Monster Rancher 2 Review

Monster Rancher 2 was released in 1999.  It is a game that focuses on training, breeding, and battling monsters.  You go to town and is able to get a monster from either the market or shrine.  The market has choices that vary with the season, while the shrine allows you to insert a cd, and depending on the content, will create a different monster.  While time consuming, I found the shrine to be quite useful, generating much better monsters than could be obtained from the market.

After receiving a monster, you can either take it home to the ranch to begin training, or take it to the lab where you can freeze it.  When you have multiple monsters in the lab, you can combine them to create new monsters.  I always enjoyed doing this.  It also allows you to create more powerful monsters.  In order to get really powerful monsters, you need to train two monsters to be very strong and then combine them to create an even more powerful monster.

Training takes place every week.  You can either do drills with your monster to improve its stats, or you can spend money to send it to what is called an Errantry.  Errantries take a month to complete and your monster will be able to improve its stats dramatically depending on which area you send it to.  Your monster can also learn new techniques while there.  However, there is a possibility for your monster to fail areas there, as well as get injured.  You have to take good care of your monster, feeding it food it likes every month and making sure to let it rest when it gets tired.  If you do, your monster will live longer.

Battling is very important. It is how you get money, which is important for buying things, combining monsters, and feeding monsters.  Battles are almost always conducted in tournament fashion.  Each battle pits your monster against another.  Your guts will increase with time, and you use these to use attacks.  Winning will increase your monster’s fame as well as rewarding you with money.  The prize will grow in size as you advance in rank.

This game can be played pretty much indefinitely.  While it is a bit repetitive, I never found it boring, and with all of the special events and fun battle system, its a very rewarding game.  I found myself becoming very attached to my monsters, and I swore eternal grudges against monsters that beat mine.  You will have a good time with this game, especially if you like Monster Rancher.  I would highly recommend this game to anyone who likes classic or old games.

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