Monster Rancher Advance 2

The Monster Rancher series, whilst not widely popular, has a very loyal cult following. This is for a good reason; the games offer much depth in their design, allowing players to breed their own monsters from the ground up, and control its development throughout the game. Monster Rancher Advance 2 is no exception in this monster-raising series, offering a deep, tight role-playing simulation experience that proves to be rewarding and satisfying.

The premise of the game is that you play a rookie breeder - who is supposed to be you – who must breed a monster to fight in various championships hosted by the monster-breeding company, AGIMA. Luckily, you don’t have to go it alone and you are accompanied by your assistant, Holly, who is on hand to help you with any breeding questions you may have and essentially acts as your guide, telling you what mood or state your monster is in. What is unique about the game is the method in which monsters are created. Visiting the Shrine area in the Town Square will prompt you to input a number of random characters on-screen, which will subsequently create your monster based on the letters, numbers or symbols you used. This proves to be a fun experience as you never know what monster will appear, especially surprising beginners to the games. Another good feature is that you are not stuck with that monster on the first attempt; you can keep inputting characters until you produce a monster that suits you. Now, your monster will start off as a Rank E monster and it is through fighting in tournaments that they are able to progress in rank as well as progression in your Breeder Level. Increasing your Breeder Level means you can train monsters that were previously inaccessible to you and raising their rank drives the game’s narrative forward and also allows the player to fight in higher-ranking tournaments. Rank progression is fairly straightforward which is a good thing so players new to the series will easily be able to understand the concept but, at the same time, it will take much work to train your monster to be able to progress through the game.

The game offers the player a selection of methods in which to train and develop their monsters. The first and most obvious of these choices is to train your monster yourself in different areas i.e. Power, Intelligence, Speed, Defence and the like which will subsequently raise its stats in the desired area – however, should the monster be too tired or fatigued, the training session could prove to be a failure which opens the option of either scolding it or leaving it be. Another more effective method lies in assigning your monster coaches for the fields in which you want it to develop; some are more effective in certain fields than others, but generally your monster’s stats are raised higher in these sessions than they would if they trained independently. Of course, monsters will also gain experience in actually fighting in tournaments, not only raising their popularity in the in-game world but also significantly raising their stats. Offering the player such a wide selection of ways to develop their monster is an admirable addition and makes things more exciting than seeing the same old training animations take place over and over again. This takes us onto monster battles in the game. Once you feel like your monster is up to snuff, you can pit its strength and skill in monster tournaments by choosing events off the in-game event calendar. As expected, battles offer the monster the chance to perform moves it has learned through its training; these are executed by waiting for the indicator to hover over your monster’s skills and essentially taking in turns to execute them against the enemy monster. The skills that are displayed in battle are the ones the player equips their monsters with on their creature’s status screen and more can be learned through training and sparring with a coach. Overall, battles are very satisfying and can prove to be one of the game’s most addictive features, allowing your monster to show off the results of its training and often being intense, heated moments in later stages of the competitions.

Where the game fails though, is offering a decent narrative. It’s true that, as you progress through the competitions, you will encounter various animé-styled characters that drive certain events forward that act as a mini-narrative, if you will. Players who are huge fans of the Pokémon series and who like a decent narrative to unfold amongst their hours of monster-training and battling won’t be impressed by what story this game has to offer. Characterisation is generally quite bland so the NPCs do little to save what little of a story the game possesses. At the very least, the game establishes its own fictional universe pretty well and references events from previous games so Monster Rancher veterans will feel right at home in that respect.

Overall, Monster Rancher Advance 2 is fine monster-simulation/RPG hybrid that has the potential to draw in the right player. Armed with an in-depth monster-breeding system and addictive battling, players looking for an intelligent and gripping monster-breeding simulator could very well start looking here. The numerous amounts of monster possibilities means a vast potential for replay value and the huge number of tournaments contribute to the game’s healthy lifespan. It won’t satisfy all players, but for those in search of an in-depth monster-breeding experience, this is the game for you.

Pokémon Red and Blue

Pokémon is a franchise that anybody should at least be vaguely familiar with, having sold millions and millions of copies of its games worldwide with an equally successful anime series. Saying that, with Pokémon X and Y being unleashed upon the gaming world in October, it seemed like a good excuse to delve back into the games that started the monster-collecting/battling phenomenon. Hold onto your seats for a blast to the past.

Professor Oak acts as your mentor in the early stages of the game.

The game's unique concept of collecting and battling monsters revolutionised the RPG genre as well as portable gaming. Gamers could trade their Pokémon via the GameBoy's link cable or even pit their own monsters against their friend's. As a result, this created a more sociable element to the game, especially since that, in order to fill the PokéDex (the in-game Pokémon encyclopedia) and achieve 100% completion, one had to obtain monsters from each of the two games. So, indeed, while Red and Blue are essentially the same game, they each have their own version-exclusive monsters; so, if you had Red and your friend had Blue, you would require their help to get the monsters you needed and vice-versa. Of course, the sociable element of the games was just the tip of the iceberg; in-game, the player is in the Kanto region, a land obsessed with the pocket monsters. The storyline follows the player as they fight in Pokémon Gyms to obtain special badges that will earn them in a place in the game's final Indigo League. To achieve this, the player must travel through Kanto, battling gym leaders in each town but also finding their way through wild areas such as caves and forests. The game's travel element was also a great concept, establishing an idiosyncratic setting where people's lives revolved around Pokémon. It was also through traveling that wild Pokémon were encountered outside of towns, offering players the opportunity to weaken it with their own creatures before capturing their wild prey with a PokéBall. this, of course, leads onto the whole RPG element of the game; the idea of leveling up your monsters.



RPGs are built upon the idea of developing and upgrading your party and Pokémon is no different in that respect. In Red and Blue, as Pokémon level up by winning battles, they also gradually learn new moves. Up to four moves can be taught to each monster and, after that, should the option arise to learn another one, you must choose which of the Pokémon's learned moves it must replace. This is a good addition to the game as it forces trainers to choose the right combination of moves in their creature's move list. Another good addition is that, unlike most RPGs, your party's moves can be used outside of battle to aid exploration in the field. Moves such as 'CUT', for example, allow a Pokémon to cut through certain trees that obstruct the way to previously inaccessible areas and 'SURF' allows your Water-type Pokémon to carry the player across the sea. It is small ideas like this that contribute to the game's overall concept of teamwork since the player can hold only up to six Pokémon at one time (the rest being stored on an in-game PC until you want them) and, thus, thought is required as to what combination of Pokémon would prove most useful on the adventure. It is this element, perhaps, that makes these games different to other games of the genre.

The battle system is simple but fun to use.

For games with so much depth, they are very accessible to all players. Controlling your avatar on the field is easily done with the directional pad, with a choice of four directions. Furthermore, talking to other characters and interacting with items and signs is all accomplished with the touch of the A button. What is slightly more complex, albeit not by a great deal, is the game's battle system. Battles are simple, turn-based affairs normally associated with the RPG genre, with the options to 'ATTACK', 'Switch Pokémon', 'USE ITEM' or 'ESCAPE' present. This simplicity is where the games excel in terms of the way the gameplay is executed. For example, when the ATTACK menu is opened, the player has access to all four moves they have chosen to teach their monsters and, again, this is all done with the simple tap of the A button. Battles are fun and fast-paced and, yet, allow a lot of room for strategy and thought. It encourages exploiting your rival Pokémon's weaknesses by allowing you to switch between your team of monsters mid-battle; for example, when your opponent sends out a fire-based Pokémon, you should use a Water-based Pokémon to defeat your enemy more easily.

The games feature stores where you can buy medicines to treat your monsters.

All in all, it's amazing to think that, even by today's standards, Pokémon Red and Blue are still very playable games, untainted by the rise of the later releases in the series. For many gamers who were lucky enough to play this generation of games first, the first pair of monster-collecting adventures provides a pleasurable source of nostalgia and, for younger gamers, an intriguing discovery as to where the craze began. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the GameBoy is a highly outdated console, it's unlikely anybody nowadays will be able to utilise its unique link cable methods popular in its heyday. Nonetheless, the main adventure can still provide many hours of entertainment and proves that these classic games still have the spark they had upon their initial release.