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Well, you get Fossil League. Now, on the face of things, it’s pretty obvious that this game is modeled on the Pokémon games (read: ripoff). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though; it’s not like Pokémon owns the monster-raising subgenre of RPGs (no offense to Pokémon- I love those games). I’ve tried plenty of monster-raising games, including Digimon and Monster Rancher, neither of which I liked. So, how does this obscure game hold up compared to its more popular rivals? Let’s find out!

Graphics (score 8/10): Not bad, I must say. The dinosaurs are rendered in full 3-D and look pretty good. The characters, though, are done as 2-D sprites. Now, while they don’t look as good as the dinosaurs, they do look a great deal larger and more detailed than the characters in a Pokémon game (yes, even Pokémon Pearl, the most recent one). The game even features character portraits during major dialogue, which is a nice touch. The backgrounds, while decent-looking, are somewhat bland. However, the game features a variety of locations (so you’re not stuck staring at the same background all the time) and the graphics for these get the job done.

Music (score 7/10): The music is okay. It sounds like generic RPG music. While it’s nothing you’d want on your MP3 player, it’s good enough to set the mood and tone for different scenes and areas and doesn’t grate on your ears. There’s a decent variety of music available since each area has its own music, although you will hear the dialogue scene music over and over again. Aside from the music, the sound effects are pretty good too.

Characters (score 7/10): The game’s protagonist is Taiga, a 12-year-old boy. Rather than having him roam the world alone, he travels with Yukari, a woman who works for a futuristic police bureau. This is nice because it gives the game some more chances for plot exposition and dialogue. The characters, however, are sort of bland, with little personality. To be fair, in a monster-raising game, character depth is way less important than in other types of RPGs, and is not really the focus of the game; so I’ve graded this section a bit more leniently. That being said, I think the characters could’ve come out a lot better if it weren’t for the dialogue. The localization team seems to have done a rather mediocre job translating the dialogue. While there are no grammatical errors or typos, the dialogue does sound a bit awkward. Most of this has to do with the lack of contractions–there are absolutely none. For example, someone might say “Let us go to do it” instead of “Let’s go do it”. No one talks like that in reality, and it distracts you from the story.

Story (score 7/10): The story starts out pretty simply. The game is set in a futuristic world where people can time travel. What do people choose to do with this awesome technology? Why, travel back in time and collect dinosaurs to battle each other with, of course. Taiga has recently received his time travel license at the tender age of 12 so he can raise dinosaurs too. However, on one of his trips, an evil man in black steals his prized fossil, which it turns out is the key to destroying all of humanity. And the plot unfolds from there. If you can suspend your disbelief long enough, the game has a fairly entertaining story. In fact, this game has one of the most fleshed out stories for a monster-raising game that I have ever come across. Even though the plot starts reaching higher and higher levels of absurdity involving time travel, crazy technology, dinosaurs, evil organizations, etc., it’s still very entertaining, even as you question the logic of allowing a 12-year-old to time travel and raise dinosaurs.

Battle System (score 8/10): Combat is turn-based. Taiga himself never fights-he commands a dinosaur in battle against another dinosaur. Each dinosaur can have up to four moves, which require skill points to use. Taiga can hold up to five dinosaurs with him at a time, and if they all get knocked out, then it’s game over. Also, each dinosaur is assigned an elemental attribute with strengths and weaknesses. All of this sounds familiar doesn’t it? Well, it’s a lot like Pokémon, only a bit simpler. Anyway, I don’t have any complaints about the battle system. It works well, and I’m pleased. On a side note, all the dinosaur models are based on real dinosaurs, right down to the scientific names, which is pretty nifty.

Gameplay (score 7/10): This is a bit of a catch-all category for me. Well, this is a mixed bag. Let’s start out with the bad part–the camera angle is a bit wonky. It follows your character automatically (you cannot control it) and sometimes is very awkward. For example, when going in one direction towards a destination, the camera points towards the things in front of you, which is good. However, once you reverse direction, the camera points towards the things behind you, and you can hardly see where you’re going. The environments are pretty basic, with one main path to travel on, so this isn’t really a deal breaker. It’s still somewhat annoying though. Also, you must hold down the B button to run, which is also annoying. On the bright side though, the game doesn’t succumb to a common problem with most DS games, which I’m going to dub “the curse of the touch screen”. This refers to game developers shoe-horning in as much touch screen functions as possible just because they are making a DS game, even when doing so leads to awkward and uncomfortable controls. While you can use the stylus to do everything, you can also use the regular buttons to do almost all the commands. The only time you’re forced to use the stylus is during short minigame segments. These involve things like tapping on a rock wall to dig out a fossil or stroking the screen with the stylus to clean a fossil. In other words, things that make sense to use the stylus for. I’m really glad that they give you the option to do all other functions such as moving and inputting battle commands with the buttons since using the stylus all the time makes your hand tired. All in all, the controls are top-notch in my opinion.

Overall (score 7/10): NOTE this score is not an average; it’s my subjective overall score. All in all, this is a fun little game. Although Pokémon is still the more engaging and addictive game, Fossil League is still fun to play and will leave you satisfied, even if you don’t find yourself playing it over and over again. Besides, unlike Pokémon, Fossil League features cool dinosaurs, which will surely satisfy your inner child. If you are a fan of monster-raising games or dinosaurs in general, I suggest you pick up Fossil League.
Rating: 4 / 5