In which we force adorable creatures to fight for our amusement- Let's Play Monster Rancher 2!

I'm Tallulah Graves, and this is my favorite forum on the internet. I like it so much I've made not one but TWO threads in it!

"But Tallulah," you ask with the confused innocence of a child, "you're new, and you already have one LP! Why would you make another so soon?"

Well now, hypothetical forum member, that's a very good question. The answer is simple: because every click through Ristorante Amore is like a gigantic needle to the base of my spine. I'm sure it does in fact get better, but if I want to make it through I'm going to need a safe place I can retreat to every once in a while. Monster Rancher 2 is that place.

So what is Monster Rancher 2?

tl;dr: It's a stat-based monster raising simulator. Essentially, it's the bastard lovechild of Pokemon and Princess Maker. How could we say no?

Now before we begin, we need two things:

1.) A name and gender for our glorious rancher. It must be a good name, a strong name; we intend to rise to the top of the breeder ranks, after all.

2.) A vote on the CD to be used to make a monster. Monsters are generated through the use of real-life CDs though a magical process I never cared enough to decipher. Your choices are: Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Clock Tower, Final Fantasy IX or Harvest Moon: Back to Nature.


This LP will probably be updated sporadically in-between RA updates, unless I get engrossed in MR2. I am rather addicted to watching numbers go up.

And there had better not be a Monster Rancher 2 LP already. I checked the list and everything.

A boy named Ben. A CD of Persona 2.

It's also worth noting that there's what essentially amounts to a personality test at the beginning of the game, but as it would take too long to reach a consensus I'm going to do it solo.

Monster Rancher!!!! God, this was one of my all time favorites when I was a kid!

Anyway, I vote for a girl. A girl named Sky Quake (or any other Decepticon really), and the Persona 2 cd.

I'm so glad someone else loves this game, I'm a big Monster Rancher fan. What other game lets you pit a living graffiti scribble against jello with a visibly beating heart?

Oh god, now that you put it that way, I think I just realized how drug addled the monster designs were.

It's the game that gave us the Ducken.



Drugs are a definite, and that's why it's beautiful.

I used too watch the Monster Rancher cartoon/anime.

:D

For the sake of compromise, I decided on a girl named Ben. What, you think a girl can't be named Ben? Are you racist or something?



This is our assistant, the lovely Coltia. She'll handle all the tasks we don't want to do, like actually training the monsters. We don't want to actually have to raise them, we just want the fame and money that comes from forcing them into cockfights. Is that really so wrong?

Colt mentions that she's pleased to be working with a female trainer. Do I smell a blossoming lesbian romance?

Colt and Ben, giddy with the pleasure of a fresh acquaintance, skip all the boring introductory nonsense and get straight to the monster-creating. They go to the shrine in the market, where they intend to pray to the almighty gods of Sony.



This is the shrine where monsters are created. The market has other attractions, but they aren't relevant at the moment. I'll be sure to explain their functions in detail later.

The priestess at the shrine greets us, and explains that monsters are created from discs.



These are the options we're given. We want to use a disc stone; that's what allows us to choose a CD to create a monster from.

Here's where I admit I messed up: I forgot that Persona 2 offers a special monster that we can't raise at our current level. I tried to pick discs that gave interesting monsters, but I accidentally screwed us over. I apologize. However, once we reach the point that we can create the special monster, I'll be sure to do so.

Instead, we're using Clock Tower.



I'm excited. Are you excited?


It's...







...a hideous worm made of Thwomps.

Well.

Do we stick with our special little nightmare, or do we try again? And if we stick with the poor son of a bitch, he's going to need a name.

I read an LP for this game a long time ago and it was hilarious.
Please for the love of god please get us a ducken.

give us a ducken named either "duck" or "whatthef"

Oh my god, I loved Mr. Swoon's playthroughs. I considered naming the rancher Norman as a tribute, but decided against it.

Thank you for knowing Mr. Swoon. Thank you.

I doubt I'll be anywhere near as hilarious as him, but consider this my tribute regardless.

We will keep thromp thing and name it Henry.

So, anyone else have an opinion on Thwomp Jr.?

Excuse me while I go cry, I love monster rancher. In fifth grade on the last day of school all of the fifth graders were spread throughout the school classrooms to help the teachers clean up the classes before summer vacation, and while throwing away some miscellaneous pieces of paper, I found a monster rancher cartridge for the gameboy advance in the trash. I didn't know what the hell it was but took it anyway because, hey, free game! Ever since then I've been having a sordid love affair with this game series. All of my likes for mentioning Mr.Swoon's LP!

Thwomp-worm might be a misshapen lump of horror, but by god he's OUR misshapen lump of horror! We're going to keep him and give him all the cruelty and abuse he needs to become a champion.



The priestess is so overwhelmed by how amazing our new little critter is, she can barely speak. Bless her heart.



Likewise, Colt is struck dumb in admiration.



Surprisingly, the little guy's stats aren't all that bad. He's got a lot of HP and he can take a hit pretty well. His speed is nothing to sneeze at, either. With a little work to his damage-dealing stats (once we figure out which ones his attacks use, anyway), he might actually do okay.

There's just one more thing...



Holding out a bit longer on the naming. I'm uncreative and hate making decisions, so I trust you all to make the right one.

Name him blob. It's cute. <3 I'm amazing at naming things.

I'm equally terrible at naming so I'll sit this one out.

Butterball.

In the continuing spirit of compromise, Henry Blobber is off to his first day of monster wizarding school~

With the registration clutched tight in our greedy little hands, we whisk Henry off to his spacious dormitory at our ranch.



Feeding is very important to your monster's health. If you feed it too much food, it can even get fat! In the older games, such as this one, having a fat monster could actually change their model. However, this was sadly phased out over the rest of the series.



Food varies in quality, nutrition and price. We're going to start off feeding Henry potatoes so that we can save money for other things, but later on I'll open up his diet to voting. After all, who doesn't want to stuff a rock worm full of jelly?

During feeding time...





OH MY GOD IT'S MULTIPLYING.

What.

I don't know! It was completely normal, until it wasn't.

I was promised adorable monsters fighting for my amusement! What the hell is that thing!?

/screaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaming

Henry Blobber is adorable... after a couple of martinis.

Anyway, Snark, thanks for reminding me: voting will now commence on Henry's training schedule!

His starting stats are shown in the second update. Just leave your vote for three stats to work on improving, in order of importance, and I'll plan the training schedule accordingly. The next update will explain the training process (and available courses) and get through enough training for us to hit the first tournament. Then, all your wildest monster fighting dreams will come true!

As a reminder, the available stats are: Life, Power, Intelligence, Skill, Speed, and Defense. They do... exactly what you'd expect them to do. This is an RPG from Japan, what do you want?

We want Defense, Power, and Life.

and I guess skill and speed.

^I burst out laughing and scared my flatmate, thanks for that.

I do what I can.

So uh, outside of soul crushing horror, what stat does his attacks rely on?

Color Pandoras are fairly weak, and considering that our particular baby is a Liquid Cube- essentially meaning that it's a hideous derpy caterpiller made of jello- I'd say that physics dictates that ours are even weaker. In fact, most of its attacks cause it to damage itself. We, uh, we got a real winner with Henry here.

We should probably focus on both power and intelligence since if I remember correctly he has skills that use both, although Power is obviously the higher priority at this point. Liquid Cubes have higher defense and intelligence than most CP species, so that should keep us for a little while.

EDIT: Life would also be useful, since his attacks have recoil. That needs to be factored in alongside the usual survival concerns.

whyisitmultiplying. isitgoingtoeatus? i'mscaredsomeoneholdme!

I was going to say int, skill and speed because I play ranged characters so..habit. But after learning more about Henry, I guess life, power and skill? (what does skill do? increase number of skills you can use?)

Skill basically means accuracy. I usually use it as a dump stat since I prefer more tank-like builds for most of my monsters, but then again my opinions on what skills are important are fairly bizarre. I'm the person who refuses to drop their charisma below a 5 in any role-playing scenario, after all.

I loved the anime, so I'm happy. with this little cute blue thing.

Go for life, defense and power.

It seems we have a visitor!



The sight of the old man's horrific face causes Henry Blobber to play dead in the background. He is a jello worm after my own heart.

(It's worth mentioning that you can watch your monster goof around in the background as you read through ranch events and the like. It's very cute and very distracting.)



Colt explains that Gandalf here was once the greatest wizard rancher in the land, but his entire family was tragically eaten by a Ducken. Gandalf warns Colt that he'll have to kill her if she says any more, and congratulates us on our skill as monster ranchers. I assume that "skill" in this case refers to our skill in resisting the urge to toss poor Henry into the freezer at the earliest possible opportunity.



Gandalf's therapist is never going to believe this. He surrepticiously takes a photo with his magic camera phone as proof. A worm made of jello cubes?

At least it wasn't a Ducken.



These are our options during the month.



Here are our training options. Drills are our basic stat-raising exercises. Light drills only raise one skill but increase fatigue slowly, while hard drills give multiple stat boosts but increase fatigue quickly. Hard drills also lower other stats at the cost of an increased stat gain in the chosen stat. Errantry courses are off-ranch places we can send Henry to for an extended period of time. He'll train and raise his stats as well as learn new skills... but he can be lost or injured. It costs a lot of money, as you might imagine. Sometimes we'll get errantry coupons in the mail, and that's likely when we'll send him off.



Battle lets us check for upcoming tournaments. We'll want to stick to E-rank cups at the moment, and I'm pretty sure there's one next month.

One of the annoying things about the MR games is that your rank is connected to your monster. If Henry here turns out to be a superstar but we don't finish out all the cups before he gets old or dies, we'll have to start over with the next one. Yes, your monsters can die in this game. It's pretty sad.



This is the item screen. It lets us use or buy items. Shocking, I'm certain.

File allows you to save, and Town allows you to visit town. Yep. That sure is what they do.



Colt stares at Henry's bizarre undulations, enraptured, while I choose the drills. Since power and life are such popular choices, we're going to raise those first.

While we pump Henry Blobber full of steroids, we're also going to alternate training defense and speed. Our boy don't need none of that fancy intelligence learnin'!

We begin our training by forcing Henry to pull carts up hills for our amusement.



I don't know where Colt's toucan found a whip and riding crop, but the horrible squishy noises it made as it beat our poor Henry into submission scarred me for life.



Once again proving that animal cruelty doesn't pay, Henry failed his drill. The pressure was just too great. Joy's beak twisted into a toucan imitation of a snarl, and I knew Henry would not sleep well tonight.



Colt and I began to discuss his punishment, but we were interrupted by the shrill shriek of a nearby bird. We turned, concerned, only to see Henry set upon by a flock of toucans. Joy was nearby, watching with what seemed to be a smile on his face.

I would've intervened, but something about that toucan just sets me wrong. It's almost like it's watching me.



Henry's next task was to knock down dominoes with the power of his fleshy body. Joy hovered ominiously nearby, ever watchful.



Henry flung himself into the first domino, maintaining eye contact with his feathered overlord. As the great slab of wood swayed, creaking, their staring contest became more intense. A small shudder went down Henry's gelatinous spine.

The domino fell.



The second domino fell as well, and for a moment Henry Blobber's eyes were bright with hope. Joy crowed in fury, stretching out his jet-black wings like a ravenous demon. The domino he perched on swayed.



But in the end, Henry's courage failed him. He shrank away from the bird's harsh eye, running to Colt and I for protection. There was nothing we could do. The wrath of Joy is absolute.



...How can you tell?

The downside of these games. They insist you punish your monster when they fail despite fact they have done their best at whatever task you gave them.

Well, you are given the option not to scold them. Scolding increases loyalty, though, so there's really no reason not to. I guess it makes sense from a conditioning perspective; if you condition them not to accept failure, they'll try harder and hopefully succeed. I prefer the system in 4 better though, honestly, where you can scold a cheating monster, encourage a failing monster and reward a successful monster. I think that fits better.