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.