Monster Rancher is a name that, while iconic, hasn’t been in the spotlight for a couple of years now. This makes me immensely happy to see that Koei Tecmo has decided to bring Monster Rancher 1 and 2 back in the form of Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX on Steam.
Monster Rancher, for those who don’t know, is a game that’s very similar to both Pokemon and Digimon due to the battling and monster raising aspects. Where it differs however lies in its story and its execution. Monsters in Monster Rancher aren’t exactly roaming wild in the world. They are obtained from a shrine dedicated to summoning them from stone slabs or “discs” which are found scattered throughout the world.
Players in both Monster Rancher 1 and 2 will take on the role of an up and coming rancher. Your task is to raise up your monster to take part in battle tournaments and become the best rancher there is. Sounds familiar right? It is indeed very Pokemon-Esque but Monster Rancher is a lot darker for a number of reasons.
Monsters in Monster Rancher are raised by training them up at a ranch. By performing various tasks, you can raise their stats. Alternatively, they can fail at the tasks assigned to them and this presents you with the option to reprimand them. Players can choose to scold their monster or they can choose to ignore their failings and raise them more leniently. How you raise your monster has a direct effect on their loyalty and whether or not they will obey you in battles. Monsters can also die while out in the wild training.
Players can also opt to send their monsters out for longer periods of training or “Errantry” as the second game calls it. This speeds up the training process somewhat by being far more rigorous and intense. Of course, there’s the risk of failure here too and it costs a lot of gold to do this. Both Monster Rancher titles have some very light RPG gaming elements with most of the gameplay revolving around raising up and training your monster to do battle, battling and then rinsing and repeating with a newer monster when the older one dies.
In the original Monster Rancher games, players were able to obtain new monsters by using physical music CDs. Times have changed since then and now the remastered version simply involves searching an online database of artists and importing monsters via that. It does take away the “Gimmick” that made Monster Rancher so iconic back in the day but it’s a modern twist that still allows for players to enjoy the monsters on offer. It also allows players to obtain rarer monsters that they previously would not have been able to obtain without the corresponding CD.
When it comes to battling, Monster Rancher vastly differs from its competitors Pokemon and Digimon. Battling in Monster Rancher involves players moving their monster left and right in a battle arena and using distance to their advantage. A gauge at the bottom left of the screen will charge and you’ll be able to input technical commands via this by issuing the command at the right moment. Battles are therefore all about timing and positioning.
The remaster falters in that, players will struggle to input commands using the mouse and keyboard. The game has seemingly been built to function with touch controls and using the mouse and keyboard is very intuitive because of this reason. You do get used to it but it’s a bit of a missed opportunity here which makes playing the game feel rather lacklustre.
Visually, Monster Rancher 1 looks incredibly dated. Its successor looks a lot crisper due to the better visuals on offer in it but overall, this isn’t exactly a stellar remaster. It’s old games, repackaged and made easily accessible on modern hardware without any new visual flair.
The soundtrack has been given the remaster treatment though with the newer OST sounding a lot higher quality than the original itself. With that said, the original’s OST is still perfectly listenable even now and players can choose between either option in the game’s menu.
Koei Tecmo has also opted to include a few quality of life improvements to the game with bug fixes and an “FF” option in the menu which means “Fast Forward”. It’s just a shame that this fast forward option isn’t mapped to a key or a button and is limited to only a one-speed option. Missed an opportunity here that could have made this game’s core gameplay loop a lot more streamlined. Especially when sitting around waiting for monsters to train.
Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX is a port and barebones remaster that brings the old games to a modern audience. Newcomers who never played the original titles can try them out now but may find themselves wondering how this was so popular back in the day. Fans of the original games however will be thrilled to see that their nostalgic past has made a somewhat triumphant return.
Now I just hope that this sells well enough for Koei Tecmo to start looking into bringing Monster Rancher 3 and 4 back too. If you’re a Monster Rancher fan, you may certainly want to pick this game up. If you’re a newcomer, give it some thought before diving in. This is an older set of games from a very different era of gaming after all.
Developer: Koei Tecmo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows
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