MonsterFenrick

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Monster Rancher 2 will appear at Combo Breaker: Live In-Person monster tournament! (media.kbin.social)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by MonsterFenrick@kbin.social to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
0 comments fedilink
 

That game where you popped your Music CDs into your PSX, generate a monster, then raise it and battle it? Yes, that game! Combo Breaker is one of the largest Fighting Game tournaments in the world, and MR2 will be there in under All In Together.

At Combo Breaker, this will be an In-Person Live event and you'll have complete control over your own monster

Historically Monster Rancher is a game that relied on the community to run tournaments with community vetted rules and entrants. I pioneered this in 1999 with the use of a DexDrive and emailing save files or even physical memory cards to host and broadcast tournaments (over dialup this was painful compared to today's available resources lol). "Recently", KoeiTecmo ran 1 official world-wide tournament when Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX (Deluxe remaster) was released and held in 2022, but KT hasn't held one since. Japan does have some in-person tournaments as well, but this is the first time a live and in-person event has will be held in the West!

MR Community member and content creator Nash (MooseBones) will be hosting this event at ComboBreaker. If you plan to attend ComboBreaker, and you like Monster Rancher this will be of interest.

Event Date:

  • Combo Breaker 2024, May 24th - 26th

Location:

  • Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel Marriott
  • 1551 Thoreau Dr N, Schaumburg, IL, 60173 USA

Event Links:

ComboBreaker MR Tournament Sign Up and Rules/Restrictions/Stat Caps - https://www.start.gg/tournament/all-in-together-2024-combo-breaker-community-tournaments/event/monster-rancher-2

Game Resources, tips, preparation:

Please contact @moosebones on Discord for any additional questions you may have regarding this event!

What is Monster Rancher?
If you'd never heard of Monster Rancher, you might have heard of the gimmick it was famous for... During game play, you could swap out the game CD and put in your favorite Music CD or Playstation game and a monster could be created from it.

Gimmick aside, however, It is basically a menu-driven virtual pet raising and breed simulator with fantasy monsters in a semi-roguelike environment where you keep your personal achievements and progress but it may take multiple raised monsters over time to fully complete the game. In-game progress is done by taking your raised creature and battling it out in tournaments with real-time strategy and resource management, gauging your situational awareness with your own monsters stats and attributes versus the in-game opponents. In the single-player game you have the option to outright over-raise your monster so that fights are a bit easier, but in PVP there are rules and Stat Caps/Weight divisions to consider for more equal footing.

I can't attend, but I'm interested in Online Tournaments, is that a thing?
Good news! the Monster Rancher Community regularly holds online tournaments for MR2DX and other games in the series, even the newer Switch-Only Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher, however due to limitations of the game, Online tournaments are not manually controlled. Instead, the meta is to engineer a monster within a given tourney's ruleset and stat caps to make as few bad choices as possible and let them have at it. Often best of 3, or 5, in Round Robin, Elimination, or Double Elim depending on the number of entrants.

Please share if you'd like. Monster Rancher is really niche and could always use more players :)

DF Weekly: Do we actually need The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn remasters? in c/playstation@lemmy.world
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago

There's been SOME activity in MR in the last couple years...
MR1&2DX is a remaster of the first 2 games with some QoL improvements, on Switch, Steam, iOS, released in 2021
Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher is a crossover, though only on Switch, released in 2022
LINE:Monster Farm is a JP only mobile gacha game released in 2023, but some folks hope it will come to the west... it has some amazing artwork.

There's also hope for MR3&4 "DX" release but those weren't very financially successful originally, so it's probably unlikely they'll be rereleased, but everyone's huffin' that hopium.

The Pokemon Company releases a statement regarding Palworld: Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

for the remaster, the CD reading system is replaced with a built in searchable Song List. This is how you can play it on Mobile, Switch, Steam etc. The Song List doesn't exactly equate to original CDs (the function is mechanically different) but there are a handful of entries that equate to their originals (this accounts for about 0.01% of entries within the 664,909 that create their original monsters.

The good news is, Everyone now has access to the entire game and can raise any monster they want to (once they're unlocked, of course), and the Song List is 100% solved and published. You can Random Button if you like the surprise, but if you want something specific, you can just view the published Song List, Pick your Monster Main/Sub, then pick the Title/Artist suggestion for the variant you want. :)

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Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher: Keywords and Song Lists are Solved! (media.kbin.social)
 

The North American "Keywords" system, and Japan & Southeast Asia "Song List" for Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher has been solved.

What is Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher?

  • A pet raising simulation
  • Breeding simulation
  • Monster taming
  • Fantasy
  • Menu-based raising
  • Real-time Combat
  • Roguelike
  • Single player
  • Competitive

In the Playstation version of Monster Rancher, you could acquire new monsters by placing Music CDs or other games into your PSX when the game prompted you to do so.

Switch doesn't have an optical drive, obviously, so One of the primary ways to acquire a Monster/Kaiju in UKMR is to use a search for Music/Titles/Artists (in Japanese and Southeast Asia versions) or using Keywords (in North American version).

Depending on the chosen songs or keywords used, you can create a monster born with certain stats or attacks or other adjustments to their parameters.

Now that all versions of the game are solved, you can look up what you want to raise, and use the suggestions in-game to get the exact Kaiju you want! (You still have to play through much of the story to unlock some of the restricted Kaiju, however)

For those interested, the solved lists are posted here:

Hundreds of hours and multiple people's efforts have been put forth to solve these lists, so we hope you enjoy!
:)

The Pokemon Company releases a statement regarding Palworld: Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX is also on Steam, Switch, and iOS!
It is a remastered per say. Not so much a new graphics engine or anything, but with bug fixes, item changes that function better, and GUI & other QoL improvements :)

Mike Wazowski from wish.com in c/imageai@sh.itjust.works
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago

Hey now... Monster Rancher is Legit and predates Monsters, Inc. by 4 years :)

Kaiju-Sized Pet breeding/Sim Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher on sale for 50% off (biggest discount since release) through 12/4 in c/gaming@kbin.social
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

If you're referring to the Fandom wiki, that's an interesting topic of much debate, and I have nothing to do with it. It's got 1 or 2 main editors, but the real contention is the wiki attempts to link everything between every game plus the anime as a single cohesive piece of information, which ends up causing a lot of made up fan fiction just to connect the dots. The source material has been argued to be legitimate, but when pressed for the source, the wiki authors admitted that the data was from a Japanese cooking blog... which is never named, and no longer exists and cannot be found on any internet archive to cross reference

Additionally, the fandom wiki contains many completely made up monster lores and flavor texts from the Japanese translations that don't correlate. I did make an attempt to explain to the editors, using 1 particular monster as an example comparing the English text to the Japanese text. I provided the real translation and the likely meaning behind the name and lore description based on the direct translation of the name itself and the flavor text. This singular entry was changed, but none of the other hundreds (maybe thousands) of entries have been touched. Much of the guide information on the Fandom wiki is also out of date, or based on pre-data mining posts from the 90s/00s and not updated to the current findings that engineers and code hackers have discovered and published. If there's one thing the Fandom wiki has going for it, is that it has an impressive number of images across the many genres and platforms Monster Rancher has appeared on. I just wouldn't recommend trusting it for actual game information.

LegendCup isn't trying to connect everything to everything just for the sake of it, and doesn't acknowledge the Anime as a source of cannon for the games. Sort of like if you were to purchase a game guide about something, Each game's FAQs and guides are researched and dissected in isolation mechanically, and doesn't attempt to be a guide to the lore and history of monster rancher outside of providing references of actual in-game flavor texts of monsters within their respective games, along with data mined mechanics and information within each game.

Kaiju-Sized Pet breeding/Sim Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher on sale for 50% off (biggest discount since release) through 12/4 in c/gaming@kbin.social
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

haha, yeah.

I started the Fan Site back in 1999, and even got Tecmo's blessing in writing, and I've also got IMDB/game credits in two of the games in the franchise from before the KoeiTecmo merger . It's been a hobby/obsession for over 2 decades that all started... mostly because My wife had beat the 1st game before me in '97, just waiting for me to get home from work to show me.

The Monster Rancher community is much smaller and overshadowed by other communities by comparison. MR's genre is pretty niche and hard to spread the word because of it, so I try :)

Kaiju-Sized Pet breeding/Sim Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher on sale for 50% off (biggest discount since release) through 12/4 in c/gaming@kbin.social
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The remaster of MR1&2DX (Steam/Switch/iOS) does have a random button in addition to a searchable internal database of Albums, Song titles, and games.

For whatever reason, the Random button in Ultra Kaiju is absent from the North American version, so you just either have to enter in some random letters/words in the Keywords field, or use NFC. The Japanese and Southeast Asia versions of Ultra Kaiju have a CDDB and Random button, though the "CDDB" is a bit misleading because it actually uses the keywords lookup to generate the Kaiju from the CDDB entries. In this regard, at least, the North American version is superior since the Keywords aren't locked to a pre-defined list.

Why did JP and SEA get a Song List and NA got Keywords for UKMR? Maybe copyright or licensing, though it's honestly anyone's guess.

But it still would have been nice for them to keep the Random button :)

Kaiju-Sized Pet breeding/Sim Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher on sale for 50% off (biggest discount since release) through 12/4 in c/gaming@kbin.social
[–] MonsterFenrick@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

Most people don't actually use the NFC, It's just not as highly accessible in North America as it is in other places (Also, very specifically, Amiibos will not work, and this is an in-game notification as well. No idea if this was a licensing thing or what). It's an interesting gimmick to replace how Swapping out CDs worked for the original Playstation game, but most people use the Keyword generation in the North American version.

Thankfully, we solved how keywords worked. After scripting out auto-solving more than 2 million keywords, and filtering out duplicates, we have published options for every baseline, and every variant (stuff that has different stat gains, starting stats, starting techs, or faster guts regeneration from the baselines).

  • Keyword Solver for manual entry of any keywords you want, to see what it will produce
  • Curated list of Keywords: Pick a Kaiju main, then Kaiju sub. Below the choice will be a scrollable table of all the Script-found Kaiju and fan-submitted Kaiju

NTAG scanning and Bus Passes are solved too.
The bus passes are fun/interesting because the remaining balance of Yen on them is what determines what it makes. Many of the numbers are references to Ultraman or Monster Rancher lore. If you're curious about that, check out: https://legendcup.com/faq-ukmrnfc.php

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Kaiju-Sized Pet breeding/Sim Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher on sale for 50% off (biggest discount since release) through 12/4 (media.kbin.social)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by MonsterFenrick@kbin.social to c/gaming@kbin.social
8 comments fedilink
 

Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher is a Switch game on sale on the eStore for half-off! It is a Spin-off / collaboration of the mainline franchise Monster Rancher and Ultraman franchised Kaiju instead of traditional "Monster Rancher" breeds.

What is Monster Rancher? MR is a fantasy Pet Raising and breeding simulator that has:

  • Creature raising that can vary based on your personal choices of ... everything.. Feeding, drills, battles, what breed, or mixed breed you've done etc.
  • Creature breeding via Fusion (Parents are consumed in the process, but babies created from it can inherit stats and attacks from parents)
  • Tournament style progression
  • Unlockable roster of monsters through story and side-quests
  • Real time combat mechanics which your success is based not only by how you've raised your monster, what attacks you've taught it, but how you directly control your monster and execute attacks. (Monster Rancher itself is also technically a spin-off of a Horse racing/breeding simulation "Gallop Racer" by the same developers (Tecmo / KoeiTecmo).

Ultra Kaiju monster rancher plays very similar to an amalgamation of MR1 & MR2 with some new stuff thrown in because... well.. Big Ol' Kaiju!

If you're curious about the roster of Kaiju, you can view all of the Field Guide Kaiju which includes the ones available from the start and all of the locked, DLC, and hidden Kaiju as well.

If big Kaiju aren't your thing, there's always the remasters of the Originals... "Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX" which is on Steam, Switch, and iOS. MR2 specifically is the franchise's most popular game in the series and PVP tournaments are still frequently run. If you have any questions about either, just ask :)

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Make-A-Monster helps play 1997/1999 PSX or Emulation of Monster Rancher (1&2, NTSC & PAL) (kbin.social)
 

Attempting to Cross-Post from Monster Rancher

Monster Rancher debuted in 1997, it's a fantasy Pet (monster) raising and breeding game which had a unique mechanic that, during gameplay, when prompted you could insert a Music CD, or another Playstation game, and it would generate a monster based on some meta data from the disc that was read.

In 2001 we learned how to extract that meta data from CDs and some games (a text file containing track information, referred to as ToC or Subcode data) and share them without having to share copied CDs or Games. You could create a CD and inject the ToC data during the burn process to make any CD have the same meta data as what the ToC files contained. There were limits to this, as it would be an identical Monster produced ("randomized" stat offsets are determined by this data and so would be identical to the original).

As original hardware becomes hard to acquire, many have turned to emulation, though, even most PCs today no longer even come with optical drives to be able to use this mechanic.

5 years ago, We (superfans/nerds of Monster Rancher) completely reverse engineered the CD Read Process and were able to create a web app that could generate the meta data on demand, including all possible randomized offsets that would normally be produced by CDs and games in the wild.

We named this app "Make-A-Monster", and the data/files can be used with original hardware, or in emulation. We included the ability to create any Monster, On-Demand, but also allow the use of randomized creation, and also blind creation so you just don't know what you'll get at all and be completely surprised.

There is a remaster of Monster Rancher 1&2DX on Steam, Switch, and iOS that came out late 2021 and has quality of Life improvements and such. It also has several old bugs re-introduced, since the game is based on the original Japanese Monster Farm which were fixed in their NTSC and PAL localization, but overall is a very positive experience as well, and introduces new monster variants that never existed in the original.

I hope there's some Ranchers out there that will enjoy this, if you're still playing the original games, and also hope there's folks out there supporting the Remasters as well :)

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Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher: Fusion made easy with Fusion Calculator! (youtu.be)
 

Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher is only on the Nintendo Switch.

Learn how to use the Fusion Calculator app on LegendCup, for creating powerfully strong baby Kaiju . With just a few button clicks You can make perfect fusions, and get fusion suggestions, all without needing to know how the fusion mechanics actually work.

If you play Monster Rancher 1&2DX Also on the Nintendo Switch, there's other apps for these games as well to help master raising your virual pet monsters :)

If you're unfamiliar with the series, it is less of a monster taming/catching game -- and more of a fantasy pet breeding and raising sim. Your monsters have a finite lifespan and you must raise them as best you can with your available budget which you can increase by fighting and winning tournaments. There are also often many locked/hidden monsters that must use story progression to access.

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Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher needs more competitive players (Nintendo Switch) (media.kbin.social)
 

Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher is a cross over between Monster/Pet raising sim "Monster Rancher" and Kaiju from the Ultraman series, mostly from the 60s version of the show.

Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher was released November 2022 on Nintendo Switch in Japan (JP), Southeast Asia (EN), and North/South America (EN). The two English versions can play competitive with one another but the EN and JP versions are not compatible.

In the Monster Rancher Discord there is a dedicated channel for each Monster Rancher game and tournaments are held frequently, discussed in the Tournament channel, and tournament Hosts will schedule dates on the Discord calendar.

See LegendCup's Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher guides for raising tips, maps, unlock help, and other tools, but the Discord is very friendly for new and inexperienced players and will help you get up to speed and answer your questions if you stop in.