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So! I've been up for just about 24 hours now, thanks (in part) to a vidya gaem.
It takes a very special class of vidya gaem to put me in that mode; the last ones that did it were Cubivore for the GCN and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for the DS.
Until now. Ladies and gentlemen, Fossil Fighters.
I will admit. The game is not without its flaws. Anything garnering a 70% aggregate on GameRankings is likely to, after all. The battle system, in a lot of ways, is a like poor man's Digimon game - there are elemental affinities and the rock-paper-scissors arrangement of such, but ultimately, it comes to "take your guys, punch their guys". There's a bit of strategy in that shuffling around your dinosaur buddies actually has a purpose, but there is mostly lots of punching, especially since there is no penalty for losing health and/or losing units in between each battle, as you're fully healed each time.
Really, that's all someone needs to hear in order to make their decision on the game. It's a Mon game, meaning you're going to be collecting a large number - potentially ALL - and the plot is an excuse for the means of doing such and becoming Super Awesome Best Person At Making Dinosaurs Punch Other Dinosaurs. It sadly lacks the marketability of the typical mon game, lacking the moe-moe charm of Pokemon or the sheer badassedry of Digimon. In fact... a lot of the game in general comes across as Monster Rancher... WITH DINOSAURS!
However, there are two things that make this game digital crack for an OCD nut like me. Firstly, minmaxing isn't a matter of memorizing every last moveset and tweaking stats like ...something you tweak a lot, it's a matter of your skill in getting your Mon parts. Yes, I said parts. See, the "fossil" in the game isn't just indicating dinosaurs, it's also indicating the state OF those dinosaurs before you dig 'em up.
Like some sort of freakish fantasy Jurassic Park, you clean fossils and they turn into magical death dinosaurs that you store in a bunch of medals. Couldn't make it up if I tried. Any given dino is made up of four parts - Head, Body, Arms, and Legs. You only NEED the noggin of a dino to use it, but the other parts are what give it extra moves, as well as being an incredibly good way to level it up early on.
Now, "dig up and clean fossils" sounds like the most retarded premise for a game ever, right? I REPEAT, DIGITAL CRACK. Take the mining mechanic from World of Warcraft (or, really, any item-harvesting mechanic from any MMO), and that's your digging. Simple, concise. Cleaning, on the other hand, is a job like... well, kind of like digging up fossils in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Plat, to be honest. You have a hammer and a "rock drill" with which to chip away the rock surrounding a fossil. Care has to be taken, however, because if you hit any certain part of the fossil too hard or too often, you'll damage it and lower its quality. There's a robot you get early on who can also do the cleaning FOR you, but he does a job that can be best described as "mediocre", and he learns from you doing it yourself. Something about it, though, carefully chipping away around bone, blowing into the DS mic to blow away rock dust, it's kind of neat on a visceral level. If it had some sort of rumble feedback, I'd be TOTALLY hooked.
Like I said, though, not without its flaws. Firstly, the designers saw the need to have EVERYTHING commentated. Your robot buddy pipes in every second when you're cleaning fossils, and battles manifest with them SPECTRAL SPORTS COMMENTATORS (I shit you not) to pester you. It's also got one of the worst cases of "railroad plot" I've seen in a game, not so much in its forcefulness in keeping you on your path, but in how little it seems to care about the player character's well being. For the first four or five hours of the game, you're all but DRAGGED AROUND AGAINST YOUR WILL in any given plot segment, and it made me want to reach in to the DS, grab the female rival/partner/annoyance character (Sorry, no gender choices here - you're a guy, and your eternal torment is a girl) and just SLAM HER INTO THE WALL. This is not how you make characters likeable.
Oh, and the music is just barely this side of "zzz".
WHY WAS I TALKING ABOUT THIS AGAIN I don't know.
BUT THERE YOU GO
I GIVE THIS GAME A HEARTY "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T I GO TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT"
TAKE THAT AS YOU WILL
It takes a very special class of vidya gaem to put me in that mode; the last ones that did it were Cubivore for the GCN and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for the DS.
Until now. Ladies and gentlemen, Fossil Fighters.
I will admit. The game is not without its flaws. Anything garnering a 70% aggregate on GameRankings is likely to, after all. The battle system, in a lot of ways, is a like poor man's Digimon game - there are elemental affinities and the rock-paper-scissors arrangement of such, but ultimately, it comes to "take your guys, punch their guys". There's a bit of strategy in that shuffling around your dinosaur buddies actually has a purpose, but there is mostly lots of punching, especially since there is no penalty for losing health and/or losing units in between each battle, as you're fully healed each time.
Really, that's all someone needs to hear in order to make their decision on the game. It's a Mon game, meaning you're going to be collecting a large number - potentially ALL - and the plot is an excuse for the means of doing such and becoming Super Awesome Best Person At Making Dinosaurs Punch Other Dinosaurs. It sadly lacks the marketability of the typical mon game, lacking the moe-moe charm of Pokemon or the sheer badassedry of Digimon. In fact... a lot of the game in general comes across as Monster Rancher... WITH DINOSAURS!
However, there are two things that make this game digital crack for an OCD nut like me. Firstly, minmaxing isn't a matter of memorizing every last moveset and tweaking stats like ...something you tweak a lot, it's a matter of your skill in getting your Mon parts. Yes, I said parts. See, the "fossil" in the game isn't just indicating dinosaurs, it's also indicating the state OF those dinosaurs before you dig 'em up.
Like some sort of freakish fantasy Jurassic Park, you clean fossils and they turn into magical death dinosaurs that you store in a bunch of medals. Couldn't make it up if I tried. Any given dino is made up of four parts - Head, Body, Arms, and Legs. You only NEED the noggin of a dino to use it, but the other parts are what give it extra moves, as well as being an incredibly good way to level it up early on.
Now, "dig up and clean fossils" sounds like the most retarded premise for a game ever, right? I REPEAT, DIGITAL CRACK. Take the mining mechanic from World of Warcraft (or, really, any item-harvesting mechanic from any MMO), and that's your digging. Simple, concise. Cleaning, on the other hand, is a job like... well, kind of like digging up fossils in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Plat, to be honest. You have a hammer and a "rock drill" with which to chip away the rock surrounding a fossil. Care has to be taken, however, because if you hit any certain part of the fossil too hard or too often, you'll damage it and lower its quality. There's a robot you get early on who can also do the cleaning FOR you, but he does a job that can be best described as "mediocre", and he learns from you doing it yourself. Something about it, though, carefully chipping away around bone, blowing into the DS mic to blow away rock dust, it's kind of neat on a visceral level. If it had some sort of rumble feedback, I'd be TOTALLY hooked.
Like I said, though, not without its flaws. Firstly, the designers saw the need to have EVERYTHING commentated. Your robot buddy pipes in every second when you're cleaning fossils, and battles manifest with them SPECTRAL SPORTS COMMENTATORS (I shit you not) to pester you. It's also got one of the worst cases of "railroad plot" I've seen in a game, not so much in its forcefulness in keeping you on your path, but in how little it seems to care about the player character's well being. For the first four or five hours of the game, you're all but DRAGGED AROUND AGAINST YOUR WILL in any given plot segment, and it made me want to reach in to the DS, grab the female rival/partner/annoyance character (Sorry, no gender choices here - you're a guy, and your eternal torment is a girl) and just SLAM HER INTO THE WALL. This is not how you make characters likeable.
Oh, and the music is just barely this side of "zzz".
WHY WAS I TALKING ABOUT THIS AGAIN I don't know.
BUT THERE YOU GO
I GIVE THIS GAME A HEARTY "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T I GO TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT"
TAKE THAT AS YOU WILL
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