''Dino Master'' is a game for the Nintendo DS system similar to a fusion of
Pokémon
(an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise.
In terms of ...
and the arcade game
Qix
is a 1981 puzzle video game developed by husband and wife team Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer and published in arcades by Taito America. ''Qix'' is one of a handful of games made by Taito's American division. At the start of each level, the playing f ...
.
Gameplay
The player takes the role of "Dave the Digger", who excavates
fossils
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...
from various sites while avoiding enemies. The fossils can then be revived into living dinosaurs and pitted against each other in Battle Mode. To battle, the player would choose a part of the dinosaur to defend, and a part of the opponent dinosaur to attack. Smaller dinosaurs are weaker but have less vulnerability points; larger ones are stronger but have more vulnerability points. Powerful dinosaur are more rare to come by, and the player can dispose of the common kinds. In the story mode, the player traces a line across the field and any fossil concealed within the line is revealed. Enemies that collide with the line will send out a yellow "bullet" which will follow the line toward the player until it strikes or the player reaches an area of security. If the player collides with an enemy, the player loses a life. If an enemy is trapped within the line, removed "that enemy is vaporized.
Several errors are in the game, such as the misnaming of dinosaurs. One error is the mislabeling of
Plesiosaurus as
Plateosaurus.
The game has received poor reviews for errors in the touch-screen functionality and a battle system relying far too heavily on luck.
Characters
;Zenjiro
:An elderly man who handles Various dinosaurs
;Masato
:A male youth who handles Fast dinosaurs
;Nobuyuki
:A researcher who handles Dinosaurs with strong technique
;Lucy
:A woman who handles Dinosaurs with high HP
;Garcia
:A gentle giant who handles Aggressive dinosaurs
;Dinosaur list
:The game includes up to 100 dinosaurs. They mostly consist of
carnosaurs,
sauropods,
pterosaurs and Sea Reptiles. (Pterosaurs and
plesiosaur
The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
Plesiosaurs first appeared ...
s are considered dinosaurs in the game, although in reality they are not.)
;Enemies
:There are various enemies in Dino Master. They are mostly large
spiders,
insects,
reptile
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...
s and
crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...
s. There is always a "boss" enemy in each level, and if this boss is defeated, the player automatically wins.
Notes
References
2005 video games
Action games
Video games about dinosaurs
Nintendo DS games
Nintendo DS-only games
Video games developed in Japan
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