Dex Entry
This Pokémon has too many ideas for their own good.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That’s a weird-looking Aerodactyl.
Hello, and welcome to my third Nuzforum run! I had a lot of fun with Lucky Platinum, but with Sunlocke still ongoing, I thought it would be nice to sit back, relax, and do a chill screenshot Nuzlocke. We’ll see how it goes!
I’m playing a game I haven’t revisited in a while, using a set of rules I came up with years ago for this very purpose. The game, as you may have already guessed…
Is Fossil Fighters!
Fossil Fighters is an… interesting game to Nuzlocke. The main challenge is a lack of distinct areas, which is something I’ve accounted for in my ruleset. Even so, the limited number of Vivosaurs we’ll be able to obtain (More on them later) will make this kinda funky.
Okay, time to get started! Don’t mind the first file, I was just making sure saving and cleaning were both possible. Selecting ‘new game’ prompts us to a fairly useless screen that I’ll just skip right over. And then… darkness.
Oh, cool, we get to watch a video! Very exciting.
The answer to ‘how on earth did they get an island shaped like a dinosaur head’ is clearly that they’re rich and just blew a hole in the middle. Sadly, there is no confirmation of my obviously correct theory in-game.
That’s what we’re here for! Gonna dig up some fossils and use whatever comes out of them to throw hands.
This is the last bit of the video, and it’s also our first hint of funny dialogue seen in this game. It gets far, far better, though. Once the video ends, we see… blue! And a boat is revealed to be riding the waves.
Captain Travers is my best friend, but that’s besides the point. He asks us for our name, and, sadly, there is not an option to select your gender. You have to be a boy. That’s fine for now, though, because that’s what I was planning anyways.
We are, of course, playing as Benji. He’s been through a lot, he needs a vacation! Where he will inevitably lose more friends because this game is deceptively tricky UH but he doesn’t know that yet.
… This may have been a mistake. Oh well, no turning back.
Captain Travers for best supporting character. Spoilers: he only shows up in the prologue. It’s very sad.
But before he disappears forever! It’s time for… a quiz.
He’d like to find out some things about dinosaurs we like! There are a few questions like this, but I already have a target in mind so I’ll just breeze through them.
We’re going to pick Deinonychus! This will be important later. For now, just know that I picked it because it’s a fire type that’s found in the second main area, and it’s good. And I also love it.
Oh good, time to meet the best character! Actually, they’re (almost) all great.
Bye, Travers! I’m sure you’ll never show up again. Sigh.
It’s HER. Beth is excellent and my friend and mostly just a generic NPC to be completely honest. But she’s one of the only recurring characters whose name ISN’T a pun, so I love her. Anyways, she starts to give some directions about becoming a fossil fighter, but before she can finish…
Hello, labcoat man. He’s a bit scatterbrained. It’s Dr. Diggins, the man we were told to find! Luckily, he came to us.
Aaand right after he agrees to lead us over, he wanders off yet again.
Beth is great. I guess we have to find our own way to the Fossil Center, not that it’s terribly hard to spot.
In we gooo!
Yup, and I’d like to get on it quickly. I can feel the tutorials creeping.
Ah. Well. That’s unfortunate. Wendy suggests we go to the hotel to check in, and gives us directions.
It’s this one! So off we go.
This is the Hotel Manager’s only line of dialogue I would consider normal. The rest of it…
I cut a lot out, but it’s all very stilted and almost creepy. He’s definitely a serial killer.
But anyways, our room!
A bed, a newspaper, and an empty shelf. The newspaper will give plot summaries as the game goes on, but the shelf is the most important piece of furniture in this room. Yes, I’m serious.
Teehee can’t see me
Okay, enough messing around. Let’s go see if Dr. Diggins is back.
Poor Wendy is constantly exasperated by this man. She oughta stick a tracker on him.
Diggins is in the back room, which is also the cleaning room. Hopefully this means we’ll get to some action.
Sir you can’t remember what you’re doing for more than two minutes but you can remember Benji’s name? How. Did the hotel guy repeat it to you seven times, like he did to me?
… Okay, yeah, that checks out, actually. Science life just be like that.
Supervillain origin story.
That’s what the video said, yes.
… Oh dear. I do believe the tutorials are upon us. Diggins starts talking about fossils.
To save on length, I’ll summarize a bit: There are four types of fossils-- Head, body, arms, and legs-- but a fossil can only be revived on its own if it’s the head. Other fossils will sit in storage until the head fossil is found. Revived things are called Vivosaurs because they’re not perfect recreations of beings from the ancient past; rather, they’re that but with bonus elemental powers. They can also fit inside medals, which is a neat trick!
The more fossils you have of a Vivosaur, the stronger it’ll be. The cleaner the fossil is, the stronger your Vivosaur will be as well!
Oh boy, this is the part that’s gonna be the most awkward. But at least it’s action!
See that timer? We’ve got 90 seconds to extract a fossil from this chunk of rock. The skull icon in the middle will indicate our progress- as more of the fossil is exposed, blue will begin filling it from the bottom down, but if the fossil gets damaged in any way, red will start creeping in from the top. Our goal is to get the blue over the yellow line in the center-- the higher we get above that line, the more experience our Vivosaur will get from the fossil. To see where the fossil is, the X-Ray button can be used- it’s the orange on in the top-center of the bottom screen. To the right of it is the strong but imprecise hammer, and to its left is the precise but slow drill. Both are useful for cleaning- the hammer for breaking away the first few layers of rock, and the drill for getting at the final, and most delicate, layer. With that out of the way, let’s start cleaning!
Screenshots of my cleanings will be few and far between; on console I can consistently get 95/100 or more, but on emulator it’s a different story. I must concentrate.
Fun thing about the drill: It flecks up dust! You’re intended to blow this away using the microphone, but you can also just tap the hammer on the sides of the cleaning table to clear it off. This can damage the fossil, though, so you have to be careful.
Oh hey, I’ll take it! Anything above 90 is good enough in my book; hopefully I’ll get a bit better at coordination as time goes on.
It’s time to get our first Vivosaur! What’s it gonna be?
It’s… a Spinax! As you can see, we’ve only got his head for the moment. Spinax fossils are common in the first area, so we’ll be filling him out soon enough.
Here’s a bit more info about our starter! Fossil Fighters doesn’t have a way to nickname Vivosaurs, but I’ll be calling this Spinax Garret from now on. For now, he only has one attack; as we add fossils, he’ll get a couple more. As far as stats go, Spinax is fairly bulky, with high LP, and is a reasonable attacker, but his defense and evasion (Mobility?) are lacking. For the record, I still don’t entirely know how useful accuracy is; I believe it factors into critical hits. Whatever, Garret’s is high and that’s a good thing.
Now it’s time to head over to the Fossil Stadium and learn about battling with our new friend! However, this part is already pretty long, so I think that’ll happen… next time.
You may only use the first Vivosaur you find in each area. Other fossils may be dug up and cleaned, but not used.
Areas are defined as places with a unique selection of fossils. This means that Pay-to-Dig sites may be used, as can the mines in Rivet Ravine and the ship in the Bottomsup Bay.
If there are multiple locations with the same fossils, up to two encounters may be made for those areas.
Due to the low number of available Vivosaurs in certain areas of the game, some liberties will be taken by what does and does not count as an area. These will be judgement-based.
If a Vivosaur is knocked out in battle, it is dead and may no longer be used.
Give every Vivosaur a nickname.
Areas are defined as places with a unique selection of fossils. This means that Pay-to-Dig sites may be used, as can the mines in Rivet Ravine and the ship in the Bottomsup Bay.
If there are multiple locations with the same fossils, up to two encounters may be made for those areas.
Due to the low number of available Vivosaurs in certain areas of the game, some liberties will be taken by what does and does not count as an area. These will be judgement-based.
If a Vivosaur is knocked out in battle, it is dead and may no longer be used.
Give every Vivosaur a nickname.
Okay, time to get started! Don’t mind the first file, I was just making sure saving and cleaning were both possible. Selecting ‘new game’ prompts us to a fairly useless screen that I’ll just skip right over. And then… darkness.
Oh, cool, we get to watch a video! Very exciting.
The answer to ‘how on earth did they get an island shaped like a dinosaur head’ is clearly that they’re rich and just blew a hole in the middle. Sadly, there is no confirmation of my obviously correct theory in-game.
That’s what we’re here for! Gonna dig up some fossils and use whatever comes out of them to throw hands.
This is the last bit of the video, and it’s also our first hint of funny dialogue seen in this game. It gets far, far better, though. Once the video ends, we see… blue! And a boat is revealed to be riding the waves.
Captain Travers is my best friend, but that’s besides the point. He asks us for our name, and, sadly, there is not an option to select your gender. You have to be a boy. That’s fine for now, though, because that’s what I was planning anyways.
We are, of course, playing as Benji. He’s been through a lot, he needs a vacation! Where he will inevitably lose more friends because this game is deceptively tricky UH but he doesn’t know that yet.
… This may have been a mistake. Oh well, no turning back.
Captain Travers for best supporting character. Spoilers: he only shows up in the prologue. It’s very sad.
But before he disappears forever! It’s time for… a quiz.
He’d like to find out some things about dinosaurs we like! There are a few questions like this, but I already have a target in mind so I’ll just breeze through them.
We’re going to pick Deinonychus! This will be important later. For now, just know that I picked it because it’s a fire type that’s found in the second main area, and it’s good. And I also love it.
Oh good, time to meet the best character! Actually, they’re (almost) all great.
Bye, Travers! I’m sure you’ll never show up again. Sigh.
It’s HER. Beth is excellent and my friend and mostly just a generic NPC to be completely honest. But she’s one of the only recurring characters whose name ISN’T a pun, so I love her. Anyways, she starts to give some directions about becoming a fossil fighter, but before she can finish…
Hello, labcoat man. He’s a bit scatterbrained. It’s Dr. Diggins, the man we were told to find! Luckily, he came to us.
Aaand right after he agrees to lead us over, he wanders off yet again.
Beth is great. I guess we have to find our own way to the Fossil Center, not that it’s terribly hard to spot.
In we gooo!
Yup, and I’d like to get on it quickly. I can feel the tutorials creeping.
Ah. Well. That’s unfortunate. Wendy suggests we go to the hotel to check in, and gives us directions.
It’s this one! So off we go.
This is the Hotel Manager’s only line of dialogue I would consider normal. The rest of it…
I cut a lot out, but it’s all very stilted and almost creepy. He’s definitely a serial killer.
But anyways, our room!
A bed, a newspaper, and an empty shelf. The newspaper will give plot summaries as the game goes on, but the shelf is the most important piece of furniture in this room. Yes, I’m serious.
Teehee can’t see me
Okay, enough messing around. Let’s go see if Dr. Diggins is back.
Poor Wendy is constantly exasperated by this man. She oughta stick a tracker on him.
Diggins is in the back room, which is also the cleaning room. Hopefully this means we’ll get to some action.
Sir you can’t remember what you’re doing for more than two minutes but you can remember Benji’s name? How. Did the hotel guy repeat it to you seven times, like he did to me?
… Okay, yeah, that checks out, actually. Science life just be like that.
Supervillain origin story.
That’s what the video said, yes.
… Oh dear. I do believe the tutorials are upon us. Diggins starts talking about fossils.
To save on length, I’ll summarize a bit: There are four types of fossils-- Head, body, arms, and legs-- but a fossil can only be revived on its own if it’s the head. Other fossils will sit in storage until the head fossil is found. Revived things are called Vivosaurs because they’re not perfect recreations of beings from the ancient past; rather, they’re that but with bonus elemental powers. They can also fit inside medals, which is a neat trick!
The more fossils you have of a Vivosaur, the stronger it’ll be. The cleaner the fossil is, the stronger your Vivosaur will be as well!
Oh boy, this is the part that’s gonna be the most awkward. But at least it’s action!
See that timer? We’ve got 90 seconds to extract a fossil from this chunk of rock. The skull icon in the middle will indicate our progress- as more of the fossil is exposed, blue will begin filling it from the bottom down, but if the fossil gets damaged in any way, red will start creeping in from the top. Our goal is to get the blue over the yellow line in the center-- the higher we get above that line, the more experience our Vivosaur will get from the fossil. To see where the fossil is, the X-Ray button can be used- it’s the orange on in the top-center of the bottom screen. To the right of it is the strong but imprecise hammer, and to its left is the precise but slow drill. Both are useful for cleaning- the hammer for breaking away the first few layers of rock, and the drill for getting at the final, and most delicate, layer. With that out of the way, let’s start cleaning!
Screenshots of my cleanings will be few and far between; on console I can consistently get 95/100 or more, but on emulator it’s a different story. I must concentrate.
Fun thing about the drill: It flecks up dust! You’re intended to blow this away using the microphone, but you can also just tap the hammer on the sides of the cleaning table to clear it off. This can damage the fossil, though, so you have to be careful.
Oh hey, I’ll take it! Anything above 90 is good enough in my book; hopefully I’ll get a bit better at coordination as time goes on.
It’s time to get our first Vivosaur! What’s it gonna be?
It’s… a Spinax! As you can see, we’ve only got his head for the moment. Spinax fossils are common in the first area, so we’ll be filling him out soon enough.
Here’s a bit more info about our starter! Fossil Fighters doesn’t have a way to nickname Vivosaurs, but I’ll be calling this Spinax Garret from now on. For now, he only has one attack; as we add fossils, he’ll get a couple more. As far as stats go, Spinax is fairly bulky, with high LP, and is a reasonable attacker, but his defense and evasion (Mobility?) are lacking. For the record, I still don’t entirely know how useful accuracy is; I believe it factors into critical hits. Whatever, Garret’s is high and that’s a good thing.
Now it’s time to head over to the Fossil Stadium and learn about battling with our new friend! However, this part is already pretty long, so I think that’ll happen… next time.
Garret the Spinax: Rank 1
Last edited:
