt like something malicious.
The rock monsters attacked to feed themselves on delicous Scrogs, hidden within the bases.
While that part of it is still there, you would hard pressed to find a moment in previous
entries where it really matters.
Dead-Heat Breakers introduces characters and shows why you are exactly fighting.
The feeling of stopping the threat and saving a town simply feels good.Dillon, the silent
protagonist that it is, brings a rag tag team together to keeps these towns at large safe.
The team and their friendship is being created within the walls of the city.
Some familiar characters make a return including Sal the Arms Dealer and Russ the squirrel
sidekick among others.
The new key players in the story are you and your friends.
Well, their Mii characters.
Miis will be transformed into recruitable animal troopers that will help you out in
battle.
This makes for some hilarious results as Reggie Fils-Aime turned into a giant bull, and Bill
Trinen turned into a goat in my game.
Their reactions and how they interact with the world surrounding them is truly hilarious,
and gives hiring gunners such a treasured feel of charm.
Your Mii animal is the most important one here mind, as you will be controlling him
or her between missions and other activities.Before we get into those, let's discuss the classic
tower defense action.
Many things are improved compared to the last two entries.
You start by setting up the recuited gunners and exploring the map, all of which can be
done with buttons now.
As Dillon, you will need to charge up the towers and ensure that have enough boost to
fly across the map.
After a while, or you press START, the evil Grocks will start dropping like wild fire.
With button controls at hand, you control Dillon towards the rock monsters and start
taking them down.
If you don't, they will start attacking towers and bring your mission to an almost immediate
end.
You will engage in arena style battles where dashing, avoiding and striking are enough
to take most down.
The frantic sequences are way better represented than in the previous entries, ensuring that
every takedown is quite satisfying.
When you get to a certain amount, the action of the defense missions starts to drastically
change.
Insteadof usual dashing, Dillon changes into a racing machine that needs take down vehicle
shaped Grocks.
Withthe right slamming and ramming moves, you will destroy them within required time
limit.
These sections require a lot of care from the player as you don't have the room to mess
it up.
You will find yourself braking carefully, drifting to maintain a certain speed or do
a Supercharged Dash to close gaps.
They are an utter brilliant finale to the protect towns missions, and feel right at
home with the feeling I am describing.
Cruising around, finding the Grocks and destroying the threat in front of your eyes is entertaining
beyond belief.
While it may seem that you just hop from mission to mission, that isn't exactly the case.
Like I mentioned before, there is a city where you partake in so much more.
For starters, maybe you want to replay a mission or two?
The Replay Machine allows you to go back and replay defense missions that you finished.This
can net you a better score, and imagery in the game's Gallery Mode.
Next to this, your Mii can do handy work to earn money for your gunner hiring schemes.
There are three distinct minigames where you work in the Recycle Center, Zzz Mart or Hyper
Arcade for cash based on your performance.
While these are fun, they do make the game drag as you basically do the same things over
and over.
My favoriteactivity, without a doubt, is the Stadium.
It is here that you put Dillon's racing abilities to the test in a time trial styled race.
The initial one starts easy enough, but later ones throw you for a constant loop.
So much so that I made hefty use of the practice option in the game's main menu screen.Dillon's
Dead-Heat Breakers is a beaut of a Nintendo 3DS game.
It runs really smooth with beautifully rendered characters and environments to boot.
The developers took time to give the world a gritty look that I can get behind.
More impressive is the fact that 3D effects are still present in this video game.
I thought that this something Nintendo almost fully got rid of, but it is here in full force.
The backgrounds really pop and make the world stand out even a bit more.
It is well tailored for the system in every way possible.
At the end of the day, Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers is one of the fully new and original
titles to be on Nintendo 3DS this year.
The game feels made and suited to be on Nintendo 3DS, while delivering on fun gameplay and
cool mechanics.
What truly sells the experience here are Mii animal gunners, and some of extra activities
that keep you glued for hours on end.
The only disappointing thing really is that the pace crawls now and again.
It feels rather off in an otherwise really well put together product.
Well, what can I say more?
I am giving the game a Loved It.
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