Anybody remember Monster Rancher?

[EvanCross]

That's right... Monster Rancher. That game where you put the CD in and it gives you a monster. Oh, yeah... Well any who. I was surfin' around on the internet and I found this cool site where they used to organize tournaments where you'd send them your monster and they'd battle it in a custom tourney made up of other submissions! I thought... oh yeah... I'ma kick me sum butte... Then I realized that my grammar was horrid and the last tourney they had was in 2003! So I thought... it's time. Why not have some tourney's of our own?!?!?!? I think it's a good idea. Anybody else?

 

[Mega Flare]

well the games where fun, but got boring real fast

 

[madmax_vii]

It'd be pretty hard to organize a tournament like that, I mean you'd have to find people who still play (or own) the game, as the saves are on memory card you'd have to send your memory cards to someone, and even then you'd be unsure whether you get it back, or get the right memory card, it's a good idea but it's not practical.

 

[Prexus]

You use a DexDrive to convert your PSX Memory Card saves to a computer file, and send the file via e-mail.

 

[holloway]

Wasn't this that sub-par Pokemon rip off that only screened over here for one summer and even made my 4 year old cousin bored?

 

[Afro Samurai]

I remember Monster Rancher, mainly the series on TV,a and it sucked as hell. Never played the game, and to be honest, I've never seen it on shops.

 

[EvanCross]

Well. If anyone DOES have that game. I'd be willing to set one up... probably won't happen... but I'd like it to!

 

[blackiceadept]

It was a good idea, hell most Pokemon rip-offs were, but in actuality the only one that made it past one or two seasons of anime/magna was Digimon, probably because of how different it was to Pokemon is just about everything. As for most of the ones that tried to copy the Pokemon games and game-play? They just failed, its like trying to copy the Mona Lisa with no idea what you're doing.

 

[Marcus]

Digimon came out before pokemon. The digital monster franchise was a spin-off of Tomagatchi and was reported to come out about 6 months before Pokemon in Japan back in 94-95.

Regardless, Monster Rancher had a lot more to offer than pokemon but it's failure came from poor marketing. The whole cd generation thing was a completely revolutionary idea and Monster Rancher 2 sold assloads of copies but the company making the series took a gamble with the PS2 versions of monster rancher and then decided to throw out internet capability which pretty much killed all fans.

As far as the anime went, Monster Rancher and Digimon were a lot darker than Pokemon and ment for an older audience. Monster Rancher had 5 or so seasons but they weren't as long as the Digimon seasons and both anime's shared it's popularity. Still, the company that made Monster Rancher sucked so it pretty much dropped out of the race. Digimon is surprisingly still going strong (Digimon World DS was a blast and a lot of the ideas it used were better than the ones in Pokemon Diamond) and I heard that the 5th season is getting an english translation.

 

[OdioOmnus]

Monster Rancher is similar to Pokemon, but people generally don't seem to see that it's different at the same time. Monster Rancher has much more of a simulation aspect than Pokemon ever had. You not only had to "train" your monster, you had to feed it, give it rests, tame it...the whole shebang. It's more simulation whereas Pokemon is more RPG, but both have qualities of the genres. I had Monster Rancher Advance 2 and played it to pieces. It wasn't a bad game at all once you got into it.

And FYI, it can be said that monster[demon]-breeding in RPGs was defined by the Megami Tensei series. Google it. You'll see there are many similarities, perhaps even rip-offs, between the monster-breeding games that may well stem from Megami Tensei's success in Japan.

 

[madmax_vii]

To be quite fair, pokemon only took the spotlight because it's Nintendo (the great gaming propaganda machine) owned and featured an advertising campaign that basically blown the others out of the competition, to be honest I preferred Digimon, I had one of the digimon bricks back in 94 and damn they were fun, I used to train and beat everyone in school (with the steps counter thingy on it) and it was really original before pokemon came with trading cards, I mean pokemon was great (the Japanese version, his name's Satoshi dammit!), but Digimon had a better plot and felt more imaginable, but yeah as Odio said the Digital Devil (Megami Tensei) series was the first for monster-breeding, and it is quite a fun and interesting RPG.

 

[kimpoy2006]

Awwww, don't throw out monster rancher! I loved that game! (i was hooked to be honest! [my parents didn't give me a dog, so i remember always tring to get the mochi-like-wolf) I wish they would recreate that game and allow online capabilities, yeah the game can get to a bore afterwards, but remebering it now (where did i place the cd?)...
If you haven't tried the game, give it a shot! =) But if they make it in the PS3.. i'll be sad! i don't own that system yet (i really want one!)

 

[Lei]

Monster Rancher was a great game, pokemon was better because of its roaming freedom but rancher looked at training on the ranch through exorise and raising one stat at a time making your monster unique, with pokemon it was only the ability to choose skills which differenciated.

 

[rexxzecutioner]

No I completely forgot about the game entirely.

 

[Monk]

I remember Monster Rancher, mainly the series on TV,a and it sucked as hell. Never played the game, and to be honest, I've never seen it on shops.

This makes me sad! haha

I, for one, did like the cartoon series. It made me in a decent mood during the school week.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I loved Monster Rancher...lost half of my mom's music CDs in the basement where the PS1 was because of it. n.n' It was a good way to waste hours of time (when I had hours of time to waste).
Monster Rancher 4 (I think it was 4) was interesting since it incorporated dungeons you could roam through with your monster that built stats and held items and battles. That was fun.

 

[Xilef]

Monster Rancher was way better than pokemon, the name put me off watching it some times. It didn't have a good ring to it, nor did pokemon, but that just took the world by thunder with a level 63 pikachu or what ever.
I actually prefer Digimon of all. The story was good, the name suited my taste, but the arrangement of the episodes took it down loads. Monster Rancher was quite similar to it in terms of the monsters.

 

[Calibre]

I think they only released one game of Monster Rancher in the EU and that was for PS1. Me and my friend went into GAME on the release day and they had two copies of it... one was in a really young kids hands... I didn't want to snatch but he wouldnt have known what he was doing anyway... but 2 copies... seriously.

Since then I've always looked out for an update in England but havent seen one.

Even worse was when I went into GAME the day Atelier Iris was released and I couldn't see it. I asked them at the counter and they said they didnt have it. As I was leaving some guy said "Oh I remember, I just boxed them up in the backroom"... They weren't even gonna bother displaying it! It's no wonder RPGs don't sell well...