Fossil Fighters

 DS
User Score
8.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 25 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 25
  3. Negative: 2 out of 25
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  1. BrendanM.
    Aug 23, 2009
    9
    I am hopelessly addicted to this game. DO NOT write it off as a Pokemon wannabe! The gameplay is not "lightly tactical" it's quite deep for the hard-core gamers but has a quick learning curve for casual players. The storyline is fun and imaginative, with plenty of crazy, yet loveable, characters. The sound is fitting of the environment and the graphics are very good for a DS game I am hopelessly addicted to this game. DO NOT write it off as a Pokemon wannabe! The gameplay is not "lightly tactical" it's quite deep for the hard-core gamers but has a quick learning curve for casual players. The storyline is fun and imaginative, with plenty of crazy, yet loveable, characters. The sound is fitting of the environment and the graphics are very good for a DS game (sorry pokemon Pearl, I love you but you failed to bring a 3-D battle sequence to the table, something that Fossil Fighters does quite well) All in all, my only complaint is that there was no Wi-Fi capabilities (I have to wait for my friend to buy it so we can verse) Great buy, great game. Fresh, original, funky. Bravo Nintendo.… Expand
  2. iloveFFC
    Dec 4, 2011
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is the game that started a possible favorite franchise among players across the globe! There is a fatal flaw in this gift though... NO ONLINE COMPATABLITY! Luckly this problem was fixed in its better sequal, Fossil Fighters Champions, my new favorite game. The game starts out with a young boy (sorry ladies, no female protagonist is chooseable) who wants to be the best fossil fighter in the world, and has many rivals, wacky protagonists, aliens, and bad guys. Along the way to fame, he meets Dr. Diggins, Rosie, Mr. Richmond, the bad guys called the BB Trio(team rocket through a bizzare looking glass), and many others who assist or try to stop the player from stopping their ultimate goals. There is a protagonist/antagonist named Saurhead, who is the champion and wears about 30 green dinosaur masks to hide his identity, he is the main antagonist for a little while until the BB Bandits intervene and try to take you and your friends out of existence, but as always they fail and you end up fighting their boss, BB Boss Bullwort, who is the police captain on Vivosaur Island. You beat him and he goes to jail but not for long. He escapes and gains a legendary vivosaur named Frigisaurus. He completely annihilates your team and you are forced to find his arch-rival, Ignosaurus, so that you can save the world. Meanwhile, aliens called Dinaurians try to prevent you from advancing and try to steal the tacky idols from you so that they can reverse life on earth back to the Cambrian period. You beat Frigisaurus and Ignosaurus dissapears into thin air, and the BB boss goes back to prison for the rest of the game. Then the Dinaurians get a bigger role. The girl Dinaurian named Duna eventually joins you and trys to stop the master plan of their king, Dynal. Then Duna's collegue Raptin is hired to steal the tacky idols and ends up sending Dr.Diggins back to the Jurassic period and turns Rosie into a prehistoric rodent. They then board the Dinauian mothership and plan to activate the machine by using the tacky idols, which are actually super computers. But your hero stops Raptin from stealing the idolcomputers and he runs back to the mothership to inform king Dynal. Your hero then brings the fight to them and defeats king Dynal. Dynal finally realizes that humans are not flawed organisms and decides to shut the machine down, but Raptin was still dead-set on destroying life on Earth, and pushes the button! Raptin unwillingly summons the planet-eating monster Guhnash, who ate their planet millions of years ago. The Dinaurians reveal that some of their population survived and started traveling the cosmos, looking for another planet to set up shop, and eventually found Earth during the Cambrian period about 530 million years ago and planted "seeds" that would eventually evolve into their species. Unknown to the Dinaurians, the seeds and organisms that came from their planet were wiped out during the Ordavician mass-extinction about 444 million years ago. The coordinates to Earth are sent to Guhnash and he starts to travel to Earth. While the humans and Dinaurians plot on how to prevent the arrival of Guhnash, Dr.Diggins steps in and states that he found information in the crashed scout ship that came to earth before the first arrival of the Dinaurians. He says that Guhnash's power comes from his 3 brains, Guhvorn, Guhlith, and Guhweep, and if the hero defeats the 3 brains in a fossil battle, then Guhnash will explode. The teleporter machine is modified to teleport two people into Guhnash's mouth, where the brains reside. The hero can choose either Rosie or Duna to accompany him to the fight, not that they do anything to help you. After the brains are destroyed, Guhnash explodes but the radiation given off disables the mini teleporter they brought, so the hero and whoever came with him use a stone sleep device that the Dinaurians use to freeze themselfs in a stone sleep so that when they fall to Earth, they wont be harmed and they will be revived by Dr.Diggins. When you are revived, you learn that rosie has been revived, but she lost all her memories in the process. When you go to her room, you preform the hip-shaking dance with the island's native people, the digadig tribe. It somehow restores her memory and things go back to normal. In Duna's case, the stone sleep device malfunctioned when Guhnash expolded and she is stuck in a permenent stone sleep. You meet Dyanl and the stone statue of Duna in the Park area. Dynal states that they will leave Duna and search for a way to revive her in the cosmos, and also find a new home. You do the hip-shaking dance in front of Duna and she is revived and the Dinaurians are allowed to stay on Earth and things go back to normal. Better than the wikipedia plot summary if u ask me. The graphics could be better, but the sequal fixes everything, but it's still nice to have both!… Expand
  3. Evyan2002
    Jan 25, 2016
    10
    Fossil Fighters is one of the best dinosaur ds games there are. The game is full of action packed scenes and is very addicting. If you are a dinosaur lover, I recommend this game for you.
  4. CrystalCreeperP
    Oct 12, 2016
    10
    This was the first video game I ever played it was amazing this was when it came out AND I STILL play it till this day over and over. it is addicting!
  5. EchoSpace
    Nov 17, 2019
    10
    This game does not have many flaws the bad link system is perfect the story is even better the music is super memorable overall great game
  6. Gamer_the_Man
    May 1, 2020
    10
    The entire game from start to finish is amazing though I will not spoil the plot of the game I will say that the story is amazing with the gameplay being even better. A fun fact about this game is it is actually published and is owned in part by Nintendo making it a Nintendo IP similar to how Pokemon is in part a Nintendo IP.

    The game obviously takes some inspiration from Pokemon such    The entire game from start to finish is amazing though I will not spoil the plot of the game I will say that the story is amazing with the gameplay being even better. A fun fact about this game is it is actually published and is owned in part by Nintendo making it a Nintendo IP similar to how Pokemon is in part a Nintendo IP.

    The game obviously takes some inspiration from Pokemon such as type matchups but simplifies it down to only 6 types with two of them having no weaknesses nor strengths.

    Fire beats Earth
    Earth beats Air
    Air beats Water
    Water beats Fire
    Null has no advantages nor disadvantages.

    Each Vivasaur has it's own special moves and they all have their own battle and move animations with little to no reuse of the animations on other Vivasaurs and the animations are beautiful. Or at least better than what recent Pokemon games have shown.

    The battle system is very unique and while it utilizes the aforementioned Rock Paper Scizzors type advantage system it doesn't always compel you to use it nor is it soemthig you basically need to do like in Pokemon games where all you need to do is bring fire Pokemon to a Grass Gym. First of all you don't know what you will be up against until you get into combat unless you get information in game which is usually out of the way and kind of secret (Unless you google it). On top of all this your vivasaurs battle in a maximum of 3 per side and they are all out at once sort of like how Pokemon has Triple Battles (This game came first). But two of the 3 can give the primary vivasaur buffs if they are put in the Support Zone or debuff the opponent.

    Overall this is a great gem of a game that should have more recognition.    … Expand
  7. HolyJesus
    Apr 28, 2020
    9
    I only tried playing this game because of Jaiden Animations but I didn't expect it to be this good. The story is decent, the gameplay is unique and the characters are really fun. This game just has a creative charm that no other game has (except maybe Pokemon mystery dungeon). It's basically a gift from god.
  8. ND-Bringer
    Aug 31, 2022
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Welcome to the underrated world of Fossil Fighters. While it is currently a fallen series, I think it's important to look back on what could've been created if done right. If this series is ever revived some day, I hope that a proper sequel unlocks its true potential as a monster battle RPG.
    At first glance, it may appear to be a generic Pokemon copycat, but in my opinion all possible pocket monster clones have the potential to give us a much more memorable experience than modern Pokemon could ever give.
    The game starts off with a nice tutorial that allows you to customize your character's color scheme depending on what Vivosaur you pick as your favorite. While it's a let down that you can't pick your gender or skin color, Fossil Fighters instead focuses on other types of customization. Like a variety of funky masks that also change the sound of your footsteps! After collecting some gift fossils and finishing the battle test, you can now head to the first dig site, Greenhorn Plains! I love this place, with its jamming tunes and wide open spaces...its always puts me in a good mood. While I appreciate that the level art is nice and colorful, its a shame that the levels overall are a cakewalk to clear. Most chapters just consist of you fighting a handful of opponents. And if you manage to find all of your Vivosaur team's parts, you've already beaten the main game. Most of these levels just contain fossils and nothing more, so unless you stay for a while the overall game itself is really quick to complete. I was expecting more puzzles after the pyramid level, but no. Instead most levels have you complete cleaning missions. And I'd like to point out, while the cleaning mechanics are alright, why is there a time limit? I know that were technically not reviving dinosaurs, but fossil cleaning is about patience. Why are you encouraging players to rush through a delicate process? Why is their a time limit while I'm cleaning the rust off of McJunker's tools!? I'd say the most annoying cleaning objective is where you have to get a perfect score on the legendary Igno fossil rock. Though I'd say the worst part of the game is where you have to avoid these annoying sharks in the underwater dig site...TWICE! Seriously, why does this exist? This mini game never shows its face again, even in the post game, so it's a pointless game mechanic. Once you get past those things, you can focus on sharpening your battle skills. Honestly, I like this battle system a lot. The attack animations have great sound effects to match. And the vivosaurs all have really colorful designs. They fight with things like basic biting attacks, fire, and...acrobatics? I've surprised of how nimble some of these guys are. The main difference between vivosaurs and dinosaurs is that vivosaurs are creatures that inherit the elemental properties of where they were born. Excluding the legendaries, every single vivosaur is based off of a real life dinosaur and you can even learn about its origins at the museum. A minor educational touch to this game that I'm quite fond of. Since your team is healed after each battle, players can focus more on strategy. This is vital to accomplish, especially in the post game where almost all of your new opponents will carry a max level team. It's a decent game, you also unlock 2 new dig sites. Though speaking of dig sites, I've always wondered why my sonar is activated if I can't dig for any fossils in the Dinaurian Star Ship. Ironically, their's a Crashed Starship dig site on the secret island level. Since you can actually dig for fossils here, I don't think the theme is completely wasted. The Crashed Starship stage is underrated as heck, it has incredible music and tons of great vivosaurs like Sopteryx, the evasion boosting healer. As for the story itself, it has a few neat plot twists and it follows up with a sci-fi story final battle in the final act. The story never goes too big though, at one point their's a dark theory that humans were created by the Dinaurians just so we can be removed years later after testing the habitat capabilities of Earth, but its immediately resolved about 1 chapter later. It would've be really interesting if they kept expanding on these ideas in the sequels, but sadly the Dinaurians only make cameos in Champions and have remained obsolete since Frontier. The game ends with a final battle against the brains of a planet-eating monster and a funny credit sequence. If you really want to test your mettle, the toughest team in the game goes the the third match against Dynal. The 3 Dinaurian commanders make a crazy tough challenge that requires a well-thought strategy in order to win. While Champions may be the superior game I'm a lot more fond of the colorful level art design in this game...that and Guhnash's brains are unplayable in Champions for some reason. I will always carry the urge to use rejected Donkey Kong Country Returns bosses in battle. It's a game that I somehow still love.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

62
#62 Best DS Game of 2009
26
#26 Most Discussed DS Game of 2009
76
#76 Most Shared DS Game of 2009

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
70

Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 17
  3. Negative: 1 out of 17
  1. IGN
    59
    The only excuse for Fossil Fighters sophomoric presentation could be that it’s targeted at the younger DS gamer.
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  2. GameSpot
    75
    Fossil Fighters' robust roster of collectible dinosaurs and its fast-paced, lightly tactical battles make it an appealing adventure.
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  3. GameDaily
    70
    Those gripes aside, Fossil Fighters doesn't have what it takes to beat Pokemon, but it's still a cool game for kids who love thunder lizards.
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