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Alex is offering this PSA to 3DS owners: Dillon's Rolling Western sucks.
While we will have a review going up on the site fairly soon, I feel the need to tell you all right now not to spend $10 on this sad excuse of a video game. I know everybody, EAD made it, and everything EAD makes must be good! Right? Wrong.
This game was co-developed by Vanpool and EAD. The reason why I'm posting this instead of a review of my own is that I need to get something out as quickly as possible to save everyone from buying this game. Why I would feel the need to do this rather than any other game is because of the hopes I had for this game. I saw the amazing combination of intense action and monster fighting with a large scale tower defense game, became excited when finding out Nintendo made it, and realized that I had to own it. That was almost a year ago, when I started paying attention. Naturally, when finding out it was coming out of nowhere as I was watching Reggie and the stand guy do their thing, I rushed to get my 3DS and download it immediately. I mean, it was $10, the most expensive eShop game yet, so it must have loads of work put into it. "I'm always happy to pay a little more for Nintendo!"
In the game, Dillon sets out to save a western town by gathering resources and building defenses by day, and fighting the enemies (called "gronks") by night. The issue is that, at least in early levels, setting up defenses does almost nothing to stop enemies, and because enemies are so prone to destroying everything you've built without hesitation, barely succeeding in one level almost guarantees failure during the next one. Not to mention, building resources and defenses consists of rolling around, hitting things to collect them, and rushing to the village (sometimes across the map) to utilize whatever supplies you have. This is not exciting. It's tedious, and once you get further into the game, it begins to feel like errands that have to take place before the real level starts.
The real "fun" isn't much better. To tackle the second part of a level, you must find gronks as they attempt to invade the village and kill/eat these hideous pig things, which seem to be a kind of livestock for the village. Meeting these on the map starts a battle with four-to--six smaller versions (kind of like running into an enemy on the Zelda II overworld), but you can't take your time, because enemies slowly but surely continue onwards while you're engaged in this encounter. On the third level alone, close to 100 of the exact same enemy must be fought for the player to win and move onward. Although variants of gronks do exist to some extent (like a boss version who is simply larger and red), it seems like the same few enemies are fought for the entire game. This is problematic, especially because combat quickly feels brainless and loses any interest in the rolling mechanic you may have had before.
This game is repetitive, boring, mindless, and lacking of any charm whatsoever. For 10 stages (each consisting of three levels apiece) that can take upwards of 40 minutes each (and no checkpoints, either), I had really hoped that Nintendo would try to make an effort to add in unique elements to keep the game fresh for longer than the first five levels. And remember, this is the most expensive 3D eShop game to date. It would be reasonable to expect a quality superior to those of a lesser price, like the superb Pushmo or VVVVVV. This, sadly, has not happened, and the fact that this game costs $10 is not only wrong, but moreso disgusting.
Technically speaking, the game is fine. Good sound, good graphics, okay 3D, and good character design (aesthetically at least. None of the characters have even heard of an original personality). That is no excuse. If you have $10 to spend, and you're really confident that you like something like this, and you love tower defense games and action games, and you love Nintendo, still, do not buy this game. Enough people have been disappointed by blindly buying eShop games already.
The Rolling Western
Dillon's Rolling Western
