Fossil Fighters (Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi)

FOSSIL FIGHTERS’ slogan could be “gotta find and clean ‘em all!” It’s a role-playing game involving the collection of animals that makes no bones about drawing inspiration from Nintendo’s popular Pokemon games. The primary difference is that rather than finding monsters and pitting them in battle against one another, players are instead digging up dinosaur fossils and cleaning them in a laboratory using a hammer, a laser chisel, and a their breath (they can blow into the mic to remove dust) before re-animating them and throwing them into the ring. All of the action takes place on remote atoll called Vivosaur Island. Players take control of a young fossil fighter in training who slowly learns the ropes from the locals while upgrading his fighter’s license and earning access to areas of the island home where he can find rarer fossils.

Fossil Fighters is a polished and entertaining children’s RPG. Using a sonar to find fossils in fields is exciting, and the bone cleaning activity requires a very delicate touch in order to preserve as much of the dinosaur’s remains as possible. What’s more, the battles are fairly strategic. Players are required to manage teams composed of up to five creatures, each of which has its own upgradable abilities and is assigned an attack, supporting, or escape position on the battlefield. Later battles demand both thought and skill.

However, play is hampered by excessive text dialogue. Consequently, the game moseys along rather slowly. It will take most players better than a couple of hours to reach the first major battle to level up to a second grade fossil fighter. Plus, the cleaning, though fun, begins to feel repetitive once you realize that the vast majority of discovered fossils are duplicates of others you’ve already found. Pokemon lovers will have fun, but it’s unlikely they’ll consider Fossil Fighters a permanent substitute for their favorite franchise.