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Is line is to make sure this faq is seventy-nine characters wide.

Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure for the Nintendo Wii

Faq Version 1.0

Version Notes: 1.0
- First Attempt; not all information is avaliable at this time

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0. Table of Contents
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0. Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Controls
3. Description of Gameplay
	A. Game Screen
	B. Combat
	C. Goal of the Game
	D. Fossil Screen
	E. Monster Selection Screen
	F. Saving your game
	G. Multiplayer
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Beyond the Manual
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4. Avaliable Monsters
5. Game Review
	A. Video
	B. Audio
	C. Gameplay
	D. Control
	E. Replay Ability
	F. Price
	G. Overall
6. Legal Jargon

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1. Introduction
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Sea Monsters, a prehistoric adventure, is a game created by DSI
games in conjunction with National Geographic.

This is the story verbatum from the manual:

In the oceans of the earth millions of years ago, danger was never far
away and monsters lurked in every shadow. Experience this astounding
world by playing as six different prehistoric marine reptiles, each with
special skills-from extreme speed to thick armor and powerful
crunching jaws. Start you adventure in area of insland sea that will
only get more dangerous as time passes. Take on foes, hunt for prey and
unlock hidden challenges. Your goal is to find a way to truly escape
these waters. How to accomplish your escape is something you'll have to 
figure out on your journey. Now take control of your first Sea Monster
and begin your adventure!

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2. Controls
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In order to control this game, you can either use just the wiimote or
you can use a wiimote in combination with a nunchuck.

Move the Wiimote and point it where you want to point your monster.

Pressing and holding the A button will make you swim forward.

Move the wiimote sharply left, right, up, or down will preform a dodge
in that direction.

Making a sharp movement towards yourself, (i.e. away from the screen)
makes your monster do a 180 degree turn.

Press the B button to attack.

Special Moves for each of the monsters can be activated by double-pressing
either the A or B button depending on the ability and the monster.

Special moves include stealth mode, digging, smashing rocks, and boost 
jumping.

Pressing the - button takes you to the fossil screen

Pressing the + button takes you to the monster select screen

Pressing the 1 button pauses the game allowing you to exit a misson to the 
hub or return to the title screen.

Pressing down on the d-pad deselects a target (Very important to remember 
this).

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3. Description of Gameplay
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A. The Game Screen

Displayed in the upper-left corner of the gameplay screen is a hud with
a picture and three bars.

The picture is of the monster you are currently using. At any point you are
in open water and not in a mission, you can switch monsters by pressing the
+ button. 

The three bars, from top to bottom, represent your health, oxygen, and
stamina. Stamina is replenished by stopping moving.Oxygen is replenished 
by coming to the surface. All of the monsters breath air. The game will
warn you when you are running out of air by darkening the corners of the
screen. Health is replenished by eating fish, other reptiles, crabs, etc. 
Defeating a large reptile usually refills your life all the way.

In the lower-right is your radar. Green dots represent food or non-threat
predators. Red dots represent threats. Blue dots are challenge portals and
Purple dots are fossils. The distance the radar goes out away from your
monster in all dicretions is directly related to the size of the monster.
The bigger it is, the farther it can sense.

The true goal of the game (regardless of the cheesy story text above,) is to
Find all of the fossils in the game.

B. Combat

When you are in range of something you can bite, a bite curser will appear 
on top of the target. Pressing the B button will attack the current target.

Obviously, large monsters take more than one hit and the amount of damage
delt to the creature is directly related to where you hit. Head hits deal
the most damage.

To dodge in combat, you can either turn the wiimote hard or flick the 
joystick on the nunchuck. When you preform a dodge, a Bite icon that looks
like a pair of teeth will appear at the top of the screen. This icon increases
the power of your next attack slightly. They can be piled on top of one
another to deal more damage. (The most I have personally got at once is 5.
I do not know what the max is.) This bonus only applies to your NEXT attack.
Hit or miss, the teeth are gone after that.

C. Goal of the Game

The goal of this game is to collect the fossils. Collecting fossils unlocks
new sea monsters to play as and new challenges to try your luck at. As a 
reminder, fossils show up purple on you map in the lower-right corner. Some
are easy to grab by just swimming into them. Others can be be more difficult.
They can be buried under the ground, on dry land, floating in the air, or in
deep water.

The main area where you start the game is called the hub. It is a very large
sea with shallows, deep areas, underwater caves, etc. This is where most of
the fossils you will find in the game will be.

Scattered about the hub are challenge portals. Swim into a challenge portal
and a list of challenges will appear at the bottom of the screen. The number
of challenges varies by the portal. Some challenges will be greyed out. You
cannot attempt these challenges until you have the correct monster. Place
your cursor on a icon to read the goals of the mission. Mission objectives
vary greatly, specifically by the kind of monster required to attempt the 
mission. (i.e. if you're a little turtle, swimming fast. If you're a big 
monster, usually you will be fighting.)

Important Notes about challenges:

	- First, whether it's a mission where you picked what monster you
	wanted to use, or you were required to use a certain one, you cannot
	change monsters at will during a mission like you can in the hub.
	The only way to change monsters inside a mission is to find a change 
	icon. These look very similar to challenge portals only much smaller
	and they have a picture of a monster floating in the center.
	Whatever the monster in the picture is, that is the monster you will
	become when you touch it. EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT MONSTER YET.
	Careful changing though as you may not be able to change back into
	what you were before without leaving the mission.

	Note: when you leave a mission, you return to what you were when you
	entered the mission.

	- Second, some missions have timers. The purpose of these is obvious.
	Some missions have tally counters. These too are obvious. Some 
	missions have nothing on the screen. Pay attention to the description 
	of the mission before you enter it to know your goals. Like I said 
	earlier, most missions are related to the type of monster required 
	to enter them.

	- Finally, the fossils you get from completing challenges are 
	specific. Many of them are the skulls which allow you to use new
	monsters. Thus, really the challenges are the "story line" of the 
	game.

D. Fossil Screen

Everytime you collect a fossil, the game takes you to the fossil screen and 
shows you the animal it goes to and where it goes on that animal. Remember,
not all fossils, in fast most, do NOT unlock new monsters to play as. More
often they unlock new challenges to try in the challenge portals. The Fossil 
screen can also be accessed at anytime by pressing the - button.

By using the wiimote to point and the A button to click, you can select the
individual bone fossils you have collected and learn a fact about the animal
it is a part of.

Also, throughout the game there are wild card fossils that can take the place
of fossil pieces you have not found yet to help you unlock new monsters 
faster. They cannot take the place of the skull of a monster and only one
wild card can be used per monster. To use a wildcard, point to the picture of
the ominyte in the lower left of the fossil screen and hold A to pick it up.
Then drag it on top of the fossil and release.

Wild cards can ONLY be found through challenges and can only be used on the 
monsters you can unlock to play as.

Building some of the other (non-playable) monsters skeletons can give you
permanent stats boosts. Also finishing any animal gives you a video about
that animal acessable from the title screen.

E. Monster Selection screen.

Press + on the wiimote to enter the monster selection screen. You can
monsters at anytime you are in open water and not in a challenge. (Read
the section above about challenges.) I say open water because if you are
the Henodus, (i.e. the turtle-looking monster), you cannot change monsters
if you are walking on the bottom. You will have to press A twice to swim,
and you will be able to change.

The monster select screen is scrolled right or left using a combination of
the wiimote and the A button. Simply click the picture of the mosnter, if
you have it unlocked, to return to the game as that monster.

This screen shows you a picture of the monster (more useful than you think
considering the complicated names they have) on the left side of the box
and on the right, it shows the name, a brief paragraph decribing the 
creature, the length and the stats of the monster.

The stats are as follows: Speed, Damage, Health, Agility 

Speed: Obvious. How fast you travel. (Specifically underwater)
Damage: How much POTENTIAL damage that monster can do.
Health: How much health the monster has relative to the others.
Agility: the smoothness with which the creatures turns and attacks.

F. Saving your game

(Sigh....) This game only contains an autosave. This save activates
whenever you grab a fossil. The problem with this is it remembers the
fossils you have found and the monsters you have unlocked, but that is all.
If you have broken open any walls, they are repaired when you reload. Any
help messages that prompt in the game will repeat everytime you reload.
This is only slightly annoying as they don't inhibit your vision or the
gameplay.

G. Multiplayer

The multiplayer in this game has a max of 2 players and centers around the
versus challenges in the challenge rings.

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Beyond the manual
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4. Avaliable Monsters
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This is a list of the avaliable, playable monsters and their stats and
abilities. Most of the game is knowing what monsters have what abilities
in order to continue on. To my knowledge, there are 6 playable monsters.

I. Thalassomedon

Size 14m
Speed 2 
Damage 2
Health 2
Agilty 2

The starting monster. This monster has enough speed to escape most 
problems. Don't trying taking on icthyosaurs or Tylosaurs with it. It is a
plesiasaur so think Lock-Ness and you've got the picture.

Special Ability: Stealth. Quickly pressing A twice will make you enter
stealh mode until you attack or make a sharp turn. According to the
manual, this helps you sneak up on prey and avoid predators. My honest
opinon is that it does little or nothing.

Overall: Fine to start, but useless pretty quick.

II. Henodus

Size 2m
Speed 1
Damage 1
Health 1
Agility 2

This monster looks like a turtle that got ran over by a truck. Its purpose
is to get in small places, like the second challenge portal.

Special Abilities: Dig and Floor walk. This little turtle can dig up
fossils. Watch for green clouds coming from the sand and double-tap B.
Alos by digging is how he feeds. Floorwalking is done by being close to the
bottom and double tapping the A button. This will set you an the bottom and
let you walk along the bottom by pressing the A button to move forward.
Pressing A twice again, (as long as the water over your head is deep enough)
will return you to swimming mode.

Overall: This is the second monster you unlock and he allows you to enter
the second challenge portal. Other than that he is pretty useless.

III. Temnodontosaurus

Size 10m
Speed 4
Damage 2
Health 4
Agility 3

Looks like a big sword fish, but he's a reptile. Finally a decent monster.

Special Ability: Deep dive. All of the monsters have limits on how deep
they can dive before they start to get crushed by the weight of the water,
except this one. Swim deep to your hearts content and find those fossils
that have been mocking you from the ocean floor as a speck on you radar
since the beginning of the game.

Also, it should be noted that this monster makes it really easy to gain
health back. Simply swim to a deep, dark section and eat the little, red 
things (I think they are jellyfish) until your life bar is full.

Overall: You will find yourself using this monster as your default. He can
swim deeper than anyone else thus he finds the new areas and secrets. Also,
he speed compare to those before his is a noticable improvement.

IV. Tylosaurus

Size 14m
Speed 3
Damage 5
Health 5
Agility 3

The biggest, strongest monster in the game. Looks like a crocodile with a 
vertically flat, rudder-like tail.

Special Ability: Rock smash. This monster can break open rock piles to 
reveal secrets and new areas. The game will tell you (as any monster) when
you swim by a rock that can be broken.

Overall: This is your brute strength. The muscles. Great for fighting tough
challenge monsters and avoiding confrontation. As this monster, all the red
dots dissappear from your map. Fear nothing. However, you will find yourself
switching to other monsters for increased speed when you are on your way
somewhere. This monster, due to it's size, also has the best radar vision.
Switch to him to see the map and then switch back to the correct monster for
the job.

V. Dolichorhynchops "Dolly"

Size 4m
Speed 5
Damage 1
Health 2
Agility 5

Big fast fish.

Special Ability: Leap. This monster is the fastest one and thus can leap out
of the water and over land bridges. Look for green cliff walls. The game
will let you know when you swim by one (as any monster,) if you can jump it.

Overall: Fast. Avoid fighting.

VI. Nothosaurus

Size 4m
Speed 4
Damage 2
Health 2
Agility 5

You really feel the agility on this guy. Similar in look to Thalassomedon
but more of a angry look. Jutting teeth and flippers that are closer to
feet. Not nearly as big though.

Special Ability: Walking and digging. You read correctly, this guy can walk 
out onto land. Look for sandy beaches. The game will let you know where you
can walk out at. Also he can dig just like the Henodus. This is important
because some buried fossils are too deep for Henodus to reach.

Overall: You really feal the agilty on this guy. He can turn on a dime. But
he is pretty small so not great for combat. Use him for his talents.
 
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5. Game Review
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Each section is a score out of 10. 1 being awful, 10 being perfect.


A. Video: 8

The graphics for this game are right on track for a Wii game. They are not
amazing but not bad. The gameplay is smooth and never chops.

B. Audio: 7

The music that is there is good, however, there's not much there. You will
hear the same music stings over and over. This could have been fixed easily
but is a sad reality.

C. Gameplay: 6

There isn't really that much to do in this game. The pluses are that
changing monsters dramatically effects gameplay, which is cool. Unfortunatly,
that the only major change. The game is swim, swim, eat, fight, eat, swim.
I enjoyed this game style, but I doubt most people will. There are a few
surface impact glitches here and there but they do not affect gameplay. At
least this game appears to be pretty glitchless and solid. (That's more than
can be said for Red Steel.)

D. Controls 9

One of the more positve parts of the game. You never feel out of control at
any point. Controls only take a few minutes to master. There are too many
games out there with bad control and I'm happy to say this is NOT one of
them.

E. Replay Value 4

Swimming is fun. Other than that and the multiplayer, there is none.

F. Price 8

Personally, I feel that price can justify a simpler game. I purchased this
game at a Target store for $29.99. That's lower than usual for a new game
and I enjoyed the game, so I believe this price point is a positive point.

G. Overall 7

This is game is average. With that being said, I did enjoy and I would say
to try this game if you want a different, fun experience that's not too
difficult or frustrating. The lengh of the game is appropriate and can be
finished in 4 to 5 hours. Worth the money, but this game has a different
feel than most.

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6. Legal Jargon
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Please feel free to share this FAQ with your friends and with other web
sites, but please be sure to give me credit for it. 

Thanks to DSI and National Geographic for making the game. Thanks to
Nintendo for making the system. Thanks to Sega for not sacrificing quality
for quantity. Thanks to my girlfriend, Annie, for allowing me to keep more
video games in our apartment than is obviously healthy.

Special thanks to www.gamefaqs.com for hosting their fantastic site.

Copyright 2007 Brian Kosich

Date of finished writing: December 31, 2007

Please email me at [email protected] with any questions, comments concerns
as to the content of the faq or the style in which it is formatted. Any
info is helpful and I will take non of it personally.

I hope to update this faq soon with a walkthrough and to draw a map for 
the images section. I apologize if this never happens.