Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX Review

Chances are if you were a big PlayStation fan in the 1990s and 2000s you have heard of Monster Rancher. If you haven’t played the game then you may have seen the anime on weekend television. Monster Rancher is an interesting blend of a lot of things, Pokémon and Tamagotchi mixed together with added training. When you first start you find out that you are a new trainer who wants to raise and train monsters to fight. You have the choice of buying a monster from the market —which includes Mocchi and Suezo from the cartoon— or trying to create a monster from a music CD. Nowadays, CDs aren’t nearly as popular as they would have been years ago, and since the Switch has no way to read the CD, a new music database has become available for you to use; this lets you search a CD from your childhood and choose which one you want to use to create a monster. I found I had better luck with older music selections like discs from the Bee Gees, “The Final Countdown” by Europe, and a surprise newer album that I never expected to find, “After Hours” by The Weeknd; using this disc created one of the most creepy, — yet strong — monsters I have used so far. It’s a weird mix of a snake, wolf, and a bat all in one. So to keep it straight in my head what album was used to create the monster, I called it Weeknd.

The first Monster Rancher game was released in North America in 1997, the second in 1999 and in Europe both were released in 2000. Though I haven't played them personally, I have seen footage of the games on videos online, so I was familiar with how the battle system and monster creation worked. I was thinking that I could battle monsters created with two different CDs right off the bat when I started playing, but this is not the case; at least not until you get to the stage where you can freeze and save the monsters that you have created to battle each other. I created multiple save files trying to search for different artists to see if I could find them, and what kind of crazy monster would be created. Personally, I was kind of creeped out by the monster that I created from The Weeknd’s album, but I figured I would try to level him up and see if I could make it to The Major 4; the highest-ranked tournaments in the game. Chances are if I can’t get to this point my monster has died or I got frustrated and gave up.

Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX still look like they did when they were first released. If you are expecting a huge graphical upgrade, you won’t find it here. Although the monsters are pretty cute, but still very basic compared to the graphics you see in games today. The music in the game is incredibly repetitive; it doesn’t matter what tournament you are fighting in, the music is the same as all the others you have fought in. The main difference I found between the two titles, besides fine-tuning a few things like controls, was that in the first game you would send your monster out to do jobs instead of training. Jobs include being a security officer, where your monster does tasks to learn new skills and techniques. Plus you also get to earn money this way too. Instead the second title has you training your monster in separate areas to raise the specific stats you want. The first game obviously doesn’t look as good as its sequel, but is similar in that it has you feeding and training your monster to be as strong as possible to win its fights.

Every month in the game you decide what kind of food your monster is going to eat for that full month. You have a lot of options here, but be aware some of the foods that you feed them, especially if you select them multiple months in a row, can have the effect of spoiling your monster and giving them a soft temperament. A lot of trial and error is involved in figuring out the most effective way to raise your monster in the Monster Rancher titles. The games have the option to fast-forward through battles and other scenes, making training and battles go a lot faster than the original games would have, which was a nice option to have!

As a parent I am not great at discipline, so when my training assistant Colt would ask me if I was going to punish my monster after failing training or when they got caught trying to cheat, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I didn’t want to make the monster hate me, but I also didn’t enjoy having “children” that would ignore me and do whatever they wanted in training and in battle leading to a loss.



Monster Rancher is all about maintaining balance. Making sure you have enough time for training, battling in tournaments, resting, and snacks is incredibly important. If your monster gets too tired or stressed out, it will shorten their lifespan and they may die a lot earlier than expected. At the town shop you are able to buy items like mint leaves and nut oil to help calm your monster down when they are tired or stressed out. If you want them to like you more, try mangos and candy, or if you have been spoiling them with food or not disciplining them, you can give them a smoked snake to help counteract this. When your monster is spoiled they may try to cheat during training, or not listen to you in tournaments. The praise and punishment system in Monster Rancher is unique since you don’t see this in other games, especially since your actions really affect the personality of your creature.

There are tournaments that you can enter in almost every week; you can only compete in ones at your level or lower, but if you enter a lower grade then your monster’s fame level will drop. At the beginning I was getting my butt kicked constantly, but the good thing is even if you lose, your monster will still level up different skills, so they will slowly get stronger. Combine this with training or enrolling your monster in errantry, and your monster will learn the skills it needs to be successful in battle. During tournaments you have the option to take control of the monster dodging attacks from your opponent and moving in close to attack, or if you trust your monster you can let them fight on their own; I usually just let the monster fight because the controls for fighting aren't clear. It was interesting to watch my monster level up, get smarter, and use new techniques in battle. Seeing Weeknd fighting smarter and not just letting the opponent hit them constantly was cool. Though at any point in the fight, if you think your monster is going to get KO’d you can hit Y and give up so they don’t take more damage, because there is always the risk they will get injured and have to spend time in the hospital.

If you are looking for something totally new and updated from the original Monster Rancher games, you won’t find it here. But if you want to experience them as they were on the PlayStation, this will be the title for you. If you love games where all your actions have an effect on the rest of the game, both the Monster Rancher titles let you experience this, I never realised what an effect always praising my monster after battles would have. I created a spoiled brat! I enjoyed trying to raise my monster, though at times it can become quite repetitive and require a ton of grinding to level up your monster and trial and error to see what items work best for you. Having the music catalogue in the game really captured the feeling of the original games where it was so unique that you could use your music collection to create monsters. Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX is easily the best way to check out these titles, especially since a lot of people don’t have huge CD collections like they did years ago!