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[3DS eShop] The Rolling Western/Dillon's Rolling Western |OT|

GeekyDad

Member
I was under the impression the trollbots already decided this game was bad before it even released. Am I to believe they were wrong?
 

jtrov

Member
Woww, what a pleasant surprise to see this out "now". Was so intrigued by this game when it was first shown off in the trailer and after hearing some impressions I'm even more excited to buy this. Can't wait to get out of work, so I can quickly download the game.
 

zroid

Banned
So, did a lot of you pick this up? I'm still not quite on board yet, and $10 is pretty steep.

Hope it's good!
 

M3d10n

Member
Played the first day, I like what I played. I just don't bother with the stylus and I'm using my right thumb instead, since the game accepts input from anywhere in the screen.
 
Played it for a few minutes and I quite like it. Just got through the first wave of Grocks, haven't upgraded any of the defence towers though. Combat is pretty fun, I like the combo system mixing the rolling attacks with the claw attacks (all with the touch screen) and dodging enemies with the circle pad (more like moving out of the way from their attacks). So far its pretty simple but fun. Overall, I like it better than Sakura Samurai.
 

Lausebub

Banned
No, as far as I can tell the only negative press the game's got is from IGN, who from what I read don't seem to have spent much time with the game.

In other news, Dillon for Smash Bros. 3D

Yeah, they just played a short demo, I think. For example: they play a preview version of Sakura Samurai, said that it sucked and the same person reviewed the game and gave it a 9. So yeah, I think that Nintendo games usually get a lot better at the end of development. Look at Kid Icarus, now I feel like it's going to be an amazing title for the library. :)
 
I just saved the first town, and I'm loving the game so far! Great character design, cool control system, a little touch of Zelda when you open a chest... And Dillon is definitely a cool character, he really should appear in Smash Bros. 3D, at least as a support character!
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
Nintendo is on a roll (literally) with these releases. Just played the first 3 levels and I'm having a blast. If you loved rolling around in Termina as a Goron, then you'll love the mechanic here. It's pretty simple, but a lot of fun. I like it because it looks cool, it feels really good thanks to the 3DS touch screen, and it requires precision and timing.

And like most Nintendo games, it has awesome character design, music, and from the looks of it, it's gonna get more complex as it progresses.

Totally recommend it.
 

Skiesofwonder

Walruses, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers.
I haven't even beat Sakura Samurai yet and I have Miles Edgeworth Investigation/Ghost Trick left to finish.... along with multiplayer for MK7 and RE:R.

Yet you all are making me want this game now!!!! Have mercy on my gaming soul
wallet
Nintendo.
 

Pietepiet

Member
Loving this. I'm not one for Tower Defense, but this has such minimal Tower Defense elements that I can forgive it. It's very fast paced and rolling around the field is so much fun!

Seconding Dillon for Smash 3D. What a great character design! Will have to make some fan pixelart of him soon....

More like this, Nintendo! Lovely!
 

zroid

Banned
Do you usually trust their reviews? I don't. I don't trust reviews period honestly.

For me, it's not so much a question of "trust"; it's not like I think reviewers are being dishonest when they give their impressions of games. I'm not that cynical about reviews.

All I can ever take away from a review is whether the reviewer liked the game or not, and what his/her reasons for that stance are. Unless I'm intimately familiar with a certain writer's gaming taste (which is usually not the case), it's hard to infer if *I* will enjoy the game. I'll definitely need more than one review from a guy I don't know before I can decide if I should buy it.

But that's also why I'm appealing to you guys in this thread. I figure I'm more likely to be of a common mind with you than this NWR fellow.
 

nron10

Neo Member
As a representative of Nintendo World Report, I implore you guys to remember that those are impressions and not a full review. Our full review is coming later from a different writer.
 

Codeblue

Member
So I read NWR's PSA then bought the game. I wish he had called the price disgusting at the beginning of the article and saved me some reading time, I can't stand that sort of hyperbole. For $10 I think I can find out for myself, I'll post my early impressions after I've had a few hours with it.
 
My Impressions/Review


REVIEW: Dillon’s Rolling Western
RELEASE DATE: February 22nd (EU, JP, NA)
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Price: £9.00/$10.00


If nothing else, Dillon’s Rolling Western is a good argument against the oft-used criticism of Nintendo sticking to their guns with old IP’s. The game stars all new characters, including the titular Dillon, an Armadillo ranger who happens upon a group of Western towns that have been beset upon by evil Grocks, giant rocks that are eating the town’s livestock. It’s your job to defend the town, using Dillon’s roll, guntowers, and stone gates to protect the town from the attacking monsters.

The livestock is also what you are primarily protecting in the game. Held inside the village, there are only a certain amount of livestock. You can get more through collection of special plants, earned funnily enough by rolling around, but once this livestock is depleted, it’s game over. This also occurs if Dillon’s hearts run out.

The game takes place over a three day structure for each village. In the day, you spend your time rolling around the landscape, collecting plants to increase your livestock amount, finding randomly placed mines to collect ore and diamonds to increase your defences and sell for money, and building up the various towers and walls you have to protect the village. You also complete side quests for villagers, in return for money. It usually amounts to fetch quests or “defeat x amount of enemies”, but it’s a nice addition outside of the normal gameplay.

You have a brief warning before the Grocks come, but when it turns to night it’s battle time. The Grocks come, and they come fast. It’s a pretty steep difficulty curve, and if you’re not careful you’ll find yourself easily outmatched.

You do this mainly via the touchscreen, the circle pad, and the L button. As far as I can tell, the game doesn’t use any other buttons. This simplifies the control scheme, but sometimes you get “the claw” reminiscent of games such as Metroid Prime Hunters. This may be one of the games that the Kid Icarus stand might come in handy for. The primary means of transportation, attacking, and the games namesake, is Dillon’s “roll” move. This is quite simply done by pulling down the touch screen and releasing, making Dillon zoom across the desert landscape. It’s really quite a satisfying way of getting round, and the touch screen controls are fairly intuitive, in combat and outside of it.

The combat is interesting; Dillon attacks bigger enemies, which begins a very RPG style random battle, taking you to smaller battle field where you fight either smaller versions of the enemy, or the boss monster. It’s worth keeping in mind that the enemy movement outside your battle continues, so it’s a good idea to get the battle over and done with as quick as possible. At first it can feel very repetitive, with Dillon simply rolling and rushing at enemies. But then, as you learn more moves like Dillon’s claw attack, the combat becomes very rhythmic, with the player having to tap at the right time to initiate combos. This in turn allows combat to be over quicker (allowing you to get back to the other enemies laying siege to the village), and also lets you get better items.

This alone isn’t enough to defeat the Grocks, who easily outnumber Dillon. You have to increase the town’s defences. You do this by spending currency and items on upgrading village walls and defensive and offensive towers. There are two types of towers; watchtowers and guntowers. Both provide a form of defence, but the guntowers are the main offensive force outside of your own rolling rush. This, along with all other “upgrades”, including ones for Dillon himself, gives you a lot of chance to customise your own strategy.

It’s not your standard tower defence game, as you’ll have to explore and seek towers/mines out to upgrade your defences. There are also hidden caves that hold very Zelda style treasure chests, which hold rare items you can sell for lots of cash. The whole game, with hearts and treasure chests, has a very “Zelda” vibe, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some members of the Spirit Tracks/Phantom Hourglass team were drafted in to help with the game.

Something I find most endearing though is the art style. The game strikes a very cute midway between western grit you’d see in the likes of Red Dead Redemption, and anamorphic characters akin to Star Fox 64. Character models are sharp and crisp, using what seems to be a touch of cel-shading. There isn’t exactly any story or character development, but the art work is very appealing, and the random characters you do side quests for have plenty of charisma. The use of 3D is one of the best I’ve seen on the 3DS so far. It’s a visual treat to roll around the desert at high speed, and the colours are lush.

According to Nintendo of America’s Director of Marketing, Bill Trinen, the game has a length of roughly 20 hours. This is pretty long for a downloadable title, and should go towards justifying the hefty price tag in comparison to other cheaper titles on the eShop. Though saying that, I’m a big believe that not every game should be $1 to be successful. Not naming names. For Rolling Western, I would definitely recommend it as a downloadable game, as the day/night structure fits portable play perfectly.
 
For me, it's not so much a question of "trust"; it's not like I think reviewers are being dishonest when they give their impressions of games. I'm not that cynical about reviews.

All I can ever take away from a review is whether the reviewer liked the game or not, and what his/her reasons for that stance are. Unless I'm intimately familiar with a certain writer's gaming taste (which is usually not the case), it's hard to infer if *I* will enjoy the game. I'll definitely need more than one review from a guy I don't know before I can decide if I should buy it.

But that's also why I'm appealing to you guys in this thread. I figure I'm more likely to be of a common mind with you than this NWR fellow.

Well, in the game's defense (not that it needs it), it's one guy telling you it's terrible vs a few others telling you it's nice for the exact opposite reasons in a few cases.
 
I assume convenient stopping/starting points for saving. In other words it's not a huge long adventure without natural breaks, you don't have to worry about getting off the bus and forgetting what you were doing, etc.
 

zroid

Banned
Well, in the game's defense (not that it needs it), it's one guy telling you it's terrible vs a few others telling you it's nice for the exact opposite reasons in a few cases.

Yeah, I appreciate it. :)

It had just seemed that a lot of you here hadn't played for more than a few minutes yet, so I was going to wait a bit longer. Like, for ScreenSplitter's impressions up there!
 

M3d10n

Member
Got to the first day on the second town. Things get a lot more hectic there: three town gates, grock dens right next to the town, large map and
ranged grocks
. On top of that, the goddamn mayor gave me only 4K gold for reward, which will barely be enough to weaponize three towers. Gotta loot the fuck out of the map next day.

This game might not be truly a tower defense game, but you need similar planning and resource management skills (with *you* being a valuable resource as well as any towers).
 
I played the first day and defeated first wave of monsters at night. Fun!

Now I'm at the saloon, doing the three practice tasks and can't pull off the Claw attack. I need to touch with the stylus the moment I hit a target with a Roll attack, right? It's not working. Can someone help me out here?
 
I played the first day and defeated first wave of monsters at night. Fun!

Now I'm at the saloon, doing the three practice tasks and can't pull off the Claw attack. I need to touch with the stylus the moment I hit a target with a Roll attack, right? It's not working. Can someone help me out here?

Yeah, like I said, it's all about rhythm. At the precise moment you come into contact with them, tap the stylus. Then use the circle pad and tap the stylus again to chain the claw attacks together.
 

Wolfe

Member
As a representative of Nintendo World Report, I implore you guys to remember that those are impressions and not a full review. Our full review is coming later from a different writer.

Impressions? Felt more like biased bashing, you did see where he called the price point of a 10 dollar (possibly) 20 hour download game disgusting right? It was pretty blatant, dude goes on and on about preventing people from wasting money on it.
 
Yeah, like I said, it's all about rhythm. At the precise moment you come into contact with them, tap the stylus. Then use the circle pad and tap the stylus again to chain the claw attacks together.

Wow... I get like 1 out of 20 and I'm not that bad at rhythm games normally...

EDIT: ok, it gets much easier if you don't go in fully charged. So you gotta choose between technic and pure power :)
 
Yeah, I appreciate it. :)

It had just seemed that a lot of you here hadn't played for more than a few minutes yet, so I was going to wait a bit longer. Like, for ScreenSplitter's impressions up there!

Oddly enough, the combat and a few of the mechanics are making me enjoy this one even more as it goes on. Small touches that add a lot of flavor. Could be a love/hate thing though. I didn't really care for it too much when I first saw it, just thought it looked kinda neat. Now, I'm really digging it! Only thing that kind of bugs me is the framerate in the overworld. I'm sensitive to that sort of thing though.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
My Impressions/Review


REVIEW: Dillon’s Rolling Western


According to Nintendo of America’s Director of Marketing, Bill Trinen, the game has a length of roughly 20 hours. This is pretty long for a downloadable title, and should go towards justifying the hefty price tag in comparison to other cheaper titles on the eShop. Though saying that, I’m a big believe that not every game should be $1 to be successful. Not naming names. For Rolling Western, I would definitely recommend it as a downloadable game, as the day/night structure fits portable play perfectly.

ehi! thanks a lot!
Probably I'll download it tonight! ;)
 

wsippel

Banned
I'm on town 2, day 2. It's really good fun. The controls work well, the design and art direction are very nice, and it's extremely polished.
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
Impressions? Felt more like biased bashing, you did see where he called the price point of a 10 dollar (possibly) 20 hour download game disgusting right? It was pretty blatant, dude goes on and on about preventing people from wasting money on it.

They also didn't like my favorite 3DS game of the year so far, Sakura Samurai.
 
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