Fossil Fighters (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

As we enter Knotwood Forest, we meet Holt, one of the helpful guys in Vivosaur Town. He says that he has upgraded his radar to spot previous undetectable fossils, and that he has widened the scope of said radar as well. Hey, stop flashing your fancy upgrades in my face, you just make me want them more! Unfortunately, one big area is closed off due to some adventurer disappearing past that point. We, ahem, bribe Dr. Diggins with sweets, and he gives Nicolas and Rosie a card that will let them pass through, to investigate the matter and retrieve that Fossil Fighter. 

I don't think I dig-adig their language.

The Forest is also home to the Digadigamids, an ancient tribe who lives around a pyramid. Sounds like a weird set-up, no? We meet the Digadig tribe, along with their chief who's also their shaman. We're told that a key was stolen from them, and the robbers used vivosaurs, meaning only another Fossil Fighter can stand up to them. Oh, and Rosie, who has been following us, is staying behind because the tribe’s chief and shaman decided to grant her the gift of Digadig speech, and she fainted. Geez, some sidekick she turns out to be.

If you two knew who I am, you'd be the ones running away
right now.

Inside the pyramid, we meet some guy dressed in purple, a lackey that peppers his phrases with “BB”. Weird. After defeating him, we meet a bulldog who trains vivosaurs. Oh, and we battle him. So dogs can be smart enough for that? The dog flees and, in the next room, we meet a long-nosed guy also wearing the purple uniform. Methinks we got our evil Team for this game! You can cross that off the list of tropes taken from Pokémon. We defeat the guy, but he activates a trap that sends us one floor below. Down there, we meet Nevada Montecarlo, a Lara Croft type of adventurer who has apparently fallen in the same trap.

Hero retrieved! Quest complete, hurrah!

We get out of trouble by digging around and finding an ammonite creature shaped like a key. Yes, really. And it works! It doesn’t even open the door, it brings out a ladder instead. Getting to the pyramid’s treasure room, we encounter the woman who leads this group. She introduces the three of them: Rex, Snivels and Vivian, the BB Bandits! Hm… I wonder what these initials stand for… Probably nobody we’ve met yet. They flee and trap the heroes in the treasure room, but of course the Digadig left instructions to save anyone who gets trapped in there, so we use that to find a secret tunnel. Oh, and somehow this leads back at super-speed directly at the entrance of the pyramid, allowing us to stop the BB Bandits in their tracks. What are the odds?

This thing has a derpy smile. I dn't trust it.

We get the key back from Vivian, and return to the chieftain, successful in our mission. The chief shows us a special idol he found the other day, and says that it's probably what these bandits were looking for. It gets added to our inventory, I guess that means it's important. Feels tacky, though. As for Rosie, she’s cured from her Diga-speech thanks to… hip-shaking. Yes, really. Remember kids, hip-shaking is good! You gotta learn to twerk, it's gonna save lives!

With this out of the way, we hear that the Level-Up Battles are open now, so we can go back to digging fossils or go for the next level. A fossil cleaning exam, followed by a fossil battle… against Nevada Montecarlo, no less! Once she’s defeated, we’re brought up to Level 3, and opens a brand new area: Rivet Ravine.

There’s a fossil-seeking seminar going on there at the moment, and upon bringing eight fossil rocks to the seminar holder, he grants the hero the ability to see “fossil” colors. You see, vivosaurs obey to a basic four-element Rock-paper-scissors, and each vivosaur has one type (Earth, air, water, fire or neutral). Now you can see the type of the fossil you dug out, even if it's a rock you've neved dug out before.

I found hammers to be very good at suddenly repairing stuff.
Or at least, to let out some rage at things not working.

Either rust happens dangerously fast in this world, or
McJunker doesn't take good care of his stuff.

Following this, we enter the mines and meet the place’s owner and head miner, McJunker, who’s raging because vandals broke his mine carts and ran away with his tools. No problem, he upgrades our sonar so that we can retrieve them for him. Everybody always relies on the hero for everything around here! And, sure enough, the tools have been stolen by BB Bandits. We recover them, and then we have to clean them up from rust because… because why? What sense does that make? If the tools were just stolen, and McJunker had them until recently, how could they have ended up so rusty in such a short timespan?

That's okay, it's just the 14th time I am
forced into an impromptu unnecessary
battle to get the plot moving. 

I can tell that this game is trying to set up quests within the main plot, but many of them don’t make much sense and end up feeling like padding. Trust me, we don’t need padding. This is a 50+-hour game if you seek to revive all of the vivosaurs, and even if you only go for completing the Story Mode, it’s still a decent 10 hours, especially by the end when you need to dig out a few stronger vivosaurs in order to beat the final bosses. There are twists, turns, and so many science-fiction tropes that come into play later on, that we don’t need the padding. Speaking of, after retrieving the tools and cleaning them, we’re asked to go back to town to get a battery for McJunker. Oh, and you can only get the battery from Holt at the Junk Depot in Vivosaur Town, AND only if you’ve got one particular vivosaur in your collection – a V-Raptor. Why? Who cares why, gotta pad this shit out!

They also really want to push forward the cleaning system, forcing the player to clean up a lot of things throughout the story, even things that shouldn't logically have to be cleaned up - such as, say, tools that shouldn't be rusty. Or teeth with a rocky coat of dirt. Yes, really.

The BB Trio, which is definitely not a memorable name.
I'll let you figure out by yourself everything they have in
common with the Team Rocket Trio we know and love.

She's asking this to her long-nosed associate.
The other one doesn't count, it's a muzzle.

We (finally!) bring the battery, and get into the closed-off mines, in which we meet the BB Bandits trio once again: Rex, Snivels and Vivian. I swear those three remind me of Team Rocket from the Pokémon anime. That was probably intentional, although they’re nowhere near as endearing. Let’s call them Team Suckit! We defeat Rex and Snivels, and then dig out a tacky idol after they flee. That makes two. Just what could they be for?

Sure enough, with this part of the plot complete, we return to town and get into the next Level-Up Battles. Cleaning test, battle test. The first Level 3 opponent is Holt, and the second one is McJunker. Every NPC in this game is a Fossil Fighter, and most of them are better than the hero. And, yet, they still make the young, less experienced kid, do the dirty work in defeating the real bad guys. You thought this was stupid in Pokémon? You haven’t seen a thing! Oh well, at least we become a Level 4 Fighter, and now we’ve gained access to Bottomsup Bay.

With a name like that, I expect a lot of Fossil Fighters fanfics to take place there.

"Fits like a glove. There's also conveniently enough space
on this shelf fot at least one more, if I find another."

We also place the second idol in the hero’s bedroom, and gain access to multiplayer options. Why, yes! Starting now, a fossil cannon is now available, and we can use it to trade fossils with friends who also own the game Fossil Fighters! Oh, and we can access wireless battles, too.

"Bottoms up? Sorry, that's not my dance.
I only do the hip-shaking."

Bottomsup Bay is located underwater, so Beth the station attendant gives us a diving mask so that we can go there freely. Oh, it’s an excuse to explain masks and how some of them have special abilities. In the Fossil Guild, you can buy masks to change your appearance – even if it’s just your head that changes. The diving mask is mandatory to go underwater, but it also somehow makes you heavy enough to walk on the seafloor, and swing your pick to unearth fossils as if you were on regular land. Physics? What’s that? Let’s not bother about that. Oh, and guess what? There are sharks down there. Who thought it would be a good idea to send out fossil diggers underwater, when most animals down there are sharks? Oh wait, not normal sharks; Denture Sharks. Because that’s not stupid, is it? They can't kill you, but they sure like to give you a ride all the way back to the area's entrance!

"And I'm only able to say that because these sharks love
to be talked about, that's the only time they won't attack!"

Well, folks, it appears we’ve got no logic whatsoever. Might as well go pants-on-head crazy now, huh? What’s next: Ghosts?

Yep, and let's not waste any time. It's magic, we don't
have to explain it. Even though it happens in a game
that painstakingly documents a hundred real dinosaurs
with actual scientific data.

We save Rosie from the sharks, because this girl can't walk four steps without getting in trouble. Then she says she wants to find a sunken pirate ship hidden in Bottomsup Bay… which may be the home of Captain Woolbeard’s ghost… aw, for fuck’s sake! I gotta stop reading forward.

And, oh yeah, when we eventually find the sunken pirate ship, which is in tatters, we walk inside and there’s oxygen. Even if we entered it through a wide open hole on the side of the ship’s carcass. But nope! We don’t need our mask in there. Oh, and while inside the ship, you can still dig around for fossils, even if the floor is made of wooden planks. Oh, and the ship has multiple floors, yet you can dig on ANY floor and still find fossils, even if there should be a floor underneath the one you’re on. Physics? Logic? What’s that?

What makes you think I won't keep it?
It would look great on my Spinax.

The sunken ship is a large dungeon-like place, and in there we find a book about team abilities. Now, you can use special abilities if your vivosaurs “match”. They stay vague about this, though it's implied to have something to do with one-attribute teams or groups of vivosaurs that are relevant to each other by species or lore. Something else is found in there: Yep, it’s Captain Woolbeard! He puts on a whole ghostly schtick, but when he sees that it doesn't scare us, he instead asks us to retrieve a beard ribbon for him. And because there has to be a carrot at the end of that stick, he promises treasure for the hero and Rosie if they bring it back. Oh, and that’s when the BB Bandits show up. Right on time! My schedule did say "9:30, suken ship adventure, BB Bandits attack". Some airline companies should take lessons from these guys. The BB Trio really are like Team Rocket: They have to sneaK their way into every episode, regardless of how needed they are. They proceed to lock the hero and Rosie inside the captain’s cabin.

There's no secret exit this time, but don't worry. The door is unlocked quickly enough and a blonde girl with facial markings walks in. She scouts the captain’s quarters, apparently looking for something, and then leaves, with the door open. Oh wait, the door isn’t open, it was literally destroyed by the mystery girl. Okay, my interest has been piqued.

Ah yes. "9:45: Be saved from the BB Bandits by a mysterious
girl". Good to see she's on schedule too!

I am sighing in every possible language right now.

To find the beard ribbon, we ask Richmond about it, and learn that we must get it from a guy named Nick Nack. Time for some intense exercise in annoying padding: Nick Nack will gladly give the beard ribbon, only if you bring him three items, and he will ask for them one at a time. First is a fossilized bug, which will be found by asking the Digadig chieftain about it. Guess what happens? Yep, Rex of the BB Bandits fights us with his team when we get there. Once Rex is defeated, we talk to the chief and get a molten bug shell by encountering a bug… and shaking our hips at it. I could see why that works, bugs would be the type to prefer twerks to lap dances.

The second item requested by Nick Nack is a fossilized sandal. Hm, that’s odd, I would have thought the only fossils found in this island were of dinosaurs – that is, before humans were around, and certainly long before humans ever devised footwear. Eh, it’s probably one of the dozen nonsense jokes in this game. only one, because Nick has the other. It’s in Greenhorn plains, and of course we stumble on Snivels of the BB Bandits also looking for it. Time to duel! Snivels is defeated, and leaves, but we soon see the mystery girl, who finally presents herself as Duna and, after admitting she doesn’t have any use for it, hands the fossilized sandal to the heroes. She also implies that she was watching them do the hip-shaking dance when they were getting the bug shell.

The last item Nick Nack wants is dentures from a denture shark.

You make me want to quit the hero-ing gig so badly right now, you freaking NPC!

But fine, I’ll go. Stupid sharks. Turns out, the dentures are actually not that hard to find, just gotta flee from  the sharks… and then get into a secret passageway and find one that conveniently drops its teeth. Oh, and we are told to clean those teeth before bringing them to Nick. How necessary! Gotta get some mileage out of the fossil-cleaning feature, amirite?

When it comes to dangerous jobs, "live shark dentist"
would probably be at the very top of the list.

Oh, and Vivian is in the elevator when we get back to the hotel, so another battle follows. She’s defeated at last, and we bring the teeth to Nick Nack, then we get the beard ribbon, then we FINALLY get the treasure from Captain Woolbeard… (For the record, Nick struck the same deal with the BB Bandits, hence why they were met wherever we went on this treasure chase).

It' good to be able to see an enemy's team
before we fight them.

Woolbeard is not so difficult if you know the type
matchups and can adjust your team accordingly.

Reaching Woolbeard’s office, we see the BB Bandits are there, offering him a fake beard ribbon... which works for all of 5 seconds. The ghastly captain gets mad and the bandits flee, but he’s still too mad to accept our gift, so we have to beat him in a fossil battle.

Because of course. An angry ghost is perfectly capable of battling with dinosaurs.

Sure enough, defeat brings Woolbeard back to normal, and we give him the ribbon, and for our troubles we gain some knowledge and…

…another damned tacky idol. These better be important!

Okay, you know what, I’m stopping here for today. Screw the Level-Up Battles, I’m done for now. Come back Friday for what follows in the story.