Luckily damaged vivasuars can be swapped out with the creatures in the support zone allowing the battered creatures a round or two of healing. At the beginning of the game simply picking the strongest creature in your arsenal and attacking is enough to win the match but as the game progresses, choosing when to swap creatures from the different zones as well as when to end a turn early to save fossil points for a greater attack at the next turn becomes crucial.

The vivasaurs themselves are somewhat cutesy but all have some nice design flair. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the rest of the game as there are some seriously ugly player models going on here as well as some environments that look to have been dug up from the GBA era. The vivasaur animations are smooth but lack bite as you never see the creatures actually doing damage to each other. Instead you'll see an attack animation and then a reaction animation but never hot vivasaur on vivasaur action.

For those looking to take their vivasaurs global, you'll most likely be disappointed. All multiplayer is local wireless only and is restricted to sending fossils to each other and one-on-one battles. The options aren't even unlocked until your Fossil Fighter reaches level 4, no doubt in an effort to let the player amass a nice collection of beasties before taking on others with them, but seeing how you can't go out on the internet and challenge random, possibly higher level players it just seems like an unnecessary restriction.

Despite the blatant unoriginality that runs through the game I still find myself looking forward to the next session of digging up fossils, cleaning them off and pitting my vivasaurs against each other. The combat is deep enough to be challenging but not so complex that you need to consult spreadsheets and training manuals, or get up a certain time of day and go digging for some rare nocturnal dinosaur. If all of your games need to be sprung from the fountain of creativity then you might want to look elsewhere, but if you're into some casual creature combat, you may be pleastantly surprised with what you unearth.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .