Fossil Fighters

by Nintendo

Product Features

• Find and fight! Collect over 100 different vivosaurs and pit them against enemy vivosaurs in strategic, turn-based battles.
• Your skills enhance your vivosaurs' powers.
• Each fossil must be carefully cleaned of excess rock. With a steady hand and keen eye, you can make your vivosaurs stronger
• Battle and trade with friends.
• Using DS Wireless Play, you can take on a friend within range of your system for head-to-head battles or trade your extra fossils for new ones

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002ATYQLS
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches ; 3.8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: August 10, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,726 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #37 in Video Games > Nintendo DS > Adventure
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Finding, Cleaning, Collecting and Fighting Dinosaurs Fossil Fighters blends the timeless human fascination with dinosaurs with the fun of building a collection. The game lets players build a collection of more than 100 fantastical dinosaurs known as “vivosaurs.” This new game incorporates elements of discovery, tactics, and strategy as players try to get the best vivosaurs on their teams to battle it out on the field. Players dig for fossils and use the touch screen of the Nintendo DS or Nintendo DSi system to hammer, chip, drill and brush away the bits of rock around the fossil. When their efforts result in the buildup of dust, players blow into the Nintendo DS microphone to blow the dust away. The game rates players on how well they handle the fossils during the cleaning process. The more carefully and completely a player cleans a fossil, the more powerful the vivosaur will be in battle. Vivosaurs can also gain more power through battles. Players must collect various parts of each vivosaur. The head must be found first to bring a vivosaur to life while the body, arms and legs can be added to increase its power on the battlefield and imbue it with special powers. The game features an engrossing role-playing storyline and vast environments for players to explore. Players can connect wirelessly with friends to battle or trade their fossils.

Product Description

Welcome to Vivosaur Island, home of the world-famous Fossil Stadium, where dinosaurs revived from ancient fossils fight in thrilling battles! As a Fossil Fighter, you'll dig up dinosaur fossils, clean them, and revive them into powerful "vivosaurs," ready to battle. In your adventures, you'll delve into ancient ruins, explore sunken pirate ships, and uncover secrets that will shake the planet to its core!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fossil Fighters: More than you'd expect., August 25, 2009

By 

J. Grill - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Fossil Fighters (Video Game)

Dinosaurs + Fighting.
How could this be bad? Well, it's failed miserably before, and I'm sure a lot of people have since been a bit cautious with this combination.

So, no, I wasn't expecting anything ground-breaking, but I was hopeful that it would be decent fun.
Well, let me tell you, this game is much more than it let's on.
First impression:
It's slow to begin.
Dialogue and more dialogue. But it wasn't at all boring. Surprisingly, the game has a lot of personality and humor. Once you learn what you'll be doing and how to do it, you won't want to put it down.
Anywhere outside of town there will appear a radar on the top screen to find fossils in the ground (while in town, the top screen is a very helpful map), you dig them up, and use your stylus to break away the rock from the fossil. The stylus will act as a hammer or a drill. If the fossil is a skull, you get a new Vivosaur! If you get a body, arm, or leg fossil, it will add power to your Vivosaur.
Each Vivosaur has an element. An element is stronger and weaker than another element. Basic stuff. You have a team of 5 you carry around with you. You can fight with up to 3 Vivosaurs at once. On the lower screen you see their positions and their condition, and on the top screen you see their 3D form either attacking the enemie's team or waiting for a command. There's even little commentators announcing what is happening in the battle (in text form). This bit of the game is very reminiscent of Pokemon Stadium, which I loved.
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I wasn't expecting anything more than choosing a dinosaur and fighting another dinosaur, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was entirely wrong. This is a very, very long adventure game. So far I have clocked a little over 15 hours and there's no hint to an end in sight. You travel to different parts of the island to find different fossils and take on new missions.
This game is easily addictive, so be careful.
Also, there is little to no necessary grinding. Do so if you want, it will certainly make your Vivosaurs stronger, but collecting different fossil parts will make them strong enough for any battle.
Yes, this is an EASY game. I haven't had much trouble with anything. But that isn't the point. It's a fun ride, easy on the eyes, and never boring or repetitive. If you're a "hardcore gamer" and enjoy "mature games for mature gamers like myself" then this is not for you.

Gameplay: Fun, creative, and addictive. It doesn't take itself too seriously and it doesn't try to be anything it isn't.

Graphics: They're fantastic. It feels like I'm playing an old N64 game. It easily rivals Animal Crossing: Wild World.
Now, you have to understand, the DS is limited to a certain extent, so next to a handheld like the PSP, the Nintendo DS is almost laughable. However, graphics aren't everything, and it doesn't take away from the quality of the game. If anything, the game has a sort of nostalgic feel to it.

Overall: You can always tell when developers love the games they make. A lot of thought was put into this game and it shows.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dinosaurs + Fighting= Awesome Boy Game, September 3, 2009

By 

MomAdvice "Amy Allen Clark" (Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Fossil Fighters (Video Game)

I wanted to get my son's thoughts on this game for nearly 2 weeks now but he's been so busy playing it, I haven't been able to get a good overview from him until now. I shouldn't be surprised. It combines his favorite thing in the world, dinosaurs, with something he does every day with his sister... fighting.

Fossil Fighters is a new game for the DS where you can pretty much guess what it entails from the title. You play a boy (what? no girls?) who comes to an island to hunt for fossils which will turn into battle-ready dinosaurs, ready to tear your opponents dinos apart. Well, its not quite that exciting, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The gameplay consists of 4 main elements: the story, hunting for fossils, cleaning the fossils, and fighting. The story helps move things along and does a good job of introducing the other parts of the game as you come to them. New areas of the game open up as you progress allow you to explore and find new fossils. The fossil finding is dead simple. You have a radar that tells you where they are around you and you dig them up. The excitement is in finding new fossils that give you a new dinosaur makes existing ones more powerful.

My favorite part of the game is the cleaning. If you have kids who have always wanted to be paleontologists or archeologists, they'd love this. You have to chip away at the rock using a hammer and drill to uncover the bone within. The challenge is you must do this without damaging the fossil as well as complete the task within a set time limit. The less damage you do to the fossil, the more powerful your resulting dinosaur will be. This can be both rewarding and frustrating. Some rocks already have parts of the fossil showing, so you must be more careful in those areas. Some rocks resemble swiss cheese making the cleaning process feel like surgery. The DS is perfect for this task with the touchscreen. To top it off, your drill creates dust making it difficult to see what you're doing so you blow on your DS to remove the dust making it great fun.

That brings us to the fighting. Battles crop up in many different ways, but most are when you dig something up and another fighter pops out of nowhere claiming it to be theirs. You break out your pack of dinos and take turns unleashing a variety of moves. There is actually a good amount of strategy involved as different types of dinos are strong or weak against other types. This affects which ones you bring with you to battle (you can only choose 3). Also, one of these does the main fighting at a time while the others serve supporting roles. If you win, your dinos get a little stronger. If you lose, you don't lose your fossils or any similar dire consequences with lowers the frustration factor for kids. You simple end up back in town and you try the same thing again.

The downside of this game is that for being named after fighting, the fighting doesn't seem to be the best part. The fights are repetitive and very easy for most of the game. It's fun to try out new dinosaurs when you get them, but it's the same routine over and over. Many times, the fighting gets in the way of the fun, which is a shame. The good thing is that the rest of the game is quite satisfying and its certainly not a game they will finish in a few days. There's plenty of entertainment for the kids in this one.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of reading, but lots of fun, February 9, 2011

By 

Beth A. Morris "Art Mom" (Too Hotlanta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fossil Fighters (Video Game)

My 6 yr. old son got this game for Christmas. He is a "struggling reader" and this game had LOTS and LOTS of reading. We assumed it was sort of a tutorial at the start, so I sat with him and read, and read, and read. At first, he was very frustrated with all of the words. As he got to playing, and digging bones and gems, creating dinosaurs, having his first battles, he became more excited. The fossil cleaning is fun, and both my kids cheer when they do a good job. The battles are interesting, and you have to think and use strategy. So, all in all, I am pleased with it, and my son has played it enough now that he doesn't require me to read for him anymore, because he understands the basis of the game. I think it is his favorite game.