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 Home - _https://combobreaker.org
- info@combobreaker.org_
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:
- Guide site: https://legendcup.com/faqsite.php#mr2
- Monster Rancher Discord: https://discord.gg/venPxfG (@moosebones for any tournament clarifications)
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 :)
There is a newer version of the game Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX that's on Steam, Switch, and iOS... this has a built in CD / Song database so you can access all monsters without being limited to what's on hand. LegendCup.com is fully updated to include the DX changes in the game if you need current resources (Many of the old sites are gone, and many old guides have bits of out-dated info that's been debunked or data-mined since then) and includes the Song Lists for EN and JP versions if you want to jump straight into raising a monster you've never seen or raised before.
Also, the DX remaster has both the JP and EN rares available in the same game, in addition to enemy/boss monsters legally obtainable and are unique playable monsters too! Most of the online tournaments use the newer DX version which is cross-platform and cross-region. However, the Combo Breaker tournament will be played on an emulated PSX version of the game due to logistics. DX needs reliable internet connection to access people's uploaded monsters from around the world and heavily crowded conventions aren't known for their internet reliability. Even if you don't have the PSX version, MooseBones will be converting anyone's qualifying submitted monster from DX into a monster on a PSX game save to be used locally at the tournament.
I'm happy to see even 1 response to this haha.. It's such a niche game/genre I was kind of expecting this to just be an empty echo into the Ether.
Oh my God thank you for this, I played this game for hours when I was younger. Definitely going to have to buy it on steam now lol
If you have any questions about DX, please feel free to ask :)
I don't know if it's worth it to have a whole separate post about it or not but for now I guess i'll keep it here.
Oh, if you have a Switch, there's actually a whole new Monster Rancher game barely a year old. Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher ... It's a franchise crossover where you raise Kaiju monsters from Ultraman. The mechanics are basically the best features of MR1 and MR2 with new stuff because Kaiju. it's familiar enough that you can jump right in, with enough new stuff to keep you on your toes
Thanks for that! I was aware of the Steam release. Does it still allow you to use real discs on PC?
DX being cross platform with Mobile and Switch, the Shrine CD Reading process is completely overhauled and doesn't work remotely in the same way it did for the Playstation. The built in CD Database/Song List totals 664,909 Title/Artists entries. This not only includes albums but individual songs as well as albums and games etc.
One might think this is limiting since the original could use "all the CDs in the world" but the game is only built to give you a limited number of monsters based on meta data read from the Discs. DX provides much more than the original game is capable of doing, even with an finite number of entries.
To compare:
A few other bonus mentions for DX: There's a FF (Fast Forward) toggle to speed up the game, it's got upscaled resolution and textures, but it is still the base game underneath (not a 100% remaster, more like a light-remaster). 10 bonus freezer slots. Items now stack in your inventory (though the total number of inventory slots is the same based on your House size), Items can be bought or sold in bulk now, and load times are eliminated when going back and forth from ranch to town or entering a tournament. There's also a handful of mods created by the MR community. It's not a perfect remaster but it's definitely my favorite version of the game now.
Thanks for all the info! It sucks that I can't do the same thing (physically swapping the discs was fun), but I'll definitely be picking up the Steam release!
Awesome! :)
Don't forget to consider jumping into the Monster Rancher Discord if you want to hang out with other nerds that love this game. If you're interested in what the Online Tournament scene looks like, we keep a Calendar of Tournaments & Events as well. These are posted in the Discord Events, but if you're not keen on joining discord and would rather take a peek first you can find tourney hosts and times here.