Old Video Game Reviews: Monster Rancher Battle Card Episode II

Monster Rancher Battle Card Episode II was released in America in 2000 for the Playstation.  The story says that this card game was played by children who were too young to raise monsters, but it was eventually widely popularized and is now played by children and adults alike.

After a prologue, where your friend, using all of the monster cards on a mysterious plate, is sucked into the “Monster Paradise”, taking all of the cards with her.  So, it’s up to you to get her back.  In order to do that you’re going to have to collect all of the monster cards.  So you go to get your first deck.  You have to answer a few questions and depending on them, you will receive a different team of monsters.

Battle pits your deck against one of the computer opponents’ decks.  You will choose one of two cards on the screen.  The one with the disk chips on it goes second.  The player who goes first is immediately put into the guts step, and they are only allowed to make two guts.  Guts are what you use to play cards.  The more powerful the card, the more guts it will cost.  On your turn, you will play any attack cards you want to play (if you have the guts for them) and then you will be able to sacrifice any number of the cards in your hand.  The cards you sacrifice become guts.  You will always draw up to a hand of five cards in this game.  So no matter how many cards you sacrifice, you will always return to five cards at the beginning of your next turn.  A player loses when all three of their monsters are knocked out or they are unable to draw a card.

Battle can be really intense, as there are only three monsters per team and most monsters have attacks that can level an enemy monster in one hit.  This is a fast paced card game that is very well constructed and a lot of fun to play.  The computer can provide you with plenty of challenge and the game offers plenty of hours to dump into it, with endless replay value.

Between battles, you will be able to rearrange your cards and create new teams, etc.  Each team consists of three monsters. Each monster has different attack and defense moves.  For example, Golem has high power attacks that deal a lot of damage, but require a lot of guts to use.  Meanwhile, Ghost has a lot of low damage attacks that don’t cost many guts at all.  Also, once you collect all of the monsters, you can begin to collect the mixed monsters from level A tournaments and players that use mixed monsters.  These mixed monsters have the attacks of a certain monster and the defense cards of another, which can be very useful, as you can have two monsters that share attacks, or defenses.

You have to find your play style and stick with it.  You’ll have more fun and you’ll play better as well.  Experiment with the different monsters and mixed monsters and find what works for you.  Save often, or you could lose an important battle (for example a tournament).  And always be careful around stall decks, which will try to run you out of cards.  They are the most dangerous opponents in the game.  I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes trading card games or Monster Rancher.  This is one of those great old games that didn’t get the attention it really deserved.

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