Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX (Computer)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): December 9, 2021
- Publisher: Koei Tecmo
- Developer: Koei Tecmo
- Genres: Simulation, Monster Raising
- Also For: Nintendo Switch
Game Features:
Who Needs CDs in 2021?
Ahh Monster Rancher, that excellent monster breeding simulation that left me scrambling for every music CD I could get my hands on as a child. Originally released in 1997 and 1999, Monster Rancher 1 and 2 were some of the more unique life simulation style games at the time, and it’s all thanks to the way you generate your monsters. By inserting basically any CD into your PS1, you could generate approximately 20 (~40 in 2!) different types of monsters with various different type combinations, with their own strengths and weaknesses, which you raised, combined, and battled in tournaments in the hopes of becoming a Master breeder! …or, at least, that’s how the original games worked. But this is 2021! CDs might as well be considered extinct in this day and age, so how in the world did Koei Tecmo bring these games into the future?
We’ll get to that in a moment, but first let's quickly go over exactly what kind of games Monster Rancher 1 and 2 are, for those not so familiar with the series. As mentioned above, Monster Rancher is a monster breeding simulation series of games, where you raise monsters to fight in monster fighting tournaments to become the best monster breeder in the land. Each monster has six major stats, which include Power, Intelligence, Skill, Life, Speed, and Defense, which for the most part are pretty self explanatory to most gamers (power = physical damage, int = energy attacks, skill = evasion etc etc). These stats can be raised by having your monster do various work, or by paying trainers to train specific stats as well as learn new moves. Once you feel your monster is sufficiently trained in whichever stats are suitable to your monster, you can then enter them into tournaments to battle other monsters, or “save” them by putting them into a freezer storage area in town for combining with other monsters. And, like in real life, your monsters do have a limited lifespan, and will die after a certain number of weeks (which varies, depending on monster type and how much you stress/fatigue your monster). All in all, a pretty simple monster breeding simulator in this day and age that hasn’t necessarily aged terribly, but also hasn’t aged well either. So what is it exactly that 1&2 DX adds to these age-old games?
For the most part, it’s just simple quality of life changes. You get some more save slots and freezer storage capacity which is nice, as well as a high speed mode to speed up what is frankly mind numbingly slow gameplay. The graphics do see an improvement, with both better models and smoother background textures to better suit modern resolutions, but all in all things are still pretty…crunchy, all things considered, but still acceptable enough for a remaster of a PS1 game. Sound-wise, however, Koei Tecmo didn’t do much. Monster Rancher 1 saw no improvements to its sound design at all that I can tell, and sounds basically the same as the original music and sound effects from the PS1. Monster Rancher 2 does have a “remastered” soundtrack, but for the most part the improvements aren’t impressive at all. Perhaps one of the biggest additions to the games is the “Versus mode”, which allows you to download monsters others have raised that you can battle whenever you like…although nobody actually controls the monsters you download, unfortunately they’re just CPU controlled so you don’t actually get a PvP experience, but still a nice addition regardless.
“But Tom, how do you generate monsters if modern PCs, the Switch, and iOS devices don’t have CD drives??” The rather underwhelming answer to that is: A search bar. Given the lack of optical drives on most modern PCs and mobile devices, the only real solution to the CD problem is a huge list of CDs (over 600,000, according to Koei Tecmo) that you simply search for in the shrine where you’d normally insert your optical discs, and a monster is generated that way. A simple solution, but one that works well and was even updated to include at least some modern albums which is a nice touch.
But is Monster Rancher 1 and 2 DX worth it? If you’re looking for a simple monster simulation game to play while you do other things, absolutely. If you’re a big fan of the Monster Rancher games in general? 100%! But otherwise…probably not. For me, at least, a lot of the charm that Monster Rancher had when I was a kid was in that CD generation gimmick. Scouring my house for any and every CD I could find in the hopes of getting some kind of cool or rare monster out of them loses its appeal when all you’re doing is essentially a Google search. When you take that kind of charm out of the series, and all that’s left is a simple monster raising game limited by 90s technology? Well…it’s just not that enjoyable to me.
Verdict
- Some decent QoL additions
- Plenty of possible monster combinations
- Over 600,000 searchable CDs to generate monsters
- Relatively low-effort "remaster" with few graphical improvements
- Terrible sound quality all around, even with the "remastered soundtrack" of Monster Rancher 2
- Gameplay is pretty simple and repetitive
