Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION


To save a lot of time and effort, the relevant portions of the OP of the long-dead megathread from days gone bye;

FredMSloniker posted:

In the distant past of 1997, Tecmo, perhaps best-known these days for the Dead or Alive franchise, released a game on the Playstation to take on Nintendo's then-infant Pokemon franchise. Monster Rancher was quite a departure from the 'gotta catch 'em all' formula; you raised a single monster at a time, having it do odd jobs to raise it stats, sending it on training exercises to learn new skills, going on adventures to find ancient treasures, and battling in scheduled tournaments to advance through the ranks. In addition, your monster wouldn't live forever; you were encouraged to freeze it before its death, and if you did so, you could then combine it with another monster, creating a hybrid with (hopefully) some of the strengths of both of its parents.



Perhaps the most significant feature of the game, though, was the method of acquiring new monsters. By swapping out the Monster Rancher disc for any music or game CD, you could read data off of the disc and create a unique monster. Some special monsters, in fact, could not be created through fusing other monsters, but could only be obtained by scanning certain discs. (For instance, you could get the soccer-themed monster pictured above by scanning INXS's "Kick".)

Although Monster Rancher was never as popular as Pokemon (or the Digimon franchise, which also launched in 1997), it was popular enough for Tecmo to release a number of sequels...



Monster Rancher 2, also for the Playstation, came out two years later and was essentially a refinement of the original formula. It contained nearly twice as many monster types, some of which could only be obtained through somewhat arcane methods (raising a specific monster on a specific diet, letting a monster die and building a shrine for it, or the long chain of events to unlock the Ducken breed). It also contained new CD-only monsters, like the Kasumi monster, obtained by scanning the Dead or Alive game. Other than that, and a few changes in game mechanics (you no longer receive money for doing jobs, for instance, making the money from adventuring and tournaments more important), it was largely 'Monster Rancher, but better'.

Somewhat confusingly, it was the first Monster Rancher game to see a European release--as "Monster Rancher." Which led to problems when looking for tips on the game.



Another two years later, Monster Rancher 3 was the series's first outing on the Playstation 2, which met with... mixed reviews. A number of the game mechanics were drastically changed; the number of total monsters, for instance, was greatly slashed with the elimination of monster combining. (Monsters could still have multiple appearances, based on where they were raised--new areas being unlocked in-game--but the variety was much-reduced.) Although new features were also added, like the ability to scan DVDs as well as CDs and the ability to recall any previously-raised monster species from an in-game encyclopedia, general fan reaction was that it was a step backwards from the previous games.

Schmendrick posted:

They got rid of a lot of breeds, but they added habitats that would affect your monster's appearance if it stayed there for a while (e.g. your Suezo, the yellow eyeball, would look like a dolphin if he trained under the sea). Monsters will die in 3, and you'll be given their hearts you can use on your new critters. A different monster would get increased stats, while a new monster that was the same breed as your last one might get a new attack or a better skill level.

Every now and then your pet would go around his training place to look for items or a big monster to help him learn skills or raise stats. This was the equivalent of those 4-week training routines you could send your monsters to in the first two MR games.



Monster Rancher Advance, a GBA title, also came out in 2001, with a sequel, Monster Rancher Advance 2, coming out a year later. The sprite-based graphics didn't show off the potential of fusing a Golem with a Pixie to create a ridiculously pretty rock monster, and since you couldn't stick your CDs into a GBA, they went with a password-based system for monsters. Still, if you wanted to ranch on the go, they were passable. (There were also a few weird spin-off games, Monster Rancher Card and Monster Rancher Hopabout. I know nothing about them; if you have enough material, I'll gladly add a section to the OP.)



Monster Rancher 4, released in 2003, was a return to form for the franchise, with monster-combining back in full force. It also brought a welcome feature: being able to raise multiple monsters at once! You could have veteran monsters escort young monsters on the new adventures (randomly-generated dungeons) to gain experience with little risk, have some monsters focus on adventuring while others climbed the charts, or just build a team of foe-crushers.

Other additions to the game were a mixed bag. The Counter system, giving you the chance to counter any attack if you could beat the opponent at a game of rock-paper-scissors, put undue emphasis on being able to take a hit (as you inevitably would if you screwed up), making high-Speed monsters a less viable strategy. Adventuring through the randomly-generated ruins could be a bit dull. The game also prominently featured an animesque plot, which you had to progress through to gain access to the full tournament schedule (though it's quite possible to do so using the starter monster the game gives you, along with a few choices of your own). All in all, though, it was considered a marked improvement over the third installment; whether you prefer the superior monster selection of Monster Rancher 2 or the improved graphics and team battle aspect of Monster Rancher 4 is largely a matter of taste.



Then came Monster Rancher EVO, in 2006.



For better or worse, this is the game that nearly killed the franchise. (Un)fortunately, I have no personal experience with the game (anyone who has is welcome to expand on this section), but the consensus of the reviews I've found is that, in attempting to appeal to the more 'mainstream' RPG crowd, they wound up killing the interesting aspects of the game without replacing them with anything worth having.

Schmendrick posted:

The game completely reshapes the training with circus shows to raise your pets stats. The problem is the shows are based on mini-games are hard especially if you were colorblind, and they're too tedious and lame to sit through all of them. It's a cliche jrpg with some MR pets.


In 2010, Monster Rancher DS came out. It was pretty good, but was victim to a few game crashing bugs and is now exceptionally rare.
Then, My Monster Rancher, a free to play mobile game with microtransactions!!!!! launched in 2011, before shutting down completely in 2014. Aside from 2 small Japanese-only mobile apps, My Monster Rancher was the final entry of the Monster Rancher series, with little hope for another entry in the series.

That said, Monster Rancher, 2 especially, still hold a very dear place in my heart. Next year the series will be 20 years old, and I'd love to get the discussion started again.
Monster Rancher Metropolis is still the best resource for information about each game in the series, though you have to deal with the archaic web design and forum post format to get any of it. Legend Cup also has a few resources like low-res pictures from the games and maps.

Monster Rancher may very well be done, but as long as a pile of CDs litters the floor around a console, it shall never truly die.

Bible Ian Black fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jun 18, 2016

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

LAMB LESSONS
Jun 27, 2003

show me ur feet
This game popped into my mind for the first time in years today and I was trying to find something similar (and hopefully portable). So much for that I guess. Maybe I'll get one of those $5 android controllers and emulate.

Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION

LAMB LESSONS posted:

This game popped into my mind for the first time in years today and I was trying to find something similar (and hopefully portable). So much for that I guess. Maybe I'll get one of those $5 android controllers and emulate.

That might be your best bet. MRDS was actually pretty solid but is nigh impossible to find now.

Schubalts
Nov 26, 2007

People say bigger is better.

But for the first time in my life, I think I've gone too far.
Another good franchise lost to the sands of time. :(

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice
I loved MR2 a whole bunch. Probably my biggest gaming disappointment was playing MR4. Man, no idea how they hosed that up so bad.

Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION

Shima Honnou posted:

I loved MR2 a whole bunch. Probably my biggest gaming disappointment was playing MR4. Man, no idea how they hosed that up so bad.

I never actually got my hands on a copy of 4. 3 was my last in the main series if you don't count DS, and I liked both of those. Was it really that bad?

aegof
Mar 2, 2011

The #1 thing I hated in all of these games was teaching my monsters new moves. Always super tedious or random or both.

Occasionally I still daydream about learning to make video games and cloning these, though.

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


Making a MR clone should be the next game from the Stardew Valley guy. In the days of mp3s and digital formats there is so much potential

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice

Steak Eater posted:

I never actually got my hands on a copy of 4. 3 was my last in the main series if you don't count DS, and I liked both of those. Was it really that bad?

I certainly didn't like it back then. Felt way too different. It's been too long since I played it to really remember everything about it though.

Len posted:

Making a MR clone should be the next game from the Stardew Valley guy. In the days of mp3s and digital formats there is so much potential

That would certainly be pretty neat. I wanna make a monster out of my shit_that_didn't_happen.txt file.

Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION
Holy poo poo thinking about it now, a friend of mine fresh out of college wants to make a (admittedly mobile-based) pet raising game to continue practicing animation. I could probably draft up a doc for a MR successor and convince him that he should make that, especially if I can show him that there's a market for it.

e: looking at this now everything about this seems like a bad idea

Bible Ian Black fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jun 19, 2016

Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION
Sorry to double but I'm hosting an MR2 tournament in Let's Play because replaying it by myself is a hollow experience now that I'm so good at the main game.
It's here btw

Monk E
May 19, 2009
You know one bit I always liked about Advance 2 that I haven't really seen people mention was all the extra character bits that opened up after you beat the game. It sort of reminded me of the stuff you'd see in a harvest moon game and was one of the reasons it was my favorite of the series.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!

Shima Honnou posted:

I loved MR2 a whole bunch. Probably my biggest gaming disappointment was playing MR4. Man, no idea how they hosed that up so bad.

Really? I love MR4, I sorta see it as the natural extension of MR2. What don't you like about it? MR3 I really didn't like, supposedly Evo/5 was good but I never played it.

Speaking of MR4, I've been watching my friend play it on an emulator the past few weeks. It's a shame no one figured out an easy way to randomly gen monsters on emulators, like a list of random seeds in a text file or something. Still you can use PSX isos (not PS2 ones for whatever reason), so as long as you do the leg work there's some options.

It's a loving travesty the franchise died before Steam, released a Monster Rancher PC game that used your Steam list to generate monsters would have been the most insane cash cow.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION

Monk E posted:

You know one bit I always liked about Advance 2 that I haven't really seen people mention was all the extra character bits that opened up after you beat the game. It sort of reminded me of the stuff you'd see in a harvest moon game and was one of the reasons it was my favorite of the series.

Advance 2 might actually be my second favorite game in the series. It's certainly the one I put the most time into next to MR2 (mostly because GBA emulation was super easy, but I also bought it when Gamestops in the area started kicking their last gen games into the clearance bins). It was probably the closest thing we got to a direct follow-up to MR2 as far as mechanics go.

  • Locked thread