Why is everyone talking about Dillon's Rolling Western? Certainly not because it stars a silent Armadillo who is Nintendo's coolest new hero since Olimar, nor because it's a game that puts the fun back into tower defence, but because it costs nine quid.
Still, that's less than you'd pay for a cinema ticket in London and when you consider that it costs only £1.80 more than hidden object horror show Halloween: Trick Or Treat, Dillon's Rolling Western almost seems like a bargain. Almost...
So how much game do you get for your £9? Well, there are 10 villages to defend from a bunch of walking rocks called grocks but it is difficult to say how long that will take as it really depends on how good you are at tower defence games.
Dillon's Rolling Western is challenging and it never holds you by the hand. You're never told whether you should build iron or wooden towers or which ones to equip with shotguns, Gatling guns or cannons. Instead, you're ordered to collect scruffles from the fields to feed the scrogs, the creatures who live in the village. If the grocks invade the village and eat all the scrogs, it's game over so it's important to collect scruffles to increase the population of scrogs. Keeping up?
Grock N Roll
So in the day, you have to roll around the field collecting scruffles for the scrogs to eat as well as entering the mines to grab ore which can be used to build iron gates. You'll also need to use this time to build your towers and equip weapons. Rolling is simple with the stylus while you can control Dillon's direction with the Circle Pad.
Then in the evening, the grocks come out for their dinner and it's up to Dillon to prevent them from breaking into the village.
Some of them will be shot down by your carefully positioned gun towers and you can use dynamite to knock down towers which create barriers, but for the most part you'll have to roll into the grocks for battle to commence.
To defeat them, you pull back with the stylus to charge up your roll and then let go to smash into them. Upon impact, you can keep the stylus held down to grind into them or tap the screen to start a combo. It's hard work but so satisfying when you defeat all the grocks in the field over the course of three days and save the village.
The key to victory is to avoid distractions but that's a hard thing to do. It's so easy to be tempted away from scruffle hunting and mining when a gold grock turns up during the day. Racing to catch him for his gold could mean you don't have enough time to collect enough ore for the gates, making you vulnerable at night.
Or you might spot a special type of grock in the distance whose debris you need to complete one of the three side-quests on each mission. Chasing him could leave your village exposed but rushing back to catch a grock before he breaks through the gates is genuinely thrilling.
Dillon's Rolling Western does that thing that Intelligent Systems did with Advance Wars. Developer Vanpool has taken the potentially dull genre of tower defence and packed it with enough charm and character to make it accessible to all.
Admittedly you're pretty much doing the same thing for hours on end but there are far worse things to do than roll around the wild west as an armadillo, and you'll be too busy worrying about gun tower placement to even consider that it might be getting repetitive. Of course it would have been nice to have a multiplayer mode but you'd probably have to pay even more for that. As it is, Dillon's Rolling Western is great fun and it's hard to think of another game quite like it. It's clearly not as good value as the amazing Pullblox but Dillon is definitely worth it.
I'm gonna get it as soon as my mum lets me get a eshop card or lets me use her creddit card! (Could be up to 2months!)
I picked this up on day of release, and I think it's definetly worth the price.
The graphics and 3D effect are great, and I love placing all my towers, deciding which grocks to attack or which to leave for my towers and building gates.
It's really hard to get 5 stars, but that's what makes it so fun. It's not for little children, this is a serious game.... even then you're protecting sheep called scrocks!
They're pigs and they're called scrogs.
Downloded this on release. Great game can't put it down.
Well, apart from when i'm playing LoZ
i'm going to need to pick this up.
also all in favour of putting this guy in the next smash bros say I!!
I! He's got the rolling for basic attack as well as claws+ grinding + crystals for specials and dynamite or powered up role as a final smash he would be beast!
I love the game, although I'm stuck on Day 3 of the second village... It's hard already. If Zelda had to crossover with anything - it should be Dillon, it has so many amazing similarities and was obviously inspired partly by Zelda (especially with Dillon's voice actor being none other than Adult Link from Ocarina of Time). It really made me want a crossover game at some point... The art style/sound is like Spirit Tracks merged with Back to the Future 3 with a bit of Advanced Wars mixed in. I'm glad I bought it, despite how hard it is... The only annoyance with difficulty is that it partly feels like the difficulty is there just to be annoying on purpose - rather than something tactile like Skyward Sword's AI for enemies and strategy. It still doesn't put me off, Dillon is a charming character and I'm hoping enough people will agree with my Zelda crossover idea - So get emailing Nintendo and the developers!!!
I'm sorry but how does a game which seems shallow and repetitive, earn an 87%? Parts of the review were even spent justifying the games flaws with the "you could do worse" argument. This website is truly pathetic with its favouritism and pandering. I'm leaving, you guys can keep it.
Do you own the game? I did say that it can be repetitive but rolling around as an armadillo is fun so the fact that you are doing similar things throughout the game isn't a big issue.
Technically, Tetris is "shallow and repetitive" too but that doesn't make it a bad game. Tom wasn't justifying the repetitiveness by saying "you could do worse" than this game, he was saying the gameplay may be slightly repetitive but "you could do worse" than roll around as an armadillo - in other words, yes, it's repetitive, but if what you're repeating is fun then it doesn't matter. Tetris innit.
If you've been a reader of ONM (either the mag or the site) for a while you'll see that we're not actually guilty of favouritism - yes, we have favourite games, but if we didn't we'd be robots. We certainly don't show favour towards a company's games just because that company published them, and we've given low scores to plenty of Nintendo games in the past.
We're sorry we can't provide the 34% score it seems you were hoping for, but it turns out this is actually a really good game. Yes, it has flaws, and Tom points them out in his review (as you'd hope he would), but he also makes it clear that these flaws aren't noticeably irritating enough to have a hugely negative effect on the gameplay experience.
We don't give Nintendo-published games a higher score because Nintendo made them, but at the same time we're not going to give genuinely good Nintendo games a lower score, even if it deserves higher, just to satisfy the conspiracy theorists who think we meet up with Iwata and Reggie at the pub every night after work and smoke £100 notes as we crookedly laugh the night away.
In short, Tom gave it the score it deserved, pointing out the flaws but making it clear they weren't bad enough to ruin the experience.
cool if you did though
Chris really is ultimate at beating up noobs!
I love this game!!!! I hate tower-defense game but this is my favourite eshop game yet!!!!
Dillon is the coolest character on a downloadable game I've ever seen and I thought that he sounded like Link's voice actor (the fact that he's mute, a Nintendo character and that he goes "Shaaaaahhh!!!" every two minutes kinda gave it away)
I've always thought they look more like sheep for some reason. Probably because they look white.
Yeah, scrogs sorry. I've got 44 of them in Stage 4 at the moment and I've only just done Day 2. Gonna try and make 50!
ill be getting that as soon as i can get an eshop card (hopefuly this weekend) and does the music remind anyone else of zelda?
Many, many games are shallow and repetitive. Mario, Pokemon, Tetris, Pacman, the list goes on and on. Also, looking at your previous posts, this is the third review you've moaned at that ONM have scored. And the last comment is just uncalled for. If you don't like the magazine/website, why on earth did you sign up in the first place
>implying that everyone is void of favouritism apart from the ONM writers.
I love you, Chris. o/
I've just tried to play this game but found it nearly impossible to do as I'm left-handed. You need to use the stylus to spin but at the same time use the circle pad to move and my right hand is useless for using the stylus so I'm screwed basically. So can someone tell me if this works with Circle Pad Pro?
No, you can't use the circle pad pro. I'm left handed and found it difficult to control at first but, like Skyward Sword, I managed to use my right hand with the stylus.
Give it another try. I'm sure you'll be able to adjust to it.
I'll give it another try but it has put me off a little. I've found games like Skyward Sword, and Sin & Punishment quite easy to play right handed with the Wii Remote, but I think the stylus makes things awkward.
Dillon's Rolling Western is one of the worst games I have played in a long time. I totally regret buying this. And £9 is a rip off.
Are you going to justify your opinion, or just hate it because everyone else likes it?
COD is £50. How is £9 for a really good downloadable game a rip off?
Got this yesterday and it is brilliant played it for 2 and a half hours and only on the 3rd village
Gave it another shot but instead of using the 3DS stylus, I used my DSi one which made things more comfortable and a little less awkward. Still though, I can't help but feel my experience of this game is going to be far less enjoyable than what it should be, all because of a control scheme.
this is the worst nintendo game ive ever played and the worst game ive played in a long time,
its the same thing over and over again, its not fun at all its not a tower defence game its not a platformer its ......... ? roll around a small desert until you have enough, quit and play a proper game
87% i dont think so,
A long time ago before i ever read ONM I had just got my Dsi, I had connected it to the Eshop, I decided to buy Starship Patrol, Which was a really good game! I can't say i prefer Dillions but Dillions is a bit more fun! Sadly though i wasted my other 500 points on WarioWare Snapped :L
I absolutely liked the trailer and can't wait to buy it.
0 credit though.