No one person is truly immune to hype. It’s a part of life from which we cannot escape due to the way society currently functions. There are things we can resist or ignore rather easily. Such as the past 20 years of the show Law & Order. I did a rather good job resisting NCIS until now (curse you USA Network ... curse you!). Or the latest Mary Higgins Clark novel. But back in the mid 1990s, there was one craze that no child — or gamer — could truly resist. And that game was the Red and Blue versions of Pokemon for the original Nintendo Game Boy. What made those two games work underneath the crazily cute monsters was the simple fact that it was a solid, traditional role-playing game. Well, folks, Sega has released a game for the Nintendo DS in this vein known as Dinosaur King. So is this clone any good? Well, no, it is not that great.
Dinosaur King is about two young dinosaur enthusiasts: Max, who looks like a humanized triceratops, and Rex, the normal-looking one. (Guess which I chose to play as.) Anyway, the two kids volunteer their time at the D-Lab. It as at this point you are introduced to Doctor Reese, a blonde-haired woman who looks like she’s ready to pervert youth and not educate. Anyway, Team Rocket — I mean, the Alpha Gang (*cough cough*) break in and try to steal the device that allows the scientists at the D-Lab to resurrect dinosaurs. Obviously, not learning anything from the Jurassic Park movies, Team Rock — the Alpha Gang succeed in stealing a dino shot, the very device that resurrects and controls the dinosaurs. So now it is up to Max and Rex to put a stop to the silliness of world domination and the rest of things that go along with it by fighting with their own dinosaurs. It was at that time that I mentally fell asleep.
Alright folks, lets start with the gameplay. Instead of duking it out in the traditional manner of each side taking turns slugging mud at each other, you play a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (which, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll be mentioned as “RPS” from here on out). The randomness of the RPS is removed by the game telling you what your opponent is going to do. IF you guess correctly, your dinosaur will cause damage and avoid getting hurt. If you guess the same, then both your opponent’s dinosaur and your dinosaur take damage. And, if you guess wrong, your dinosaur gets hurt while the opponent’s is fine. Furthermore, each aspect of RPS is tied to a certain attack. Rock is for ram attacks, scissors are for tackle attacks and paper is for throws.
Sounds decent so far, correct? So what is the problem with such a system? Simple: This means that, hypothetically, much weaker dinosaurs can beat stronger dinosaurs without too much effort. Thus, what is the point of leveling/strengthening your monsters — I mean, dinosaurs — if the risk of taking damage is around 30–50 percent? Furthermore, once battles get started and the appropriate attack is used, the same pattern of battle takes over, such as going from paper to rock to scissors. And it doesn’t help that your opponent tells you what is going to happen next. Oh, yes, RPS is a very important game for children — it teaches them about balance. And the concept is used in many other games brilliantly (remember elemental weaknesses and strengths of every other RPG?). But it does not stand up well on its own because it is so darn boring!
Anyway, I’m getting distracted. As you recall, I mentioned “dinosaurs” throughout the previous paragraphs. Well, you add new dinosaurs to your group (a whooping total of three dinosaurs can be carried around at once) by digging. This is accomplished by using a radar and then digging. It’s a lot less exciting than it sounds, because all you see is either Max or Rex digging into the ground. If something pops up on the radar, you dig. Once that is finished, you’ll either find an item, or if you’re lucky, a fossil. Drag said fossil back to the local D-Lab, and proceed to extract the fossil from the rock using a pick. Problem: The pick only has so much energy to be used before it breaks. Also, the same few fossil shapes seem to be recycled repeatedly. Worse yet, the game punishes you by not having enough energy to fully extract the fossil, thus leaving you with a subpar creature. I have to give them credit for trying something new, but I don’t think an actual archeologist would support such an action to be done on something of historical importance. On the bright side, the information given on the dinosaurs seem accurate.
Graphically, the game is a mess. The top screen carries the poorly drawn map. If it was something I had drawn, it probably wouldn’t matter that much. But no, my eyes were assaulted by pure black lines and a red dot and nothing else to help distinguish things. The lower screen, during exploration, carries a rather decent looking anime inspired universe. It moves effectively enough, but somehow it is just painful for me to look at — perhaps it is the PlayStation 1 quality of the combat of the dinosaurs. However, you’ll see the same battle animations over and over again (e.g., watching your dinosaur tackle the other dinosaur into a huge rock. But seeing it every time that action occurs makes one wonder where all those rocks come from. Is there a “Rocks ‘R’ Us” store nearby or something? There is the option to remove the battle animations, but it quickly starts up and then moves to the next thing. It feels jilted and unpolished, especially since hitting the A button is easier and faster.
Also, there are two important aspect of Dinosaur King that must be mentioned: First, it crashed on me. Twice. Right after I put it into suspend mode (you know, shutting the DS closed). The first time was during the extraction process in the D-Lab. The second time was during combat. Both times were about an hour or so apart from each other real time. And I lost at least 15 minutes of gameplay altogether. Is this some sort of fluke? Or is it an aspect of the engine that somehow escaped the programmers’ eyes? All the DS games I have played have been put into suspend mode, and nothing ill has occurred. Anyway, the second problem also is with the engine. Every time you talk to someone or a menu is booted up, the screen flashes white and slows down. AND worse yet, whenever you leave the main menu, the screens (top and bottom) go white and freeze for a moment. I feel like I’m being punished with a loading screen whenever I need to use an item, manipulate my dinosaurs, or save. While this is forgivable on a CD (to an extent), it is unforgivable for something that is on a cartridge.
So this leaves us with the audio. Do you really want to read about it? Alright, here we go. Sound wise, everything is pretty generic, and it works. Music wise, everything is pretty forgettable and annoying. You don’t have to listen to it provided you mute the DS. And that is what makes things even worse for Dinosaur King: Cut the audio and it feels like nothing is missing. At least there is no bad voice acting since there are no voiced lines. But when coming off of the highs of other DS games that have voice acting, it feels odd not hearing any in a modern game. Especially when Sega used it rather well this past summer.
Overall, Dinosaur King is nothing more than a Pokemon clone. A poor Pokemon clone. What made the original Pokemon games so much fun was the fact that everywhere you went, there was the chance of gaining a new little friend. And then you could trade them with friends and other people in the game world. But every time I sat down to play this game, I threw a mental hissey fit. And each time I gave in. This is not to say that the game is not playable. Oh, yes, it is playable. But, the question is for what reason would you want to play this game? And certainly, this might have been something that would keep children busy. But for how long? Kids are pretty smart, and they can tell if something is subpar.
Thus, if it is Pokemon you want, go out and get Pokemon. There are newer (and older) games out there that do the same job as Dinosaur King and are far more enjoyable. In good conscious, I cannot recommend this game. Pokemon fans will be disappointed with this subpar clone due to the lack of variety. And RPG fans will be amazed at the lack of depth in gameplay. Sega knows how to create (and publish) great games; the Genesis had some really fun games for the system. Furthermore, Sega published two awesome RPGs (Remember Phantasy Star II and IV?) back in the 1990s. And that’s what Dinosaur King feels like: A relic of a time gone by, something trying to go back into its glory years but never quite reaches the quality of yesteryear. And that’s what is so sad about it all.
