''Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers'' is an

action game An action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction time. The genre includes a large variety of sub-genres, such as fighting games, beat 'em ups, shooter games, rhythm games and ...

developed by

Vanpool Vanpools or vanpooling is an element of the transit system that allow groups of people to share the ride similar to a carpool, but on a larger scale with concurrent savings in fuel and vehicle operating costs and thus usually a lower cost to the ...

and published by

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

for the

Nintendo 3DS The is a foldable dual-screen handheld game console produced by Nintendo. Announced in March 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS, the console was released originally on February 26, 2011 and went through various revisions in its lifetime, ...

. It was released in Japan in April 2018, with English releases in North America, Europe, and Australia the following month, with the North American version being limited as digital-only. A sequel to ''

Dillon's Rolling Western ''Dillon's Rolling Western'', known in Japan as , is a downloadable video game developed by Vanpool (company), Vanpool and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the first game in the ''Dillon'' series. Released exclusively through the ...

'', it takes place in a

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...

world and features Dillon, an

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

armadillo Armadillos () are New World placental mammals in the order (biology), order Cingulata. They form part of the superorder Xenarthra, along with the anteaters and sloths. 21 extant species of armadillo have been described, some of which are dis ...

who must defend frontier villages from walking rock-like monsters. The player is included in the game's cast as their Mii avatar in the form of an "Amiimal" with added animal features from various species. It received mixed reviews from critics, who most greatly criticized its repetitiveness.

Plot

The game has a darker setting compared to its predecessors, changing its world to be post-apocalyptic. From their home base in The City, Dillon and a band of mercenaries help defend smaller towns and other locations from the Grock invasion.

Gameplay

The game is a combination of

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a Video game genre, subgenre of Strategy video game, strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usual ...

and

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

elements. The player must defend against walking rock monsters called Grocks. Mercenaries and the player's avatar use guns to fight the monsters from towers while the player controls Dillon and dashes around the map to fight the monsters one on one. The Grocks have several stages in their invasion process - once they finish attacking on land, their mothership transforms them into vehicles that race around the roadways of the map. In the third phase, the Grocks become superpowered and charge directly at the base.

Development

The game's setting was changed away from

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

-themed to post-apocalyptic because it was seen as more of a familiar setting to modern audiences. Its producer, Kensuke Tanabe, said it drew inspiration from ''

Mad Max ''Mad Max'' is an Australian media franchise created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy. It centres on a series of post-apocalyptic and dystopian action films. The franchise began in 1979 with '' Mad Max'', and was followed by three sequels: ...

'' and was originally only going to be a

racing game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a motor racing, racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more re ...

, but the old gameplay was later combined with the new.

Reception

''Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers'' received an aggregate score of 69/100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. Neal Ronaghan of Nintendo World Report rated the game 8.5/10, saying that while the game was greatly improved from its predecessors, its pace was overly slow. CJ Andriessen of

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. Histor ...

rated it 75/100, calling it a "solid adventure through and through", but criticizing the existence of a game-breaking bug on release. He also stated that the process of mission preparation was "arduous" and the game's economy "baffling". Daniel Starkey of GameSpot rated the game 6/10, saying that while it was "action-packed", the controls were "perplexing" and the combat and day-night cycle were repetitive. He stated that "it's a competent and fun little outing that's almost perfectly suited for kids".

Notes

References

{{Dillon series 2018 video games Action games Nintendo 3DS-only games Nintendo 3DS eShop games Nintendo games Post-apocalyptic video games Single-player video games Vanpool games Video games about animals Video games about armadillos Video games developed in Japan Video games produced by Kensuke Tanabe