Fossil Hunters (PS4)
When I was a child, fossils fascinated me. The idea that the remains of some prehistoric creature could be found by digging down into the dirt at just the right spot made me wish I could just go out and start digging to see what was hidden beneath the surface. Since doing so in real life is not at all feasible, video games felt like the best place to potentially satisfy this childhood fantasy, but it seemed like every game that focused on fossils always centered around the idea of reviving creatures from the bones, the main game of those titles truly being about something like dinosaur battling. That’s why I was so excited when I learned about the existence of a game called Fossil Hunters, a game that completely focuses on the act of finding bones beneath the earth with no combat or creature revival in sight.
Fossil Hunters begins with four explorers being called to an excavation site by a mysterious character who will only communicate to them through radio. An elevator is already set up to take them down into the depths, but to unlock deeper and deeper layers beneath the earth, they must first complete special blueprints left down below. The fossil hunters need to dig through dirt and stone to unearth the bones of extinct animals and link them together as specified by these blueprints to unlock the next digging area, but rather than trying to create accurate reconstructions of ancient animals, Fossil Hunters goes for a more whimsical approach. The bones of dead beasts can be linked together at different connection points, and so long as there are no open points, you can redeem the fossil as if it were a real creature. The man on the radio and the blueprints actively encourage you to make ridiculous shapes out of the fossils you find such as spirals made out of nothing but legs, creatures with multiple heads, and skeletons that definitely could not be real, such as a creation that is simply a foot with a tail.
Blueprints will often ask you to make a larger creature with many different parts, but you are free to go off and make your own custom creatures any time you like. Linking together the fossils into a design of your choice can be a personal challenge of your own absurdity and ability to make as big a dinosaur as possible, and since the game can have up to four players playing together, working together on these ridiculous designs can be an enjoyable mission even if the freeform ones only reward you with coins and gemstones if they’re large enough. The blueprints definitely have some strange designs if you want to stay focused on the advancing the adventure, but there are also missions the man on the radio will give you if you come up to the surface to visit from time to time. Usually he’ll request a beast with certain pieces, his dialogue humorously invoking the period of history where paleontologists were just throwing together dinosaur bones to be more interesting and unusual rather than true to life. The fact these skeletons must be put together in such strange shapes definitely keeps the game interesting though, as getting the right bone pieces and moving them about to make these fake beasts is certainly a challenge.
On a typical floor in Fossil Hunters, you’ll break into the surrounding sand and rock in search of large square tiles. These tiles contain the bones you’ll use to build your funky skeletons, some like the feet incredibly small but others like certain skulls and hip pieces requiring you to smash apart multiple blocks of dirt with your pickaxe. However, digging isn’t a totally safe task. If you dig out the wrong piece of dirt or rock, a small cave-in will start, new chunks of sand and stone falling in from above. If one of these land on you, you lose some of your cash but you’ll respawn safely on the floor to resume your dig. This makes other hazards like having to leap across gaps or avoid lava not all that dangerous… at least for you. Your fossils can be smashed apart by the falling rocks, fall down into the endless void or bubbling lava, and there are many floors underground with other hazards that specifically interfere with your fossils instead of you. Little black spiders will attack any fossils they can find, but using light to your advantage will keep your fossils safe in these darker caverns. Lava salamanders in some of the deeper layers will destroy any rocks or fossils they touch as they meander about, these otherwise harmless creatures frequently triggering cave-ins or breaking apart any fossils they obliviously touch. Finding fossils and building a skeleton isn’t as easy as just dragging around bones because of this, and the battle to keep your skeleton in shape gives much of the regular play its interesting edge. Luckily, the cave-ins can at least be anticipated on some occasions, the rumble you feel in your controller as you dig usually cluing you in on how dangerous it is to keep digging in the current spot.
While there are a few things that can complicate the digging process, there are some nice tools to help as well. Many of the floors underground have secret areas , the level map you see before selecting it cluing you in that there might be helpful little alcoves or islands outside of the main digging area. Fountains are certainly the most helpful, these color-coded liquid reservoirs providing you special digging bonuses that can stack. Red ones make your pick stronger so digging goes faster, blue fountains provide you with more strength when dragging fossils to make assembling and protecting skeletons easier, and the yellow fountain gives your character a general speed boost so you can get out of danger quicker. Sometimes you might encounter merchants underground as well who can sell you digging equipment such as struts to prevent cave-ins, although these cover a laughably small area so they aren’t worth the cash. Lights to help when digging in dark places can be bought, but there are very few dark places, however the bridge seller at least is worth speaking to since the rarer wooden bridges are sometimes the only way to safely get fossils across gaps or get your character to a special area. There’s also a dynamite merchant, but dynamite can already be found naturally while digging, this explosive clearing out a large area of dirt without destroying any fossils inside. However, dynamite could always trigger a cave-in since it lacks the finesse of careful digging, so deciding to use it is a consideration of effectiveness versus risk.
The merchants are part of one of the game’s smaller issues though. Building skeletons, digging around for fossils, and completing the main goals and side missions is enjoyable enough and has progression related rewards, but the cash and gems you can gather for going off the beaten path or making your own creations has little utility. Gems sometimes are used to get rid of barriers in the same way you might need a bridge or dynamite to get to a special area, but the game gives you more gems then you’d ever feasibly use. These are part of an end game discovery tally, but most of these are useless, and the cash only fares a little better because they can be spent on the merchants, only one of whom is going to be consistently helpful. There are hidden journal pages you can find while digging or exploring hidden areas that do reward an adventurous spirit or thorough work, but it’s odd that two of the main collectibles are so underutilized.
There is also a bit of glitchiness to the game unfortunately. Your elevator can be used to ferry items from different layers, this good for transporting bridges and other vital items, but some bigger fossils might just phase through the elevator as it travels if you want to build with them elsewhere. Also, if you try to do something like hoard your extra gems in the starting digging site above ground, if one gets into a nook or cranny it’s not meant to, the game will reset the whole area on your next visit to try and resolve this small error. The low value of your cash and gems means it doesn’t hurt too much to lose them to this, but it felt like Fossil Hunters did encourage doing some things for their own sake, so reseting the item collection is a little upsetting. It might have good reason too though, since too many gems on screen will cause considerable slowdown, this not occurring naturally and was likely just a result of my co-op partner and I trying to make a jewel pile when we initially had no clue what they were for.
Luckily, these glitches do not truly impact regular play, the fossil hunting working as intended and any complications to it being intended obstacles that allow the act to be thrilling at times even though most of the game focuses on low pressure discovery. Most of your concerns while creating fossils will be things like the spores in the mushroom caves that slow down moving bones around until you dust them off, and trying to get fossils safely around an area can sometimes involve weighing the risk of a cave-in or puzzling out where to dig so that the fossil is already near where it needs to be. The late game levels are practically puzzle like with their more pronounced embrace of the gimmicks you encounter elsewhere underground, the final stretch feeling like a showcase of the items you’ve used and things you’ve learned along your adventure.
THE VERDICT: Fossil Hunters keeps its focus on the excitement of discovery and the challenge of properly constructing ridiculous skeletons, so while it’s not really action-packed, it still delivers on its intended angle quite well. Finding the right bones involves taking risks and engaging with occasional impediments, the task complicated by reasonable concerns and enhanced by obstructions that must be worked around in interesting ways. Building your own absurd dinosaur skeleton and finding other things hidden beneath the dirt gives you stuff to do beyond the already hearty set of levels and missions, but it is a bit of a shame the cash and gem rewards you earn have so little use. It still nails the angle of low-pressure exploration though, and that pure focus on finding dinosaur bones beneath the dirt allows its unique design to still come out on top.
And so, I give Fossil Hunters for PlayStation 4…
A GOOD rating. I really wanted to rate Fossil Hunters higher, because when the game started off, my co-op partner and I were having a blast. Making our gem hoard and building a goofy skeleton mascot back at the base was fun to mess around with between the excursions underground where we had to puzzle out the floors layout and risks to complete blueprints and missions. Seeing our fun undone by a glitch hurt though, but while that was disheartening, it might not have been such a wound to our enjoyment if the stuff we were hoarding instead had an explicit purpose we could have used it for. Rather than stockpiling gems or building up cash reserves since there was little useful to spend them one, players should have been rewarded for these extra efforts, and it’s not hard to conceive of some possible uses for them. Extra levels could be bought, character skills could have been purchased, and there could have been more effective versions of items like the struts that prevent cave-ins so they’re actually worth bringing around. At least when it comes to the digging and fossil construction Fossil Hunter doesn’t disappoint, the kooky arrangements and complications added to following the blueprints ensuring the core tasks of the game still add up to an overall enjoyable experience. No gimmick is lingered on too long, and while some like a floor rife with lava salamanders can be a little crazy, they all focus on testing your ability to unearth and arrange fossils properly rather than making Fossil Hunters into some sort of action game.
Fossil Hunters certainly scratched my itch for a video game where discovering and assembling fossils is the main focus, and while I wouldn’t turn down more attempts at such a concept, I can at least say I finally found a fossil hunting game where discovery is the main crux of the gameplay. Entering a new floor, seeing what absurd blueprint has been laid out for you, and overcoming the obstacles to gathering the bones you need for it keeps your Fossil Hunters expedition fresh all the way up to the bottom level.