Fossil Fighters: Champions is a game that was released quite a bit ago. In fact, it was released in November of last year (2011), and in 2010 for our Japanese readers. It was certainly an amazingly quaint game for being left out of the list of well known games. I’ve spent hours unearthing every creature from the sullen earth that I could and taking care to clean each one, as well as observing every bit of storyline. After this long journey through the world of fighting dinosaurs, I have come to a conclusion about this game! Continue reading for my after thoughts!

The game play involves searching the ground for “vivosaur” fossils, which are basically dinosaurs brought back to life using futuristic technology, using a personal sonar device. Once you acquire the fossils, you take them back to the closest fossil guild, which is run by Joe Wildwest, everyone’s hero and favorite vivosaur philanthropist! Anyways, you then begin the painstaking process of removing EVERY BIT OF DIRT FROM THE FOSSIL! So many hours I’ve spent searching for the last bit of dirt before the time expired from the 60 second cleaning clock. Also, many fossils are so fragile, and encased in such hard substance that as soon as you reach the fossil, it is already broken. The only break from this monotony is the occasional vivosaur battle that the game claims to be based around. These are rare unless you seek simpletons to challenge to a battle, but it is rarely worth the time you spend, unless you spend hours xp grinding to prepare for the storyline battles (i.e. the tournament battles). Ultimately, the game play includes many elements that take much more time than most players would care to take.

The storyline is quite interesting and can be hard to follow at times. Especially as people are often not who they appear to be. However, if you hunker down and pay attention to everything that every annoying character has to say, then it will be easy to follow. However, if you skip through parts of the storyline, you will be totally lost at many points. There are extreme twists in the plot that will keep you interested in the game, even if you have a relatively short attention span. To increase the desirability of the story further, there are several story lines that you follow simultaneously, which, though it is a good idea, simply adds to the complexity of the difficult storyline at times.

The cut-scenes have a very notable feature, there is no voice acting. Even in the videos, not a word is uttered vocally. I personally have no beef with this style of story, but many of my friends and people that I annoy on the street have expressed their distaste toward reading throughout an entire film, much less the many, many hours that they would have to read text throughout this game. This honestly depends on how much reading you’re willing to do and what you’re opinion on wordless games is.

It should be noted that despite the distaste I express toward this title, it actually had more points that were good than those that were bad. It is simply that after so many hours of being immersed in the world of ancient creatures fighting and so many fossils destroyed, a certain bitterness does develop. In fact, I rarely used most of the vivosaurs I revived for fighting, focusing on a core team that I brought to extremely high levels through constant training. If I had taken this into account, I would not have had to spend so many hours cleaning fossils and I also would have had fewer time spent searching for fossils. With the faster moving storyline, the game will be much more enjoyable. That is to say, this game is wonderful for normal people that aren’t obsessed with obtaining every type of vivosaur. This is a wonderfully made game that is a bit like a combination of Pokémon and Spectrobes. It is worth several hours of fun, and well worth the price that you pay! Simply keep in mind that it is a longer game with a fun style of play but not meant to be a very extreme game, rather meant to be something that you would play to pass time waiting at the doctors office or riding on a bus. This game is certainly a game to get if you are wondering what to do with an extra $30 lying around, but is not quite extraordinary enough to scrimp and save for.

What are your thoughts on Fossil Fighters: Champions? Let us know your opinions in the comments!