StarDestroyer.Net BBS

MonsterRancher Evo (You can skip the first Ad)

Yes, Tecmo has released a new Monster Rancher onto the world. Grab your CD/DVDs, whether music, game, movie, burned or bought, the Monsters are back, and this time they've joined the Circus!

Your Breeder is a Circus Performer who trains his monsters with his handy accordian. Along with your fellow performer/trainers, you train your baby monsters to perform circus tricks and to beat the crap out of other trainer's monsters.

The classics are back: Tiger, Suezo, Pixie, Mocchi, Rabbit/Bunny, Jell (MR4 look), Golem, Joker, Dragon, Plant, Naga, Ducken, Mew, Garu (MR4), Gitan (MR4), Raiden (MR4), Leshae (MR4), Beaklon (MR 3/4), and the Zan (MR4 weird insect-thingie that you saw in her dreams and fought in the Cave adventures). Yet to see a Pheonix or a Zuum either, but they'll be there, they always are. The two new critters I've seen are the Piroro, which look like a BlackMage face in clown garb, and a winged cat that is the first adventure's bossmonster.

The graphics are sweet, very bright, colorful, and fun to watch. The monster training is pretty simple, you don't even have to worry about feeding your monsters, it's taken care of for you. You may have to go to town and get items for them occassionally, tho. But the trainer has to do some training too, since you're putting on performances where your skill at mini-games will not only make your monster perform better, but earn you money. Speed and coordination are a must on those buggers.

You can give your fellow trainers their own monsters to raise, which works best if you match personality to trainer's preferred training method. Luckily you have one that likes Power and gentle training, while the other is Intelligence and puts the monsters to the grindstone.

I'm still getting used to the battles. Like MR4, you take 3 monsters in the adventures, but they're all in the battle at once. You can set them up beforehand to be short, mid, or long range when they enter combat, and then they move up/back. That can be annoying... once you move them they don't stop until they meet their comrade, or til they hit an opponent's range.
Attacks have the same ranges as before, but I don't know how many they'll be able to use in each range. Allied monsters can join up (stand in same range) to link their attacks and regain Guts faster. Guts is a joint pool all monsters can draw from, which can be nasty if you've one monster with a 14guts attack, but the other monsters need 20guts. Use the 14guts, and all monsters are back to 0. Get all three in a link with 50+Guts, and you can use a "Union Attack"... the last one I managed to pull off did 1000+damage EACH MONSTER.

One thing I don't know if I like or not is how you gain new attacks. When you fight the stray monsters, you gain 'Anima' points. These points then can be used to buy Attacks or Traits (like MR4's) to customize your monster. Unfortunately, the starting attacks are 500pts, the better ones 2000 or more. You are lucky to leave a battle with 10pts. Anima points can also be spent to raise the number of times you can use the Union Attack.

Still, I'm only 6 weeks into the game so far, but I'm enjoying it so far. Once I kill that damn winged kitty, maybe I can get some more tricks for my monsters to learn for the circus performance, since the tricks/performances are what raises the monster's stats. I'm hoping to find a FAQ/Walkthrough on the web soon to get some hints.

Tell me about this monster rancher game. It looks kinda cool... but I haven't bought a PS2 game in ages. Sell me!

Stark wrote:Tell me about this monster rancher game. It looks kinda cool... but I haven't bought a PS2 game in ages. Sell me!

... Ummm... what else do you want to know, since I covered as much as I could in the last post.

Well... is it story-based or sandbox? I know there's a RPG element, but is it rigid like FF or can you just ass about with monsters and such? How does the combat work - I figure it's Pokemon-like giving orders, but is it 'proper' 3d or simplified like 'go over there' and 'stab that guy'? When you use a disc to create a new animal, can you control the outcome at all, or is it essentially random?

If it's kinda like Pokemon Stadium on N64, where you can just mess with playing battles and not have to do the 'traipse about capturing animals' part of Pokemon games, then that'd be neat.

Would this be a direct sequel to MR4 or a completely new game with different characters?

I've got MR1 and MR4 but I've played only MR4 but I quite like it. I might just pick up MRE if it is in the right price range or I'll just get it used.

It looks pretty interesting, and I remember actually playing Pokemon Stadium back in the day. I just don't want to get stuck 'hunting for animals' or 'doing lame quests'... I just want the fun part.

To answer all questions.
Enigma: No, it's not, just shares a gameworld with the rest. MR1, 2, and 4 were more or less chronological but on different continents, with MR3 a prequel. All of them had different characters.

Stark: This ain't Pokemon. The first two on the PS were 2d/3d, the next two PS2 games were far better graphically, although still anime-style artwork. All battles have been 3d, and rather good graphically. The setting was your farm, where you and your helper trained your monsters over the course of decades (one game I had lasted 80yrs).

The first two MR you raised your monster's stats by training them each week, and occassionally allowing a week's rest. There were 2-3 battles a month you could register your monster to compete in. Some were just money-makers, some gave useful prizes, and every season one Tourneyment where you could raise your monster's Rank. The better your rank, the more skills you could learn, the better your stats, and when your monster was too old to fight, the more he passed on when you combined him with another monster to get a new baby to raise.

When your monster got to certain levels, the first 2 games had a archelogist come by to recruit your monster for a month to help him get to a far-off site and dig for treasures. MR3 gave you a way to search your ranch the start of each season to look for treasure, learn new attacks and level up your old attacks (I didn't like that system). MR4 unlocked various mazes you could explore on the 'weekends' with a party of up to 3 monsters. Once again, they got experience and could learn new attacks as well as find various treasures. Every game had the occassional 'stray monster' attack during these adventures, for extra experience and treasures. (In MR4 I was notorious for beating up stray monsters and stealing their teddybears and other toys. Crappy prizes, I swear).

The battle arenas in the first 4 games gives you options for short, middle, and long range attacks. You can direct your monster's actions, or let them try it alone (they win more if you're ordering them). MR4 had a programable wheel for a total of 9 possible attacks, three in each range. Your monster had up to 12 attacks to program. 30min battle, one with most life left wins, or win by KO.
For the most part battle is a matter of getting into postion to throw your heaviest attack, then to a defensiable one where you can whittle them down slowly with your remaining attacks. Oh, Attacks are powered by "Guts", your monster's willpower/energy. Each attack takes a certain amount of Guts to use, and some attacks hit not just your life total but your Guts as well, making it hard to charge up for a large attack if you're getting nailed often by the opponent.
All battles were fully animated, often beautifully/comically so for certain attacks.

The beauty of the game, tho, is how you get your monsters. While there are monster stores in game, you could also go up to the local shrine and ask for a Saucer Stone to be read. The game would ask you to pop open the tray and insert a CD (or DVD for PS2). Then the game would read the disk, save the info in the buffer, and when you replaced the game disk it would use that info to create on of literally hundreds of possible monster combinations.
Whereas a 'pure breed' monster has certain strengths that make it very good at certain abilities, a mixed breed would often add secondary characteristics that made it more rounded. Mixed breeds were shaped like the base breed, but had colors/features that clearly showed which monster was the secondary. Some of the treasures you find in advnetures could be added to the mix to make a monster stronger, or create a new breed altogether (like the Centaur or the Pheonix).
You do get a 'book' where you can view all the monsters you've found on Saucer Stones, and birth them from there. So yes, there's a 'gotta catch them all' mentality at times, especially in a household with A LOT of disks you can try out. (Bork's "Homogenic" *always* has one of the rarest monsters in the game, specially made for that CD)

Any more Questions?

Oh cool so it's like Harvest Moon with monsters? That's cool!

Stark wrote:Oh cool so it's like Harvest Moon with monsters? That's cool!

YES!! That's the Best explaination I know!

SHITKNOCKERS. After running around the internet, finding out that this looks like a kewl game that I should buy... it's not coming out in fucking Australia.

LadyTevar wrote:To answer all questions.
Enigma: No, it's not, just shares a gameworld with the rest. MR1, 2, and 4 were more or less chronological but on different continents, with MR3 a prequel. All of them had different characters.

Stark: This ain't Pokemon. The first two on the PS were 2d/3d, the next two PS2 games were far better graphically, although still anime-style artwork. All battles have been 3d, and rather good graphically. The setting was your farm, where you and your helper trained your monsters over the course of decades (one game I had lasted 80yrs).

The first two MR you raised your monster's stats by training them each week, and occassionally allowing a week's rest. There were 2-3 battles a month you could register your monster to compete in. Some were just money-makers, some gave useful prizes, and every season one Tourneyment where you could raise your monster's Rank. The better your rank, the more skills you could learn, the better your stats, and when your monster was too old to fight, the more he passed on when you combined him with another monster to get a new baby to raise.

When your monster got to certain levels, the first 2 games had a archelogist come by to recruit your monster for a month to help him get to a far-off site and dig for treasures. MR3 gave you a way to search your ranch the start of each season to look for treasure, learn new attacks and level up your old attacks (I didn't like that system). MR4 unlocked various mazes you could explore on the 'weekends' with a party of up to 3 monsters. Once again, they got experience and could learn new attacks as well as find various treasures. Every game had the occassional 'stray monster' attack during these adventures, for extra experience and treasures. (In MR4 I was notorious for beating up stray monsters and stealing their teddybears and other toys. Crappy prizes, I swear).

The battle arenas in the first 4 games gives you options for short, middle, and long range attacks. You can direct your monster's actions, or let them try it alone (they win more if you're ordering them). MR4 had a programable wheel for a total of 9 possible attacks, three in each range. Your monster had up to 12 attacks to program. 30min battle, one with most life left wins, or win by KO.
For the most part battle is a matter of getting into postion to throw your heaviest attack, then to a defensiable one where you can whittle them down slowly with your remaining attacks. Oh, Attacks are powered by "Guts", your monster's willpower/energy. Each attack takes a certain amount of Guts to use, and some attacks hit not just your life total but your Guts as well, making it hard to charge up for a large attack if you're getting nailed often by the opponent.
All battles were fully animated, often beautifully/comically so for certain attacks.

The beauty of the game, tho, is how you get your monsters. While there are monster stores in game, you could also go up to the local shrine and ask for a Saucer Stone to be read. The game would ask you to pop open the tray and insert a CD (or DVD for PS2). Then the game would read the disk, save the info in the buffer, and when you replaced the game disk it would use that info to create on of literally hundreds of possible monster combinations.
Whereas a 'pure breed' monster has certain strengths that make it very good at certain abilities, a mixed breed would often add secondary characteristics that made it more rounded. Mixed breeds were shaped like the base breed, but had colors/features that clearly showed which monster was the secondary. Some of the treasures you find in advnetures could be added to the mix to make a monster stronger, or create a new breed altogether (like the Centaur or the Pheonix).
You do get a 'book' where you can view all the monsters you've found on Saucer Stones, and birth them from there. So yes, there's a 'gotta catch them all' mentality at times, especially in a household with A LOT of disks you can try out. (Bork's "Homogenic" *always* has one of the rarest monsters in the game, specially made for that CD)

Any more Questions?

yeah, what would my collection of akira kurosawa films do.....

come on we gotta have a samurai.....


also what would my copy of Cross of Iron do....

Stark wrote:SHITKNOCKERS. After running around the internet, finding out that this looks like a kewl game that I should buy... it's not coming out in fucking Australia.

I'm sorry hon. Could you get a copy from overseas, or would the Regions screw it over?

LadyTevar wrote:

Stark wrote:SHITKNOCKERS. After running around the internet, finding out that this looks like a kewl game that I should buy... it's not coming out in fucking Australia.

I'm sorry hon. Could you get a copy from overseas, or would the Regions screw it over?

Austrailian courts struck down the Region nonsense.

Only to the extent that he could legally get a mod chip to get around the problem though, his PS2 would still have the region lockout natively.

The Yosemite Bear wrote: yeah, what would my collection of akira kurosawa films do.....

come on we gotta have a samurai.....


also what would my copy of Cross of Iron do....

I wouldn't know but you can't just unlock just any monster from any CD. You need to be of a certain level. In MR4, when I got my first saucer stone I wanted to see what kind of monster I'd get from Mortal Kombat: Deception. Unfortunately the game told me that I wasn't advanced enough to unlock the CD. So I put in some other PS2 game and all I got was a fairy.

You can often get unique monsters from other Tecmo games as well. I know that MR4 has Miku from Fatal Frame as a hidden monster if you put the PS2 Fatal Frame disc in. (she even has some ghosts that float around her).

I don't think the Team Ninja games do anything special though.

While AU courts pwned the DVD region thing, they apparently upheld the Sony ban on PS2 modchips. I have no idea how to get a modchip in this country anymore, since all the mod stores etc closed down years ago. BAH.

Who distributes it? Where would I look for release dates etc? All I did was ask EB, so maybe it'll just come out later?

EDIT - SHAZAM! It's apparently coming out in AU/EU/NZ in September.

Vendetta wrote:You can often get unique monsters from other Tecmo games as well. I know that MR4 has Miku from Fatal Frame as a hidden monster if you put the PS2 Fatal Frame disc in. (she even has some ghosts that float around her).

I don't think the Team Ninja games do anything special though.

The Dead or Alive games have often given unique monsters. DOA1 gave a Pixie that looked like Kasumi in Monster Rancher 2. In MR3, Dead or Alive 2 (PS2) unlocked a special ninja-ish thing, while in MR4, the same game gives you a new and graphically better looking (other than the toning down of certain characteristics) Kasumi Pixie.

I've read that there are many specific unlocks - like, AOTC gets you a little green dude in a grey robe, like Yoda. Spiderman gets you some guy in red and blue, like Spiderman. That's pretty cool.

Transformers: the Movie apparently gets you an 'Optimus Prime Joker', whatever that looks like.

Stark wrote:I've read that there are many specific unlocks - like, AOTC gets you a little green dude in a grey robe, like Yoda. Spiderman gets you some guy in red and blue, like Spiderman. That's pretty cool.

Transformers: the Movie apparently gets you an 'Optimus Prime Joker', whatever that looks like.

What about MK:Deception?

Oblivion should sooo give you Mehrunes Dagon.