2009’s Fossil Fighters proved to be a refreshing take on collecting and battling creatures that was popularized by the Pokémon series.  Fossil Fighters: Champions, the sequel to the original game, lets you return to the noble tradition of reviving dinosaurs and having them fight each other in violent contests for your own glory.  The new game has a few new twists and additions, but for the most part it remains largely the same.
Surprisingly the act of searching and acquiring creatures from a bygone age takes up quite a bit of time and it can be very addictive.  This of course makes you want to play the game in hopes of finding something worthwhile.  The first step in Fossil Fighters has you wandering around the game’s many areas and unearthing fossils by basically doing a little digging.  Some fossils can also be purchased in the shops or are rewarded for completing certain quests.  While luck may have a thing or two to do with how many you can find, your handy sonar makes the hunt way more pleasurable.  The sonar helps in locating exactly where the hot spots are; so raking in the fossils is quick and easy.
For the meat of the game, once fossils have been gathered the job of cleaning them can begin.  Using a hammer for pounding and a drill for the more sensitive parts and areas, the process of scraping and tapping millions of years of accumulated dirt off the petrified bones must be done before they can be utilized.  While this may seem like a long and laborious task, you are limited to a ninety-second time limit.  Here is where things get tricky; completely uncovering the fossil within the given time given is tough. If you do a half-ass job of cleaning, it will have an adverse effect on the likeliness of harming the specimen. The time limit on cleaning can be irritating and frustrating, but most of the time it is not a major issue.
The DS touch screen is quite conducive for the cleaning of virtual fossils and it is quite enjoyable. Â After some practice the whole process becomes second nature, so improved quality and speed can be attained. Â The dusting and cleaning of multiple fossils in one sustained session becomes pretty commonplace due to the addictiveness of the procedures. Â I thought it was a nice touch for the developers to make the accumulated dirt come in many different shapes and densities. This makes sure that every cleaning is a completely different then the last one; well at least for the most part.
Fossil Fighters: Champions adds a few new elements to previous Fossil Fighter game. Â There are now gigantic fossils that take up more than 3 screens high and 2-3 wide. You must manually shift the screen to suit your viewing area. Â Also, consumable items can now be purchased to aid in the removal of dirt. Â For example, one such item adds thirty seconds to the timer, which I quite liked, while another will identify any break points to instantly smash open a large chunk of the fossil. Â These are very handy in dealing with certain troublesome fossils, but expensive enough (in-game currency) to prohibit overuse. Â These additions do not fundamentally change the fossil-cleaning mechanics of the first game, but they do spice it up a bit for veterans.
Fossil Fighters: Champions is also about battling, and they proceed in a fairly orderly fashion. Â Three of the your fossil species are pitted against three of the enemy’s in turn-based melee combat. Â Each species has their own unique abilities and a four-point elemental system that determines strengths and weaknesses. Â It may sound complicated but a noob like myself picked the battling up in about 30 minutes or so. Overall, the system is quick and easy to understand, but those who wish to delve deeper into competitive play can achieve quite a bit.
The game’s battles are fairly easy to get through without too much frustration, but some may have difficulty in the early going.  I found that the computer A.I. often has strong resources but rarely uses them intelligently.  If you have a bit of patience you can build an uber-team of incredibly powerful behemoths, which you can use to bulldoze through your opposition.
Fossil Fighters has a great deal of content, especially if you factor in the ability to play others linked up or over Nintendo Wi-Fi.  If you choose to just rush through you could finish the game in 15-20 hours, but the temptation to engage in fossil hunting is quite strong. With all the extras, completionists could easily stretch out the playing time beyond 25-30 hours plus.  Not bad for DS title, and this improves on the original’s gameplay length.  Some may find the game a bit slow and boring, but the lure of uncovering something really special is something that cannot be resisted; which makes Fossil Fighters Champions a keeper.
Graphically the game is a mixed bag.  Most of the character models shove too much detail into too small of a space, and they come off really messy because of it.  The bottom screen is often pixelated, while the top screen is reserved for the nicer and smoother graphics.  The number of creatures depicted this time around has increased somewhat from the first title, but the 3D character models do not impress much. I did think the few CGI animation sequences that were in the game looked and flowed pretty nicely. Overall I found the environment and sprites to be something that might be a little much for the DS’s processor to handle, especially in this newer age of handheld gaming. In the end, the retro look is nice, but it feels a bit dated. I would be interested to see the next game in the series release on the 3DS with the more powerful hardware and 3D effects.
The audio is similarly fine without standing out greatly, showcasing a variety of tunes that are pleasing to the ear.  Keeping the sound up during cleaning sessions is at quite useful thanks to the distinct noise heard when the fossil itself has been reached. The pleasant music sets the Fossil Fighting mood, but the lack of variety means you will likely tire of these tunes well before the adventure concludes. The game also sounds way better through headphones, rather than the external DS speakers.
At the end of the day, and after my time with the game, I would recommend it to most DS owners out there looking for something akin to the Pokemon experience, but yet not the same either. Fossil Fighter: Champions has some addictiveness and playability that will keep you coming back for more, it is just too bad that the visuals are dated and the sound is limited on the aging DS hardware.
