Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers

Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers
Dillon is back, but in a different world.
Protagonist(s): Dillon (Defense and Race Sections) Your Mii (City Sections) Genre(s): Action Adventure Tower Defense Platform(s): Nintendo 3DS Release Date: JP: April 26, 2018 NA: May 24, 2018 EU: May 25, 2018 AU: May 26, 2018 Developer(s): Vanpool Publisher(s): Nintendo Country: Japan Series: Dillon's Rolling Western Predecessor: Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger

Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers is a Action-adventure Tower Defense game that was released on the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on April 26, 2018, while other versions released a month later. It is a sequel to Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger.

This would be the last entry for the Dillon's Rolling Western franchise, because of Vanpool's shutdown.

Why The Red Flash Is Still Rolling 5 Years Later

1. The graphics are a huge upgrade from the previous entry, with expressive character models (Many characters can now move their mouth, can now blink, and Russ now has eyebrows that adjusts with certain expressions), and cooler environments.
   • In fact, this game looks very good for a late 3DS title.
2. The cutscenes are more action-packed and are well animated, such as the opening introduction cutscene where it introduces the main characters.
3. New mechanics such as borrowing money from Stranger if you don't have enough money for a full team of gunners, and the city allowing you to do jobs for extra money.
4. There's also a way to start the defending part of the mission early, by holding the start button. In which saves a lot of time once you gathered enough resources.
5. After enough time has past or if there's only a few grocks left, the game will go into it's Dead-Heat phase where Dillon has to chase the Grocks and destroy them while they are driving around the stage, before the time runs out and they become powerful grocks.
6. Dillon's gear can be upgraded as soon you unlock the next upgrade, the upgraded gear will allow Dillon to be stronger and defeat the grocks easily. Although enough uses will destroy the gear.
   • Overtime, Dillon's Rolling Engines will be upgraded and these upgrades will help Dillon go faster.
   • The player Amiimal's gear is unbreakable.
7. This game introduces the Amiimials which can be hired as gunners, if you have Miis saved on your 3DS, they can also be hired.
   • It was also one of the last few Nintendo 3DS games to support Miis.
8. The control scheme from the previous two entries (Which heavily relied on the touch-screen) were thankfully overhauled to being button controls, making it easier to control.
9. There is more stuff to do while you are finished with a rescue mission, you can travel around the city and either do jobs, play a shooter game at the arcade, play a pinball minigame, or even allow Dillon to compete in a race at the speedway.
10. Unlike the previous games where you need to have a specific number of stars in order to progress through the game's levels, the stars this time are only used for the unlockables, if you replay the level again.
11. Various unlockables can be unlocked after gathering a number of stars such as a cutscene viewer, a soundtest to preview music, concept art, and more.
12. As usual, finishing the game will reward you a model viewer that allows you to view all the models of the grocks you encounter in the game, not only that, it now allows you to view Dillon, Russ, and the player Amiimal's models as well.
13. Great soundtrack.
14. The Japan and Europe versions of the game are physical, meaning you can still play them physically after the 3DS eShop shutdown in 2023.

Bad Qualities

1. Unlike the previous two entries, only this game got physical releases in Japan and Europe, the United States release stayed as a eShop exclusive, due to the 3DS eShop being shutdown on March 2023, the game cannot be legally obtained anymore in the United States, unless you got a Europe copy.
2. Poor Release Date: The game was released in 2018 on the Nintendo 3DS, when the Nintendo Switch came out a year earlier and many players have moved on to the Nintendo Switch. Resulting in this game to have less sales. It should be noted that Vanpool developed this game for the Nintendo 3DS during that time, since they weren't given development kits for the Nintendo Switch and it would result in them having to restart development for the game to work on the Switch.
3. Additionally, unlike the previous two entries which were priced at $10 (Rolling Western) and $15 (Last Ranger), this game costs $40 both physically and digitally at launch, considering that the game series wasn't as well known and the game's late release in the 3DS's lifespan as the Nintendo Switch was released a year before.
4. Despite being a sequel to the previous game, it feels more like a reboot as most of the characters from the previous game never get mentioned or make any appearances (Except for Stranger, Sal, The Bartender, and Otis)
5. Anachronism: Despite the game taking place in a post-apocalyptic universe, a lot of the items found in the item bins are mostly modern and look completely fine such as earbuds, a Lego brick, and a fidget spinner.
   • On topic with the fidget spinner item in the game, fidget spinners would lose their popularity during the game's release in 2018. In fact, this is the only official 3DS Nintendo game currently to feature a fidget spinner in it, until Pikmin 4 released 5 years later on the Switch.
6. Unlike Gallo, Boone, and Nomad from the previous game who can help collect scruffles, mine ores, and collect money. The player Amiimal doesn't have these tasks, resulting in Dillon having to collect them himself.
7. Much like the previous two entries, the tower defensing part of the game can get old after a while, especially if you return back to the same village multiple times. (Which thankfully you only can arrive to these villages twice for the story, if you need the stars for the other unlockables you would need to replay the missions.)
8. Because of Vanpool's shutdown in May 2023, this will be the last entry for the franchise, unless Hal were to hire the developers of Vanpool to their company (considering Vanpool's track record of helping Hal for some of their games), or Nintendo were to give the franchise to a different studio. Dillon will be another one of Nintendo's abandoned franchises that will never get any new games.
   • This makes the final unlockable's thank you message (if all the stars are collected) age poorly as Dillon won't be seen anytime soon, outside of cameos for certain Nintendo games.
   • Additionally in some interviews, the developers wanted to create a collaboration spinoff to Star Fox with characters from the Dillon's Rolling Western franchise, along with a untitled Dillon's Rolling Western RPG game. Due to the studio shutting down, these plans will not happen anytime soon.

Reception

It is unknown how many copies the game sold worldwide, however the game's trailer was added in one of Nintendo's YouTube playlists called "Best Selling 3DS Games", showing that Nintendo still recognized the franchise, however because of Vanpool's shutdown, it is unknown if a new game of the series will ever come.

This game received an score of 69/100 on Metacritic, 75/100 on Destructoid, and a 8.5/10 on Nintendo World Report.

Trivia

1. The game likely started development around 2014-2015, as a unused model referenced the Autodesk Maya 2016 software which released on March 2015
2. The game's setting was changed to a post-apocalyptic setting during development, this was due to Kensuke Tanabe's influence on the Mad Max series, many elements of the game heavily reference off the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, as such this game was subtitled "Mad Max: Furry Road" by fans.

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