Fossil League D.T.C.
- Take control of Ben and the Omnitrix as you go aboard on an adventure into outer space and to new alien home planets
- Use 10 of Ben’s incredible alien forms – Echo Echo, Goop, Dream up, Chromastone, Huge Chill, Humungousaur, Spidermonkey, Swampfire, Jet Ray and Cannonbolt
- Explore an incredible original storyline that will have you using your powers to thwart a villainous attempt at intergalactic conquest
- Battle a variety of Ben’s most notorious foes, including his ultimate nemesis, Vilgax
- Delight in art and sound effects designed to resemble the TV series, as well as voice acting provided by the original box cast
Product Description
Dino Tournament Championship / Classic turn-based RPG play with wireless multiplayer battles via 2 player mode / ESRB E Everyone Feel the intensity as enhanced visuals and effects combine to deliver the most advanced game yet in the series
Buy Cheap Fossil League D.T.C.
Related posts:
Well, you get Fossil League. Now, on the face of things, it’s pretty obvious that this game is modeled on the Pokémon sports meeting (read: ripoff). This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing though; it’s not like Pokémon owns the monster-raising subgenre of RPGs (no offense to Pokémon- I like those sports meeting). I’ve tried plenty of monster-raising sports meeting, including Digimon and Monster Rancher, neither of which I liked. So, how does this obscure game hold up compared to its more well loved rivals? Let’s find out!
Graphics (score 8/10): Not terrible, I must say. The dinosaurs are rendered in full 3-D and look pretty excellent. The characters, though, are done as 2-D sprites. Now, while they don’t look as excellent as the dinosaurs, they do look a splendid deal larger and more detailed than the characters in a Pokémon game (yes, even Pokémon Treasure, 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. But, the game features a variety of locations (so you’re not stuck staring at the same social class 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 not anything you’d want on your MP3 player, it’s excellent 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 excellent too.
Characters (score 7/10): The game’s protagonist is Taiga, a 12-year-ancient 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, but, are sort of bland, with small personality. To be honest, in a monster-raising game, character depth is way less vital 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 reflect 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 tale.
Tale (score 7/10): The tale 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. But, 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 honestly entertaining tale. In fact, this game has one of the most fleshed out tales 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-ancient 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 terrible 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 management towards a destination, the camera points towards the things in front of you, which is excellent. But, once you reverse management, 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 irritating though. Also, you must hold down the B button to run, which is also irritating. On the bright side though, the game doesn’t succumb to a common conundrum with most DS sports meeting, 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 nearly all the commands. The only time you’re mandatory to use the stylus is during small 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.
By and large (score 7/10): NOTE this score is not an average; it’s my subjective by and large score. All in all, this is a fun small 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 indeed satisfy your inside outcome. If you are a fan of monster-raising sports meeting or dinosaurs in general, I suggest you pick up Fossil League.
Rating: 4 / 5