Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship First Impressions

By Justin Calvert, GameSpotPosted Dec 11, 2006 5:00 pm PT

We meet with D3 and get our first look at this Pokémon-style role-playing game for the Nintendo DS.

While attending a recent D3 press event in San Francisco we had our first opportunity to check out a work-in-progress version of Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship for the Nintendo DS. Set far enough into the future for time machines to be a reality, the game will see you assuming the role of a young boy named Taiga whose father left him a rare fossil when he died. Said fossil has since been stolen, and the only way for Taiga to get it back is to travel back in time, tame a bunch of dinosaurs, fight them against other people's dinosaurs in turn-based combat, and then, presumably, find and do battle with whomever stole it. Pokémon with dinosaurs? It certainly looks that way.

Ever wanted a pet dinosaur? You'll get your wish in this dino-collecting game for the Nintendo DS.

Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship's story will be told through colorful 2D cutscenes, but the gameplay will be 3D. During our all-too-brief demo of the game, we witnessed Taiga getting embroiled in numerous random encounters with other dinosaur tamers as he attempted to walk to another location on the world map. The turn-based battles between the nicely-detailed 3D dinosaurs that ensued played out in much the same way that similar encounters do in Pokémon games. You'll be accompanied by up to five pet dinosaurs at all times, and each one will be affiliated with a different element, such as earth, wind, fire, water, or thunder. Each of the 90 or so different dinosaur species in the game will have its own special attack abilities, and these will become more numerous as you progress through the game and your dinosaurs level up.

You'll be able to play Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship using either the stylus and touch screen or directional pad and buttons, although some of the minigames that pop up in between missions will be designed exclusively for the touch screen. In addition to the story-driven single-player adventure, Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship will support multiplayer battles and features a "Dinopaedia" that lets you learn about all of the dinosaurs that you encounter in the game. We look forward to bringing you more information on Fossil League: Dino Tournament Championship as soon as it becomes available.

21 Comments

  • tran92dude

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 1:57 am PT

    i hate the way u walk it is cofusing

  • Zero254

    Posted Jan 15, 2007 10:08 pm PT

    I wish D3 would start sending all of their games over here... there are alot of good games in the simple series...

  • silent_seaxx

    Posted Jan 13, 2007 4:57 pm PT

    Hmm, this is a good idea, but we'll just have to see if they can pull it off. Sounds interesting and worth reading about though!

  • Boomarley

    Posted Jan 10, 2007 5:54 pm PT

    Anyone remember Dino Master (search it on Gamespot)? Reminds me of it.

  • Gizmyle

    Posted Jan 6, 2007 3:10 am PT

    Looks fun ^^

    I guess I'll have to try this (=

  • Knight-of-God

    Posted Jan 5, 2007 6:23 pm PT

    Looks good!

  • obo0160

    Posted Jan 3, 2007 1:47 am PT

    i like the idea about pokémon with dinosaurs..

  • zellgod

    Posted Dec 28, 2006 11:33 pm PT

    this looks like it has a lot of potential, I hope its as good as it looks/sounds

  • wii-man-23

    Posted Dec 20, 2006 12:12 pm PT

    looks good i think, not special, but worth a look-in

  • Rangent

    Posted Dec 19, 2006 5:23 pm PT

    This looks interesting... We'll see... but not a lot of high hopes.

  • nighthawk_yb

    Posted Dec 17, 2006 2:07 am PT

    The dinosaur models look nice,but the backgrounds and other graphics seem horrible to me

  • faraz3671

    Posted Dec 15, 2006 3:58 am PT

    uhh...i think ill stick with pokemon !!!

  • Jeremycollinson

    Posted Dec 14, 2006 8:01 pm PT

    the pictures of you walking around look terrible, half arsed cell shading attempt

  • Gamepro2421

    Posted Dec 14, 2006 2:44 pm PT

    Sounds so similar to Poke'mon that if you would enjoy this game you're better off just buying a Poke'mon game with about 100 more creatures to collect...

  • mercedes_5

    Posted Dec 14, 2006 12:09 pm PT

    i played the exact game (minus the graphics) on WAP 2 years ago. i think it was called dino-island, but the story and everything are exact! strange.

  • TleeBlue

    Posted Dec 13, 2006 8:41 pm PT

    Frankly, its graphic looks so uninspired. Half-assed 3D models of Dinos are shown and when you look at its exploration map and such, its 2D background is bland and have no distinct style to them. Don't get me wrong. I don't expect great graphic from DS system. But that doesn't mean DS games can't have attractive looking games (Children of mana comes to my mind). However, this game looks like the developers put hardly any effort at all.

  • palomaydarla

    Posted Dec 13, 2006 4:17 am PT

    i don't know.. sounds weird...

  • beedog

    Posted Dec 12, 2006 10:52 am PT

    I'll keep my eye on it...

  • smurf_killer

    Posted Dec 11, 2006 5:55 pm PT

    i'm already goin for pokemon and maybe digimon too, so i'm not really interested in this game.....altough the graphics look pretty good

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