At E3, Nintendo of America announced plans to bring the third installment of the Fossil Fighters series, Fossil Fighters: Frontier, to North America. Unfortunately for us, the game was only playable during a kids only event. That left us press members looking on in awe as the lucky children walked away with a greater understanding of a title that few outside of Japan have encountered. Fortunately, Nintendo finally let us sample the upcoming 3DS title.

For those unaware, Fossil Fighters is a game about finding, digging up, and collecting dinosaur fossils. Once all the pieces of a dinosaur are found, it's possible to resurrect the beast and have it fight against other dinos.

On the surface, the concept isn't too dissimilar from Pokemon. However, there are some major differences. For starters, the power of the dinosaur you eventually fight with is determined by how neatly you dig up each fossil piece. Players are given a time limit and then have to carefully hammer and drill the fossils out of the ground. Damage the fossil a bit, and your dinosaur won't be at maximum strength.

The battle system is also very different that Pokemon. Yes, it's turned based, but the fights are completely different in execution. The first fight I encountered, in some sort of in game tournament, was a 3 on 3 fight.

While it was nice to give Fossil Fighters: Frontier a try, I can't say I'm too excited. The game felt similar to its predecessors, and those two titles failed to keep me hooked. However, players who loved the previous entries and are looking for more of the same will probably be satisfied.