Title: Monster Rancher 2
System: Playstation
Publisher: Tecmo
Year: 1999
Monster Rancher 2 is the sequel to Monster Rancher. In the game, you, the player, takes on the role of a trainer for IMa, the "International Monsters Association". You take monsters from birth, train them to fight battles against other monsters, to gain fame for yourself and your monsters.
Note: This game was known simply as "Monster Rancher" in Europe, as the first one never made it there, and as "Monster Farmer 2" in Japan.
You start the game with your ranch for training, an assistant named Coltia (or Colt for short), and 5000 gold to begin your career as a monster trainer. You first answer a series of ten questions, selected from a larger question pool, in a random order. These questions help to determine your personality, which influences the assistance that Colt gives you. You need to find yourself a monster to start training, as that is the only way for you to earn money and enable yourself to train more types of monsters.
You start out in Town, and your first goal is to get a monster. There are three ways to get your first monster - you can go to the market, where you can get purebreed monsters for free, though there are only three kinds available at any time, and two kinds, the "Zuum" and "Mocchi", are always present. The second is to import a monster from a "slate" at the shrine - a memory card with a monster from the first Monster Rancher Game.
The third way is the most interesting. You can try and get a monster from a "disc stone" - a CD. You go to the shrine and select it as an option. You are then prompted to insert a CD, and the game will read certain data from the disc, and generate a monster from that data.
Each monster has both a monster "type" and a monster "subtype" - the basic body shape is based on the main type, and it has the biggest influence on the monster's abilities. The subtype adjusts the appearance, and has smaller effects on the monster's skills. Note that not all monster types are available to use at the beginning of a new game. You must "unlock" them first. As a result, any CDs that would generate monsters with a locked type as the main type or a subtype will give you a message to indicate you can't generate that monster yet.
Once you generate your monster, you get to name it, and then it is time to head to your ranch to start training. All of the training will be done at the ranch, and occurs in increments of weeks or months - most options take up one week, and one other takes an entire month.
At the ranch, you can rest your monster, essentially giving it the week off. It has time to relax, sleep, and regain energy. You can feed it an item, and there are plenty to choose from - all with different effects. You can take a trip to the store to purchase items should you ever want one you don't have.
You may view your monster's statistics, which gives you number values for some of its traits and attitudes, and words for others.
Skills:
- Life - Your monster's life total determines how much damage it can take before getting K.O.'ed.
- Power - Power is the strength of your monster. Power-based attacks go up in damage with an increase in power, and there is a reduction in damage taken from other power-based attacks.
- Skill - Skill is how good of a chance your monster has to hit the other with an attack. Each attack has a percentage of hitting, which is increased by an increase in your skill, and reduced by your opponent's speed.
- Intelligence -
- Speed - Speed is how fast your monster is, and how well it can dodge attacks from its opponent. A higher speed makes it harder for the opponent to hit.
- Defense - Defense can be thought of as an armor level, as the higher it gets, the less damage it will take from a successful attack from an opponent.
Attitudes:
- Loyalty - A value from 0 to 100 representing how loyal your monster is to you. Low values and the monster may run away if you're mean to it, or it may do foolery in a tournament and not fight.
- Style - The monster's manners toward you - can run from Doting (very much spoiled) to
- Fame - How well know and liked your monster is. A really high fame may benefit you and your monster with special offers and even fan mail.
- Form - The monster's physical status. A skinny monster means it's underweight, not geting enough nutrition for it's level of activity, a plump monster is too fat. Monsters skinnier than normal get evade bonuses in combat, but receive more damage - heavier monsters have the reverse (less damage, harder time evading).
- Nature - If it is a friendly (good) or mean (bad) monster. This will determine the types of attacks and how it acts in battle.
Misc:
- Age: - Tells you how old your monster is in years and months. This is importat, as monsters age and die.
- Class: - The classes, in ascending order, are E, D, C, B, A, and S. This tells you what class your current monster has achieved.
You have two options for training your monster. The first, a drill, is an activity that will build up your monster's stats, while making it more tired. The monster may succeed at training, in which case you gain stats. It may fail, at which point you can punish it afterwards for failure. It may also cheat, taking a shortcut, giving it reduced increases, go truant, or skip out entirely on the drill, or do a great job, with extra bonuses.
There are 10 training options. 6 of them are "easy", only improving one stat, and with a lower amount of fatigue increase. The other 4 are hard, with larger stat increases, a second, smaller increase, but a bigger fatigue increase. Training is free.
Easy:
- Domino - Increases Power
- Run - Increases Life
- Study - Increases Intelligence
- Shoot - Increases Skill
- Dodge - Increases Speed
- Endure - Increases Defense
Hard:
- Pull - Increases Power (main), Life (second)
- Meditate - Increases Intelligence (main), Skill (second)
- Leap - Increases Speed (main), Intelligence (second)
- Swim - Increases Defense (main), Life (second)
Note that there is a bug that causes the Swim drill to increase Defense using the proficiency the monster has in gaining life instead of defense.
As a monster trains, it gains fatigue, and eventually will become tired. This is when you want to rest a monster, as a rested monster performs better on drills, in battle, and is more loyal to you than one kept exhausted. Also, both stress and fatigue will reduce your monster's lifespan, so it is recommended to keep both as low as possible.
The other training option is an Errantry. Errantry costs 2000 gold (1000 with the occasional special), and consists of sending the monster off to another location for a month for special training. The monster will perform up to 4 tasks, determined by how many it completes - it only gets 4 attempts total for all four tasks, and will repeat a failed task until either successful or time has run out. (What this means is that if your monster fails a task, it will not have time to complete all four tasks). An errantry may also yield your monster a new combat technique. If all four tasks are finished, your monster will encounter a wild monster, and it has to fight it without your assistance (unlike a battle). If it defeats the wild monster, you get a bounty - gold. If it loses, no bounty, but you get no penalty.
Monsters up through Class C have four locations available to them, which train one of Power, Speed, Skill, or Intelligence. Monsters Class B and above have a fifth location which can train Defense.
The other important option is "Battle", which lets you enter your monster in a battle, which is, after all, the whole point of raising them. There are two types of tournament you'll encounter - a round-robin, where you fight all the other monsters at least once, and an elimination, which will only have 4 entrants, and the losers from the first round fight for third place, and the winners fight over first and second.
Win a tournament, and your fame may go up, you'll get a nice amount of money, and you may even win an item.
Fighting itself is done one-on-one between two monsters, in an arena of limited size. You can choose whether to give your monster advice or not - if not, it fights entirely on it's own, if so, you have control over it.
The screen shows the life total of each monster, a bar that is a graphical representation of that life total, and the monster's name at the top of the screen. At the bottom is the monster's attack types, a bar showing the range between the two to indicate which attack will be used, and a bar and pair of numbers for each monster's "guts". Each attack uses up guts, and guts regenerate during the battle, at varying rates depending on the monster. Low guts also makes a monster more vunerable to attack, and high guts makes a monster hit better, requiring a careful consideration of when and how much to attack.
Each battle is timed, though it will end sooner if one monster should knock out the other, which is an instant win. If both monsters still have life at the end of the battle, the monster with the highest percentage of life left is declared the winner - ties go to your monster.
As you play, you will continue to train more monsters, enter them in battles, and watch them grow old. Eventually, monsters will die, and you'll be able to give them funerals and even create a shrine to your passed-on monsters. You can also "retire" them - go to town and freeze them in the lab. You'll also do this if you want to change between multiple monsters, as you can only train one at a time. You may also combine frozen monsters, a procedure that costs you 500 gold. Combining two frozen monsters will create a new baby monster based on the types of the two monsters you're using, and is influenced by certain items which may be used as "secret seasonings", affecting the resulting monster. Monsters bred from well trained monsters may have higher starting statistics than those from the market or a disc stone, and often have more starting fighting techniques.
Monster Listing:
Warning: Spoilers!
Here's listing of all 38 of the monster breeds available. Not all are available to a starting trainer. There are 408 monsters total in the game, most are simply a combination of two of these breeds, though some special and enemy monsters have a unique sub-breed. (For example, generating a monster from the Metal Gear Solid Disc 1 CD gets you a "GabooSoldier" - a unique monster, with the main type of "Gaboo", and a subtype listed as "???")
- Arrow Head
- Ape
- Bajarl
- Baku
- Beaclon
- Centaur
- ColorPandora
- Dragon
- Ducken
- Durahan
- Gaboo
- Gali
- Ghost
- Golem
- Hare
- Henger
- Hopper
- Jell
- Jill
- Joker
- Kato
- Metalner
- Mew
- Mocchi
- Mock
- Monol
- Naga
- Niton
- Phoenix
- Pixie
- Plant
- Suezo
- Tiger
- Undine
- Worm
- Wracky
- Zuum
- Zilla
List of Unique (Rare) Monsters:
CD's that generate the monster are listed underneath (this only applies to the US version unless indicated).
- Poison - Pixie
The Matrix - Motion Picture Soundtrack (not the score)
- Kasumi - Pixie
Playstation - Dead or Alive
- Mia - Pixie
Shania Twain - The Woman In Me
- Moo - Dragon
Beck - Mellow Gold (Note: There are a large number of pressings of this CD, and the one that creates Moo is extremely hard to find)
- Trotter - Centaur
Carole King - Thoroughbred
- Blue Thunder - Centaur
Dave Matthews Band - Under the Table and Dreaming
- Dice - ColorPandora
Playstation - Devil Dice
- Tram - ColorPandora
Rod Steward - Downtown Train
- Eggplantern - Beaclon
Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me - Official Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Skeleton - Henger
Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
- Satan Clause - Wracky
Christmas With The Chipmunks
Mariah Carey - Merry Christmas
- ForwardGolem - Golem
Playstation - Tecmo Super Bowl
- ZebraSaurian - Zuum
Zebrahead - Waste of Mind
- Shogun - Durahan
Playstation - Brave Fencer Musashi
- Ruby Knight - Durahan
Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind
- Kokushi Muso - Durahan
Mulan - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Sumopion - Arrow Head
Fat Boy Slim - We've Come A Long Way Baby
- White Hound - Tiger
Dances With Wolves - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Frog Hopper - Hopper
Playstation - GEX 3
- Kung Fu Hare - Hare
Rush Hour - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Shishi - Baku
Bjork - Homogenic
- Happy Mask - Gali
Backstreet Boys - Millenium
- Ninja Kato - Kato
Playstation - Tenchu
- Deluxe Liner - Zilla
Titanic - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Boxer Bajarl - Bajarl
Playstation - Knockout Kings
- Magic Bajarl - Bajarl
- Ultrarl - Bajarl
X-Files: Songs in the Key of X
- Swimmer - Mew
Nirvana - Nevermind
- Cinder Bird - Phoenix
Backdraft - Motion Picture Soundtrack
Playstation - Bust-a-Move 4
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory
- Chef - Ghost
Blink 182 - Enema of the State
- Chinois - Metalner
Men In Black - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Gold Suezo - Suezo
Barbara Streisand - A Collection
- Silver Suezo - Suezo
TLC - Fan Mail
PC - Microsoft Trip Planner 98 Version 6.0, packaged with Gateway PCs
- Bronze Suezo - Suezo
Tool - Aenima
- Birdie - Suezo
Playstation - Tiger Woods 99
- Sueki Suezo - Suezo
Playstation - Monster Rancher
- Pithecan - Jill
The Flintstones - Music from Bedrock
- GentleMocchi - Mocchi
Not Avaliable in US version without a Gameshark
- Caloriena - Mocchi
Playstation - Tecmo Stackers
The Firesign Theatre - How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere at All
- Mocchini - Mocchi
Playstation - Tecmo's Deception
Clay Walker - Hyptonize the Moon
- Bloodshed - Joker
Quiet Riot - Metal Health
- GabooSoldier - Gaboo
Playstation - Metal Gear Solid (Disc 1)
PC - Privateer 2: The Darkening (Disc 3)
- Metal Jell - Jell
Terminator 2 - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Mermaid - Undine
The Little Mermaid - Motion Picture Soundtrack (re-release version only)
- Dribbler - Niton
Playstation - FIFA '99
- Radian Niton - Niton
Playstation - Rally Cross 2
- Disk Niton - Niton
- White Birch - Mock
Deep Forest III - Comparsa
- Pole Mock - Mock
T-Rex - Electric Warrior
- Watermelony - Ducken
Bobby Charles - The Bearsville Collection
- Cawken - Ducken
The Crow - City of Angels - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Reggae Plant - Plant
Bob Marley and the Wailers - Legend
- Galaxy - Monol
Star Wars : The Phantom Menace - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Dominos - Monol
Playstation - No One Can Stop Mr. Domino
- Scribble - Monol
- Gold Dust - Ape
Velvet Underground & Nico
- Express Worm - Worm
Beastie Boys - License to Ill
- Time Noise - Naga
Playstation - Tecmo's Kagero-Deception II