Monster Rancher
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Monster Rancher (モンスターファーム Monster Farm) is a video game series by Tecmo. Starting in 1997, there have been several sequels produced. There was also a tie-in anime made.
According to the story, the world of Monster Rancher was once a highly advanced technology oriented civilization. The people of this society were especially skilled at genetic engineering. Using gene manipulation, they were able to develop special designer pets and store their genetic information on stone tablets known as "disks", similar to CDs. Using these disks, the artificial animals could be regenerated at special shrines.
However, war broke out between the countries of the civilization. The pets were modified into biological weapons, and the war of the monsters began. The great civilizations totally annihilated each other, leaving nothing but relics behind, and much of the world's technology was lost. The monsters were sealed into their disks and hidden away.
Centuries later, as humanity was just beginning to rediscover basic technology, people found the artifacts owned by the so-called "Ancients" and attributed divine properties to them. They also discovered the lost disks and shrines. Using these, monsters were again born.
Thus started a popular new sport, Monster Breeding. Breeders raised monsters for battle to compete in nation-wide tournaments to see who could raise the strongest beast.
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[edit] Games
The series is often compared to Pokémon, although the two games play very differently. While the Pokémon games are traditionally collection-based RPGs, Monster Rancher games tend to be simulated animal breeding games. The genre Monster Rancher occupies is shared by other simulation virtual pet games, predominantly video games based on raising horses for racing.
In the games, one takes the role of a Monster Breeder whose goal is to raise monsters to fight in tournaments.
The Breeder must take it in hand to raise the monster throughout its life,training it, keeping it healthy, making an exercise schedule, and trying to maximize its abilities before it dies of old age or is retires (in about 3 to 4 years of simulated game time depending on raising style and monster) or is retired. Monsters have good or bad morale depending on how they are raised; loyal monster are more likely to perform critical hits, while disloyal might flee from battle. Retired monsters can be combined to create more powerful monsters.
Although not widely popular, the games do have a loyal cult following. Particularly for the most innovative aspect of the series: monsters from the game can be generated by inserting any CD or DVD (only in Playstation 2 games; PlayStation games have no DVD support) into the game system. The monster that is produced is based on the information on the CD, creating the same monster each time the CD is inserted (except in the case of the rare 'Pandora Disks', which are programmed to create a number of creatures). Or it can be specialized so that specific DVDs and CDs will produce rare monsters. For instance, in Monster Rancher 4 the Harry Potter DVD generates a unique an owl monster, and in Monster Rancher 2 and 4 Tecmo's Dead or Alive creates Kasumi from the same game.
[edit] Game releases
[edit] PlayStation
- Monster Rancher
- Monster Rancher 2
- Monster Rancher Hop-A-Bout
- Monster Rancher Battle Card: Episode II
[edit] Game Boy Color
- Monster Rancher Battle Card Game
- Monster Rancher Explorer
[edit] PlayStation 2
[edit] Game Boy Advance
- Monster Rancher Advance
- Monster Rancher Advance 2
[edit] Nintendo DS
- Monster Rancher Jamboree
[edit] Microsoft Windows
- Monster Farm Online (Coming 2007)
[edit] Anime
Monster Rancher was an anime series broadcast in the US on Fox, Fox Family Channel and the Sci-fi Channel and in the United Kingdom on Fox Kids. It featured characters and themes from the Monster Rancher games. Only the first season is for sale in DVD.
[edit] Monsters
[edit] Trivia
- "Monster Rancher" was the title of an episode (season 4, episode 19) of the TV series NewsRadio.
- The Monster Rancher games are well-known for containing secret monsters if specific CDs (and later DVDs) are inserted into the console when generating a creature. Several of Tecmo's own products, such as Tecmo's Deception, Dead or Alive, UNiSON and Fatal Frame, are known to unlock some of these monsters, almost always modeled after a character in those games (in these cases, Ardebaran, Kasumi, Doctor Dance and Miku Hinasaki, respectively).
- You can hear a bonus track on the CD if inserted into a CD player. As a rule of thumb, any game that has 2 tracks in a CD player usually has a bonus track on the second track.
[edit] External links
- "Tecmo US"
- "Monster Rancher Metropolis" conducts and archives game research.
- "Legend Cup" contains images and information.
- The Monster Rancher series at MobyGames
