Video Game / Monster Rancher

American MR4 is Hardcore

• Anime:
  • Monster Rancher
• Main series:
  • Monster Rancher/ Monster Farm
  • Monster Rancher 2
  • Monster Rancher 3
  • Monster Rancher 4
  • Monster Rancher EVO/Monster Farm 5
  • Monster Rancher Advance
  • Monster Rancher Advance 2
  • Monster Farm DS
  • Monster Rancher DS/Monster Farm DS 2
  • Monster Rancher Online
  • My Monster Rancher
  • Monster Rancher POP
  • Monster Rancher POP 2
  • Monster Farm Travel
  • LINE: Monster Rancher
• Spin-Off games:
  • Monster Rancher Hop-A-Bout
  • Monster Rancher Battle Card Game
    • Monster Rancher Battle Card Game Episode II
  • Monster Rancher Explorer
  • Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher

Take the Mons fad of the late Nineties and early Noughties. Throw it into a simulation/management game. Add an action-oriented battle system unlike just about anything else out there, a unique method of obtaining monsters, and some truly unforgiving gameplay. Put it all in a blender and press "puree." Season to taste with a few odd RPG elements, and you have the Monster Rancher series in a nutshell.

Monster Rancher (known as Monster Farm in Japan) is a console and handheld RPG franchise that combines the heart-pounding battling action and raiseable critters of a Mons series with the strategy and challenge of a simulation and management game. The premise of most games? You, the player, have recently become a "monster breeder"—someone who raises and trains monsters to fight. Monster battles are an extremely popular sport, and there's good money in raising strong monsters and winning lots of battles. You have a farm or ranch, and every week, you and your monster engage in activity. You can train them by putting them through exercise routines, go battle, and, occasionally, go on adventures to various regions. The ultimate goal? To Be a Master and win the ultimate cup of the game, whatever that may be. But nothing lasts forever, and eventually, your epic monster will grow old and die—you can either retire them, or "fuse" them into a new, baby monster and start again. Although a few games have deviated from the basic formula, in every Monster Rancher game, you'll find certain traits.

The series has gained some renown among gamers for its extremely unique means of obtaining monsters. Rather than running out and catching them or raising them to evolve into other creatures, you create monsters from ordinary CDs and DVDs. By reading "subcode data" off of CDs, games in the Monster Rancher franchise create monsters from pretty much any disc you can stuff into your PlayStation. Certain discs even unlock specific rare monsters, often ones that play off the content of the CD or DVD. The Updated Re-release of 1 and 2 emulate this method by a database of CD names that the player enters the name of instead of inserting. When the series progressed to the Game Boy Advance, it switched to using "passwords," combinations of letters and numbers. And when the series went to the Nintendo DS, it got three new methods of monster creation: Sound (by using the DS microphone), drawings (using the DS touchscreen), and, in a nod to the originals, by reading the data found on GBA carts in the DS's GBA slot.

Another thing about Monster Rancher games? They're hard. Really hard. This is partially due to their depth—despite looking fairly simple, there's a lot that goes on in the background. Due to the legendary difficulty and important mechanics not being told to the player, the series became a cult classic overseas, though it remains fairly popular in Japan. It also had an anime adaptation that ran from 1999-2001.

The first and the second game would be bundled together as Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX and was released on Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS, and after a period of being Japanese-exclusive, a localized version arrived on December 2021. Following this, LINE: Monster Rancher was announced for mobile devices in 2022, featuring classic monsters that could be generated through LINE friend lists. 2022 also saw a collaboration with Bandai Namco resulting Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher, basically a Monster Rancher game where the monsters are instead the gigantic Kaijus that fought against various Ultraman heroes.

Not to be confused with Monster Hunter. If you should find Hunters on your Ranch, be prepared for some intense territorial disputes. Also not to be confused with Monster Racers, which is a racing game, or Monster Racer, which is a mascot racer, or with Slime Rancher which is about raising slimes. Despite the identical Japanese name, it is not to be confused with Monster Farm either.

Monster Rancher EVO, Monster Rancher Hop-A-Bout and Monster Rancher Battle Card Game have their own pages, as does the Monster Rancher anime.

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The games provide examples of:

• Action Commands: They're not quite standard "action commands," but the battle system is action-oriented without the games being full-on action-RPGs.
• After the End: In the distant past, there was a horrible disaster that caused the gods to send down monsters to help people. Some monster descriptions (especially in 2) suggests that the "ancient age" was, in fact, our own. Other games, however, don't seem to have this, and are just set in an Anachronism Stew world of their own.
• Age Lift: Fleria, 3's assistant, was originally a little girl. The US version turned her into a teenager while keeping her childishly demanding personality and the subplot about the amount of Tochikan breeders dwindling in recent years.
• Agent Scully: Colt is skeptical of Metalners until she sees firsthand proof that they exist.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore:
  • Fleria, the assistant from 3, was aged up for the US release.
  • The more typical cover art variation appears too. The most noticeable is for Monster Rancher 4. The Japanese cover is cute, bright, and colorful—just the protagonist running with an array of monsters. The American cover has a Suezo glaring intensely at us with a blocky picture of the protagonist and some monsters in his eye, set to a black background.
• Animated Armor: The Durahan species.
• Antlion Monster: If you send a monster out on errantry in the desert themed area, the third hazard it needs to get past is a "Giant Antlion". If it succeeds, it manages to run up the sides of the sand pit, if it fails, it falls into it.
• Art Evolution: Some of the monster's designs have changed so many times, it's hard to figure out which is the "canonical" version. Many monsters have gone through an art shift or two, but there are some standouts.
  • Mew's original form had a much smaller head, looked as much like a bear as it did a cat, and was called "Nya." Later games flip-flopped between just how "plush" it was—it went from "not very plush at all" (such as in 3 and Advance 2) to having a gingham pattern, and its button eyes fluctuated between designs.
  • Plants originally had three flower heads, with a much different, 3-petaled design, as well as a barely-visible mouth. Later Plants had just one, giant flower, with five petals and a prominent cat smile.
  • Golems have ranged from having a very humanoid, Egyptian mask-like face to a simple, flat rock with eyes on it, to many in-between looks. In some games, the rock parts of its limbs visibly float apart, while it others, it's fully connected unless it's doing a special attack.
  • Color Pandoras were originally depicted as one big caterpillar, with the three "parts" of it only splitting up for certain attacks. It had small noses and more generally "cute" faces. The version in 3 split it up into three parts, and was even cuter, with no noses at all. Later games gave them huge noises, and significantly cut back on the cute.
  • Joker is the most variable one of the lot, changing almost completely from its first incarnation—where it was mostly corporeal, and had a Monster Clown face—to its second, where it became a floating spirit with Floating Limbs and a blank mask face. Then that changed into a fierce, floating humanoid head.
• Artificial Stupidity: In any battle where your monster is forced to "fight for itself," without your instructions—well, let's just say you'll swear they were never that dumb when you were training them.
• Art Shift: Monster Rancher 3 is the first entry to drastically redesign the monsters' appearance, skewed towards Kawaii. Perhaps best represented by the Jells, which went from humanoid slimes to 'cuddly' balls of goo that are actually its true form.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Due to their high cost and frequently low accuracy, super-powerful moves tend to be a lot less effective overall than smaller moves used more frequently.
• Backstory Horror: The first 2 games downplay this trope, but there're mentions of ancient wars and disasters that threatened the land and resulted in a lot of technology becoming lost. 4 and EVO play it up a bit more by having the protagonist stop such wars from recurring, usually by defeating whatever being started it.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Various games across the series have had translation quirks, but the standout is probably Battle Card for the Game Boy Color—the whole thing is a mess of pea-souper Engrish.
  • Monster Rancher 2 had quite a few, including such gems as "I wonder it buds the flower?".
• Blood Knight: Jokers often ask you to participate in fights, and enjoy it thoroughly. Also Nagas and any monster whose Like trait is fixated on battles.
• Body Armor Color Dissonance: In official art, and in the Game Boy Advance games, Zans are depicted as being a teal color (and in the GBA games, even create dark teal hybrids). However, in the console games, Zans and their hybrids are black! We don't get it either.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Spamming your opponent with many smaller moves can be more effective than trying to pull off big ones. The downside of this is that you need to be accurate, or you won't be able to KO the enemy fast enough.
  • Withering tactics. Using guts burning moves to make your opponent unable to attack or only able to attack with low-class moves.
• Bowdlerize:
  • Kato's affinity for booze was changed to olive oil.
  • A Golem/??? monster in 2, New Bottle, was a beer bottle with arms and legs. The American and PAL releases changed it to ForwardGolem, a football player.
• Breakout Character:
  • Moo was a ??? species of Dragon in 2. After being used as the Big Bad of the anime, he appeared in several other games, including Battle Card Episode II as a secret card and EVO and Lagoon as the final boss.
  • The Phoenix, while legendary and fairly easy to raise, was just another monster in 2. After being used as the Big Good of the anime, it reappeared in other games as a highly important figure, most notably Battle Card Episode II and 4.
  • Holly, the assistant in 1, has appeared by far the most times. Besides her original appearance, she's been a main character in the anime, an NPC in 2 and the Battle Card games, your assistant in the Advance games, and an NPC and unlockable assistant in the DS games. In comparison, Colt shows up in 2, a single anime episode, the Battle Card games, and DS, Fleria is seen in and mentioned in 1 and 4, and Rio, Nayuta and Cleo don't appear at all after their debuts.
• Break the Haughty: Errow, the errantry attendant in 2, starts out smug and dismissive... until you start climbing ranks. By the end he's become a complete sycophant.
• Brutal Bonus Level: 4 has +Adventures, harder versions of the original adventures, with all S-class monsters.
• …But He Sounds Handsome:
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": In Advance 2 the villain Geras has been sending fake strays to attack other ranches and cripple the competition. When Holly confronts him about this, he just says that he doesn't know what she is talking about. But then adds that there is no rule about it, and whoever would have thought about it is a clever guy.
  • The Tiger is a blue wolf with horns, not feline at all. Its name comes from a mistranslation of "Taiga," an icy biome.
  • Further confusion stems from the Japanese name of Hare. There, it's called "Ham," short for Hamster, but even its early designs were still clearly a rabbit.
• The Cameo: Holly, the first game's breeder's assistant, appears as a monster breeder herself in the second game to fight you.
• Canon Welding: Ultra Kaiju is very clearly set in the same universe as the rest of the franchise, only it now establishes Kaiju as a monster type... who are all famous monsters from the Ultraman series, implying that the two share continuity.
• Cap: Your monster's stats usually cap at 999. In newer games, they can go as high as 2000, but your monster's stats then have a combined stat cap.
• Captain Ersatz: As mentioned above, there're quite a few monsters with rare sub-breeds based on various characters from other Tecmo games. Practically everything about Doodle is taken straight from Tecmo's 1995 arcade game Ganbare Ginkun, where the protagonist and Big Bad were recycled into Doodle and Sketch respectively, while the objects in the minigames became the breed's weapons.
• Cheated Angle: Doodle is supposed to be a flat stick figure, but there will be many times where you will see its sprites from a side angle, just as thick and round as ever.
• Cherry Tapping: Spamming accurate but less powerful moves is an effective way to win, especially if they can Wither away Guts.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Unlike Pokemon, which adds old monsters to new ones, Monster Rancher shuffles its cast around, with some monsters vanishing (and others suddenly reappearing after a long absence). With 71 total breeds and only about 20-30 coded into each game, odds are that your favorite monster won't be available in a new game, unless you happen to like only the mascots Suezo, Tiger, Mocchi, Pixie, Hare, and Golem.
  • Quite possibly the most bizarre case of this is Advance 1—Hare, considered the most popular monster in Japan and one of the series' staples, wasn't present! It was back and good as new for Advance 2, though.
• Cleavage Window: A standard part of the Pixie attire.
• Clone Degeneration: Sueki Suezo in 2 dies after only one week, and is stated to be a man-made monster based on Suezo.
• Combo Platter Powers: Some monsters have an unusual combination of abilities. Mocchi is probably the most obvious of these, given how it's a Jack of All Stats—it can change size, has a dangerous lick attack, summons magical cherry blossom winds, and can shoot Frickin' Laser Beams.
• Company Cross References: By using other Tecmo games as spawners, you can unlock monsters modeled after Ardebaran, Miku Hinasaki, Doctor Dance from Unison, Kasumi, and many others.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: In 2, when doing the Errantry jobs for your monster, the headmaster says that you can capture a particular wild monster if your own monster manages to defeat it. However, this is never featured in the game, as the monster always escapes and you only get its data card.
• Continuing is Painful: Although you won't necessarily get kicked out of a tournament if your monster is KO'd (unless it's explicitly a tier-style tournament), your monster may get severely injured if it's KO'd, and drop out of subsequent matches. In extreme cases, it can even die.
• Continuity Nod: Lots of references to earlier games in the series pop up throughout the games, and species that haven't been heard from in several games may suddenly be referenced (or even become available) again.
  • EVO's Exposition Fairy is Bajarl—a monster who hasn't been seen since MR2 on the original PlayStation.
  • In the first Monster Rancher Advance game, you can get a White Mocchi by using the password "Most"—the name of the infamous White Mocchi Optional Boss in 2. Same case with "Pabs", from the name of Most's owner.
  • The code "Tesla" produces White Suezo as a nod to Poritoka, the Optional Boss in 2.
  • In 2, it's stated that a dragon called "Ragnaroks" was responsible for the destruction of the ancient world. In Advance 2, you get to raise a monster version of The Chosen One to fight it and keep it from destroying the world again.
  • Ultra Kaiju obviously features a lot of references to the Ultraman series, but features a ton to Monster Rancher as well. Holly is your assistant, and she mentions raising a Suezo. Colt also appears as a rival breeder representing iMA, and your main character can react with surprise upon both returning characters showing up. In addition, while only Mocchi and Suezo appear as returning breeds, rare subtypes for certain Kaiju reference monsters from the past games, including Garu and Piroro, from 4 and EVO.
• Creepy Doll: Wracky from 2. The first time you get it, your assistant not only is freaked out by its appearance but is quite disapproving of its character. Even better, she names it Charles, a Shout-Out to Child's Play.
• Critical Hit: Critical hits tend to happen most with 'sharp' moves, and have an increased chance based on your monster's Fame.
• Crutch Character:
  • Parodied with the man-made clone Sueki Suezo in 2. It has maxed out life and defense, one speed point, and other stats that are awesome for a monster straight from the disk. It dies in a week.
  • Played straight as it can still battle within that week and will not need food if it's the first one. (unless it's the very first monster you ever raise) This means if you find yourself running low in funds, you can freeze your current monster and summon Sueki Suezo, then take it to a D rank tourney for a free win and get some quick cash for the early game.
• Cultural Translation: 4 and EVO had two boss monsters, Garp and Mao Mao, receive design overhauls for overseas releases. In Japan, Garp was named Genbu and had a black shell, while Mao Mao looked like a giant chicken. Overseas, Garp has a spiky green shell and Mao Mao was given a tropical bird design, like a parrot.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: If you manage to effectively raise the stats of the monster of your choice well enough and/or acquire some nice techs, you can pretty much breeze through the battles like they were child's play. Opponents will sometimes get savvy enough to forfeit the match on their behalf if they feel that your monster gets too effective in winning matches. Also, this is deconstructed if you participate in the lower ranked matches while your monster is of a higher rank; while you will generally win matches and money, your monster's popularity will take a hit and the only way to gain back your monster's popularity is to win matches of the same or higher rank as your monster, or by feeding it Star Prunes.
• Cute Machines: The Metalner species from 2. Also doubles as a Robot Buddy once you train one of them.
• Cute Monster Girl: Pixies and Undines are cute, humanoid devil-like monsters and jelly-like mermaids, repesctively.
• Darker and Edgier: The plot of MR4 addresses the problem of monsters being abused, mistreated and experimented on. Your trainer has a Dark and Troubled Past, and so does your assistant Rio. Then there're her visions of monsters being crucified by an evil army. Ironically, MR4 actually does away with the death feature despite being Darker and Edgier.
• Death or Glory Attack: A major feature in the movesets of both Colorpandora and Suzurin. Colorpandoras have many strongly-damaging moves, but said moves also do damage to the Colorpandora themselves, meaning Colorpandoras tend to get high HP to compensate. Suzurins favor moves with a fairly low hit rate, but one hit is often all they need.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Rio, your assistant in 4, gradually warms up to you over the course of the game.
• Defunct Online Video Games: The servers of My Monster Rancher closed on April 29, 2014, so the game is now inaccessible.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • The games as a whole, really. Certain monsters which appear to suffer from Crippling Overspecialization, can be turned to the player's advantage with the right training. Dragon and Wracky are in-universe examples, thanks to their disobedience.
  • Metalners are the best monsters competitively in 2, but raising one is not easy, as they have bad stat gains, an average lifespan, and start with very low stats. However, they have the fastest Guts regeneration in the game and great techs, meaning if trained well they can defeat almost any other monster.
• Difficulty by Region: The US and PAL releases of 2 added 100 weeks to every monster's lifespan, but also locked out certain techs from the Japanese version.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Dinos and Zuums can learn powerful fire breath attacks.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • In MR2, using save data from the first game, you can transfer your monster from the first game as a newborn monster in the second game with altered stats to match a newborn monster, which is based on how good the first game version is. A properly trained monster from the first game can produce a monster with much better stats than a newborn monster that you get from the Market and the Shrine, which makes the early part of the game much easier.
  • Alternatively, using the first game as a Disc Stone in the second game produces a Sueki Suezo who has massive all around stats including maxed stats. The Sueki Suezo can only survive for one week, but you can use it to win tournaments, including the free-for-alls to get extra cash to work with. It is also useful to unlock a couple of monster breeds.
  • In the Advance game, entering a proper password can give you a great monster even early in the game. Of course, the problem is the fact that having said proper password without a guide turns it into a Luck-Based Mission.
  • In general, the passwords for ??? Sub-breed of monsters in Advance 2 are this. While there are ??? sub-breeds that requires you to follow complex requirements to unlock them, most ??? sub-breed unlock requirements are tied to the species and most of the easily available ones generally have much higher base stats. In particular, Celeris, a unique Hare, has 975 base stats, the second highest possible base stats in the game and Hares are available from the get-go.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Monster Rancher Explorer, a GB spinoff game, "previewed" several species of monster before they showed up in the main series: Octopee, Gitan, Pancho, Psyroller/Rhinoroller, and Suzurin.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first Monster Rancher game features Dinos instead of Zuums, a strange design for the Mew (called Nya), no Mocchis, 2d sprite-based training animations, and training taking the form of odd jobs and errands that earn you money. Monsters also change as they grow older (Suezos are born with fins and lose them as they grow up, for instance), Guts is called "Will", and the tournaments are organized with the lower rankings on the top rather than on the bottom like the rest of the series.
• Embarrassing First Name:
  • Cleo in DS. Call her "Cleopatra" and die.
  • Ditto with Colt in 2 (her full name being Coltia) and Cue in the Battle Card spinoff (her full name being Curie).
• Energy Weapon: Any monster that has attacks named "Beam", "Ray", or any other name variant. Mocchi's Ray/Beam/Cannon and Suezo's Eye Beam are clear-cut examples.
• Evil Counterpart: The Jokers are the evil counterparts of the Gali—both are floating robes with a mask for a face, but Galis have a sunny, godlike appearance (and are even hinted to be gods incarnate), while Jokers are dark, bloodied, and are said to be too fierce to be thought of as normal monsters.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Several monsters are named after their general species/appearance. Subverted with the Tigers, who are actually wolves.
• Excuse Plot: Every game has a standard To Be a Master plot with very little in terms of story, except in 4 and EVO.
• Expendable Clone: Letting a bunch of Sueki Suezos die is a fast way to get a Ghost, a Mock, and a Wracky; the latter two obtainable under some dodgy Guide Dang It! paths in 2.
• Expy: A few of the more "redundant" monsters seem to have been resigned to the "obsolete" bin due to their expy nature, though a Continuity Nod or two will reference them again. In particular:
  • The Zuums replaced the Dinos in every non-spinoff game since the first. Spinoffs still used them, but as of Monster Rancher 4, Dino are a rare subtype of Zuum. Oddly Monster Farm Line, released in 2023, uses Dinos instead of Zuums, although Zuums are mentioned in dialog.
  • The Undine is essentially a watery expy of the Pixie, with no wings and a Jell-like body. Both are also Cute Monster Girls. Since the Pixie is one of the Big 6, it stayed around while the Undine has been somewhat forgotten. In 4, there's an ordinary Pixie subspecies called Undine.
  • The Beaklon and the Worm are both brown insects with big horns, while the Worm is more "larval." In fact, it was possible to carefully raise your Worm to become a Beaklon in MR2. They also tend to create similar styles of subbreeds. The newer Beaklon has remained while the old Worm has only popped up in anonline game.
  • The Momo (3) has a very similar raising style to the Kato (2), with very high Speed and decent Attack and Int, but low Defense and Life. They also have some similar attacks (sharp claws, tail whipping) and both carry Iconic Items (Katos have bottles of sake/"oil", Momos have giant walnuts). However, Momos are more "cute" in design.
  • Ghost from 1 and 2 looks like Casper except without legs, a beige tint, and a magician's hat.
  • Rio in 4 is an expy of the anime's version of Holly, being connected to the Phoenix, having visions and magic powers, and having a similar appearance.
  • The Ultrarl, a rare sub-breed of Bajarl in 2, is very obviously based on Ultraman.
• Fartillery: The Hares have a "Gas" attack that does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Bakus also have the "Foul Wind" attack, which... well, you know. Also, the Apes have their "Blast" attacks that are even more dead-on than the Hares' version.
• Fighting Clown: Doodle. Never has a giant stick figure riding a highly explosive chicken motorcycle been so dangerous. Then again, when your weapons are based from minigames in a Wario Ware-like arcade game, what choice do you have?
• Flying Seafood Special: Ogyos can fly gracefully through the air.
• Fragile Speedster: 4 has Ripper, which has good speed and is known particularly for its accuracy, but is very fragile.
• Fur Bikini: The Pixies wear these, though how much is covered depends on the monster.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • 3's Kalaragi Bug. As part of a Story Arc on the Kalaragi Ranch, you have to fight a series of battles there, including one against your rival Gadamon. If you lose against her, you're sent to find fruit on an expedition. However, you can't find fruit on expeditions, meaning you can never progress the storyline. There aren't any ways to fix the bug; the only way to avoid it is winning the fight in the first place.
  • DS (the translated version of Japan's DS 2) seems to be positively riddled with them. Most of them are freezing bugs, which are nasty since resetting the game incurs massive monster penalties—the most peculiar of which involves monsters finding textureless white items during the Kawrea Volcano errantry. But one Magic Spell glitch can prevent you from combining monsters forever. Ouch.
• Genius Bruiser: Dragons have very high attack and intelligence, balanced out by sub-par speed, snail-pacingly slow guts regeneration, and extremely short lifespan.
• Genre Shift: Monster Rancher EVO, which is much closer to a standard RPG with rhythm game elements than a simulation game, which Monster Ranchers traditionally are.
• Glass Cannon: The Hares have high speed and physical attack, but their average HP and Defense are... lacking. In 2, Katos are the same. Suezo has good accuracy and attack stats, but lacks in speed, defense and life. In some games, a monster can't become a pure Glass Cannon due to Power and Intelligence factoring into defense calculations.
• God: Oddly enough. He appears only in the backstory, however; a disaster struck the world, the people called for help, and the monsters of the game were the result. Then the monsters only caused more problems, so God, exasperated, sealed them away in disc stones.
• Gonk: The current design for the Colorpandora is far less cute than its two previous designs.
• Great Offscreen War: Several monster data entries reveal that monsters fought in wars in the ancient past. 4 goes even further and has wars between humans, monsters, and demons.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The Color Pandora often attack by throwing one of their segments at an enemy. A lot of their attacks do recoil damage too, making them risky.
• Guide Dang It!: Has its own subpage for them. The games seem accessible to a casual gamer, but you'll soon realize that they aren't Pokémon.
• Happy Birthday to You!:
  • In 2, Colt comes up with various... uh... "creative" birthday songs for your monster. The monster doesn't always approve.
  • In DS the devs got away with using the lyrics to Happy Birthday, but not the melody.
• Happy Fun Ball: Lots of monster species fall into this category.
  • The Mew is just a stuffed kitty brought to life... with wolverine claws. One of its attacks involve shacking a rattle in front of an enemy with one paw as a distraction before stabbing him in the face with the other.
  • The Ducken is a children's wooden block toy in the shape of a duck. It tends to fall apart when it's disappointed.
  • The Doodle is a living stick figure. It attacks by blowing up its own head, summoning giant stiletto heels from the sky to stomp on its opponents, and by running them over with a chicken on wheels.
  • The Monol is a giant floating faceless rectangular slab of rock in a shout out to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • The Gali is a cape with an Aztec sun mask for a face. It is also able to create psychic projections of limbs for physical attacks.
• Head Pet: Mosha, one of the rivals you meet in 3, has a cat lying on her head. Doubles as an Empathy Pet as it mimics her expressions, which stands out more since she tends to keep her eyes shut unless she's surprised.
• Healing Factor: Some species of monsters have learnable techs that allow themselves to recover lost hit points after taking damage. Examples include Baku's Nap, Undine's Vitalization, and Mocchi's Petal Vortex.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Justified, as the protagonist in most of the games is supposed to be you, the player.
  • And your Mons are nameable too. Which can cause abuse and giggles, like with Colt, your assistant in 2 saying things like "My butt is well".
  • Subverted in 4; while you can name your character whatever you like, your character is only male, unlike the previous games whether you can choose to be male or female, and later revealed to have a Dark and Troubled Past.
• Hidden Mechanic: The hidden stress gauge, which is incredibly important when raising a monster as too much stress can drastically shorten its lifespan. The only hint about its existence is the Mint Leaf item, which relieves some stress, but new players are likely to conflate being stressed with being tired (which also runs on a hidden gauge but is easier to detect) and not make the connection that it's different.
• Holiday Mode: DS uses this with a weird combination of Video Game Time. In the in-game week that would correspond to your real-world birthday, you'll get a free gift—so if your birthday was August 25th, you'd get a present in the fourth week of August.
• Hot Librarian: One of the characters in MR4 tries to invoke this (she claims her boss likes it when she dresses that way).
• Iconic Sequel Character: Mocchis are considered one of the "core 6" monsters, but they didn't debut until Monster Rancher 2.
• Idiot Ball: When you find the Joker Mask in 2, Master Pabs wears it without doing any research on it and gets the evil mask stuck to his face.
• Idle Animation: Very nice "standard" animations for all the monsters, too.
• Improbable Weapon User: Not only do some monsters attack with things like yodels, walnuts, and bells, but there's an entire species of monster (the Monol) that is pretty much its own improbable weapon.
• Inconsistent Dub: Is it Ducken or Dakkung? Colorpandora or Koropendora? Zuum or Zoom? To say nothing of the "Mew/Nya" debate, where the fandom is still divided on whether or not they're separate species.
  • In 4, the Ancient Documents you can collect are filled with misspellings and a complete inability to keep the gods' names straight... even in the same entry.
  • Similarly, even in games which use the "Colorpandora" rendition of that particular monster's name, they still tend to use "Koro" to refer to the original monster units (Like the Puppy Koro).
• Jack of All Stats: Mocchis. Unlike many other monsters, which have large spikes in certain stats and large drops in others, Mocchis have fairly balanced stats all around, and even their "weaker" areas don't tend to be too terrible. Zuums as well, though they skimp a bit in Intelligence. Lesiones are also this, all of their stat gains are equal, average all around.
• Kamaitachi: The fourth game introduces the Ripper species, a bipedal weasel with sickles on their arms and a claw-like tail, known for their high accuracy and speed. They're able to create razor sharp winds to attack their opponent.
• Kavorka Man: The Suezo species is the monster version of this. Everyone in-universe wants one, despite the fact that they're well-acknowledged as selfish and lazy.
• Killed Off for Real: In 1, 2, 3 and DS your monsters die when they get old. You can't get them back. Averted with the Phoenix species in 2, which just fly away to 'return to nature' whenever they get too old, what with Phoenixes being known for their reincarnation, and all. The effect is pretty much the same, though. They never return. The same might be said for Metalners, except instead of flying off to unknown parts of the planet, they fly back to their home planet.
• Killer Rabbit: Many monsters, like Hares and Mews, look cute and cuddly, but are surprisingly strong in fights.
• Last Lousy Point: Octachrome in Advance 2, which due to a bug is completely unobtainable without Gameshark.
• Lethal Joke Character: Bajarls, Metalners, Disks, Doodles, and Wrackies tend to have bad stats at birth and are fussy to raise, but if raised well they can become powerhouses.
• Lightning Bruiser: Tons of them based on stats growth. Xenons in the DS game are some of the more notable examples. Mocchi is naturally this in the second game. Other than that, combinations can result in this both starting stats wise and stats growth wise.
• Limited Move Arsenal: In 1 and 2 you unlock new moves via errantries depending on several different factors and can use all of them in battle, while in 3 you can replace moves or learn them anew. In 4 you can get all moves at all times but can only use so many in battle.
• Living Structure Monster: The Monol breed is a 2001: A Space Odyssey Monolith-esque Shapeshifting monster, meaning it looks like a rectangle wall, or rather, a door. It's capable of Size Shifting and Partial Transformation of its surface to produce a humanoid face and spikes.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The Work and Rest themes in MR1 both run for close to a minute, but you only ever get to hear about the first ten seconds of either in the actual game.
• Lost in Translation: In Japanese, a particular Dragon is named 'Muu', which means darkness or emptiness. In English, he's named 'Moo'. Yes, after the sound a cow makes.
• Magikarp Power: Every single monster, more or less.
  • Wracky in 2 has pathetic starting stats and is a pain to raise. He can be one of the most lethal Fragile Speedsters in the game if trained right, and he has the longest lifespan in the game.
  • Colorpandora has pathetic stats at birth, but a really good and varied movepool and a long lifespan gives it huge potential.
• Mana Drain: Guts drain, actually. Loads of moves use this.
• Mascot Mook: The "core 6" monster species are the six species usually considered to be representative of the series as a whole. They are Noble Wolf Tiger, Ridiculously Cute Critter Mocchi, eyeball monster Suezo, Stone Wall Golem, literal Killer Rabbit Hare, and Cute Monster Girl Pixie.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • The Golem species. Their attack is high, they can defeat many monsters in one hit and they can soak up damage like a sponge—but they're sssssoo ssssslow...
  • The Baku species is essentially a giant dog Expy of Golem, only that they trade away their Defense for more Life (Hit Points).
  • Beaklons are pretty much an insect Expy of the Golem. High attack. High Defense. Slow as molasses.
  • Zillas are essentially Golems transformed into Godzilla-esque whales. They are more similar to Baku in terms of their stats, but differ from them in that Bakus are slightly more defense-oriented by having one move that allows them to heal themselves after taking damage while Zilla is all-out offense-oriented in the vein of its stoneman cousin.
  • Durahans are also incredibly strong and tough, with their horrible speed being their only real weakness. Unlike Golems and Beaclons, they won't miss constantly due to a decent skill stat. They also have longer lifespans and are easier to raise.
• Mistaken for Fake Hair: There's a character event in Monster Rancher Advance where Aroma tries to find out if Mr. Mardoc wears a toupee. Eventually, Mardoc allows her to try pulling on his hair to find out for herself... It's real alright.
• Money for Nothing: Subverted for the most part. Early on, you will have some trouble keeping your monetary balance from ending up down the drain when trying to raise the monster of your choice from the very start. You need to spend most of your money by giving your monster food and items if you want to make it powerful, and that means saving it. 3 is even worse about this as you get nothing for placing second in tournaments. Played straight later on if you get a good money-maker going and no longer need to spend excess cash on house/stable upgrades. One of the few breaks the original game would give you, in fact, was that regular training took the form of odd jobs that would pay you a small amount, letting you generate some income throughout the normal course of play rather than only being able to make money at tournaments.
• The Monolith: The Monol race of monsters, a Stock Shout-Out to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Motorcycle Fu: Two of Doodle's techniques fall into this, Chicken/Motorcock and Chicken Roll. Don't be fooled by the silly appearance, they also happen to be the breed's strongest attacks in terms of brute force.
• Mr. Fanservice: Furaseru in the Japan-only Monster Farm Lagoon seems to have been designed specifically with sex appeal in mind, being a bespectacled Bishōnen with quite a few shirt buttons undone.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Pixies, Undines, and their sub-breeds.
  • TeeTee in 4.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In 4, Rio can hear the voice of Gaia Stones, which were the original name of the Magic Stones from the anime. They both have connections to the Phoenix, as well.
  • To unlock Phoenix in Advance 2, you need to raise members of five specific species and gain their "orbs." These five species—Mocchi, Suezo, Tiger, Hare, and Golem—were the five protagonist monsters of the anime, and it references their role in finding the Phoenix.
• Never Say "Die": In contrast with previous games, the Kaiju in Ultra Kaiju don't die once their time is up, they simply lose the will to keep fighting and are sent to do other work by the association. Justified in that most of the Kaiju have shown incredible life spans in the Ultraman series, and as a bonus this lets you fuse them after they retire! Even before this the Advance games and 4 don't have monsters die but instead force you to retire them, in the former you can even have your monsters work as coaches indefinitely as long as you can afford the fee.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Central to the main plot of 4. Phayne took the fall when his friend Wit broke the school's biggest rule and read the forbidden book. Wit goes on to unseal and revive the ultimate evil.
• Nintendo Hard: One of the many common complaints among casual gamers, which reduced the series to cult classic status. The Advance games, 3, 4, and EVO are slightly easier, but the first two PlayStation games and DS are merciless.
• No Fair Cheating: Turn off the DS game without saving, and the monster's combining potential will be drastically lowered.
• Non-Standard Game Over: This happens if you run out of money in 2. Colt tells you that you're broke, and the game goes to the title screen.
• No Plot? No Problem!: The general lack of plot and consistent lore is seen as a feature since ranching and battling is the meat of the game.
• Notzilla: The Zilla monsters are a Punny Name parody of Godzilla. They look like a cross between a whale and an ape (The name "Gojira" is a combonation of the words "Kujira" (Japanese for "Whale") and "Gorilla" meaning it literally translates into "Whale Ape").
• Numbered Sequels: Except for EVO outside Japan.
• Nurikabe: Monols are a breed of monster that resemble large, flat, rectangular walls made of black stone. Strangely, they can morph their surface to resemble a face, or use it as a weapon by creating spikes or tendrils. Monols excel in defense but have very poor speed because they move by gliding slowly over the earth, using their powers over gravity and electromagnetism.
• Obake: The Baku species, although they don't seem to bear much resemblance to their mythical counterparts. Also, the Ripper species.
• Oculothorax: Suezo's race.
• Oddball in the Series:
  • 3 has a much cuter art style and unorthodox raising and exploration methods, and is the only game to not feature monster fusion at all.
  • EVO is a more traditional RPG where monsters now gain stats through a rhythm game.
  • Ultra Kaiju is a near direct continuation of 2, with plenty of new features and a ton of quality of life updates... but it's also a licensed Ultraman game, using Kaiju from the show's history instead of the usual original Monsters.
• Oddly Named Sequel: Monster Rancher EVO. (Which is a Market-Based Title; it was properly numbered 5 in Japan.)
• Old Save Bonus: Using Monster Rancher 1 memory card data in 2 will let you "slate" monsters into the second game, and using the CD to get a monster results in the Expendable Clone Sueki Suezo.
• Olympus Mons: Xenons in the DS game can dominate with basic attacks due to their high damage, accuracy, and Guts rates.
• Optional Boss:
  • There are monsters that come from bonus tournaments after becoming Master rank, secret matches, post credit battles, unlocked monsters, and more.
  • The second game has the enemy class monsters from errantry (Rank A and S) and Legend Cup (Most and Poritoka). The IMA vs FIMBA match also has a rare chance of spawning special S-class monsters, who are among the strongest in the game.
  • 3 has Ragnarox, who appears after you've won all 5 Great 5 tournaments.
  • EVO has a red version of Moo found in a bonus dungeon.
  • Advance 2 has Ragnaroks. It's only accessible by raising a specific monster, but is necessary to unlock a few Dragon types.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: The Centaur species may look vaguely humanoid, but they are not human in the truest sense of the word.
• Our Dragons Are Different: They are mostly based on the Western variant, although a few sub-breeds follow the Eastern variety.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghosts in this series rely on magic tricks to attack, have pliable, rubbery builds and are somehow capable of dying.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: The Undine species from Monster Rancher 2 have a rather transparent, Jell-like appearance and can even float in the air. They are similar to Pixies but tend to favor a lot more magical attacks than physical ones.
• Palette Swap: More or less every monster was this in the Advance games. They all had different stats and growth patterns, though.
• Pamphlet Shelf: The Ancient Texts in 4 are supposedly ancient books that you can have translated for you. Volumes average two to four 'pages', usually with only one sentence per page.
• Paradiegetic Gameplay: Representing Saucer Stones with real-world CDs, DVDs and other inputs.
• Passing the Torch: 3 ends with the Tochikans deciding to educate non-Tochikans in the art of Monster unlocking and raising, leading into every other game in the series.
• Permadeath: Once your monster dies, it's dead for good, though in 1 and 2, you can unlock Ghost, Mock, and Wracky by allowing them to die under certain conditions.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • 2 locks out some events based on when items are sold at the shop. Fighting the King Ape is impossible after the shop starts selling Nageel, and if the shop runs out of new items to sell before you get a monster to B-Rank, you'll never get the seeds to unlock Mock. This was fixed in the DX release.
  • In DS, Beaklon is found at Murmouge Coast during Summer, and challenges you to an arm-wrestling competition. If you fail this, you're unable to unlock Beaklon at all as he will not respawn due to a bug.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: Any monster's techs that have high Force ratings. They generally are counter-balanced by their paltry Hit Percentage ratings (i.e. low accuracy). Unless you level up your monster's Skill stats, that is.
• Prequel: 3 is a prequel to the rest of the series, explaining the lack of combining methods and monsters looking different than in other games, with Jell's 3 form being its true self instead of the more humanoid form. Statues of Fleria, Gadamon, and Bragma can be found in 1, and 4 refers to them as gods.
• Press Start to Game Over: In 2, you start with 5000 Gold and combining monsters costs 500 Gold. You can spend all your money creating and combining monsters before going to the Ranch, resulting in an instant Game Over.
• Protagonist Without a Past: Justified. You are the protagonist of most games. In Monster Rancher 4, however, the hero does have a past, which comes into play as you progress.
• Raijū: Tiger (originally known as Raiga in Japan) draws inspiration from the raiju, resembling a blue and white-furred wolf with horns that it can shoot bolts of electricity from.
• Rare Candy: In various installments of the game, there are items which are basically steroids: You can stuff your monster full of them to increase their stats, but it greatly decreases their lifespan in the process.
  • The DS game provides a tamer varient with the Ability Fruits. They increase one of your monster's stats by a small amount. However, since they can be found in large amounts on errantries, you can in fact earn some decent stat gains from exploring.
• Relationship Values: Bonding with your monster helps it perform better in battle.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Mocchis, Mews, the first versions of Colorpandora, Lesiones, Suzurins, Panchos, Octopees, and Hares are all very adorable creatures.
• The Rival:
  • The IMA is a rival league to the FIMBA.
  • 3 introduced the concept of rivals, who were introduced as you moved up ranks and moved around to different training areas. They often visited looking for battles, and you could trade Saucer Pieces with them. Losing a certain battle triggers the infamous Kalaragi Bug.
  • 4 also featured rivals, though not nearly as many, and their plotlines were folded into the overarching storyline as opposed to making up the storyline in and of themselves.
• Rocket Punch: Golems, Arrowheads, and Hengers employ this kind of move. Henger can combine this with This Is a Drill for better results.
• Running Gag: In 3, Fleria brags about finding each area you train in. At some point later on, you get a new rival who claims they found the area first, and challenges you for it. 3 also has a Ducken named after a kind of bird in every rank.
  • A lot of ranks in 4 have a Mochilips (Mogi/Mocchi) with absurdly high life and very easy to read attack patterns.
• Same Content, Different Rating: The first two games in the series were both rated E upon release, but the DX version got a T rating (18+ in Germany) because the CD database included to make up for the lack of disc swapping include albums with profanity and drug references in the titles. Everything else about the game is completely unchanged.
• Save Scumming: Trying to raise that perfect monster? You'll find yourself saving and resetting a lot.
• Schizo Tech: Present in all the games, as well as the anime.
• Sensing You Are Outmatched: In battle, you have the option to forfeit the match if you feel that your monster is not good enough to take on the more dangerous opponents. Likewise, your opponent will sometimes bail out on you if they see that your monster's stats are high enough to Curb Stomp them.
• Serious Business: Justified. Monster battling is a major league sport, with lots of money to be made.
• Shout-Out: A variation in some games, where certain discs will result in exclusive monsters so close to the title or subject of the disc that it's blatantly intentional.
  • Just from the original game you had Gallop from Patti Smith's Horses, Tank from The Clash's Combat Rock and Gooaall! from INXS' Kick, all playing off the album titles. Other monsters play off of the album covers, such as Karaoke (a singing baby) from Nirvana's Nevermind (specifically copies with "Endless, Nameless"), Geisha from Björk's Homogenic (which depicts a geisha on its cover), and Gamer (a spiky metal mask) from Quiet Riot's Mental Health.
  • A Dead or Alive game disc in MR2 creates a Pixie variant based off series heroine Kasumi, and the Rush Hour soundtrack gives a "Kung-Fu Bunny".
  • You get a living samurai armor suit called a "Shogun" with Brave Fencer Musashi in 2.
  • In 4, the Princess Mononoke DVD will get you Whitehound, a pure white tiger.
  • A rare Jell monster in MR2 has a metallic appearance, and its flavor text describes it as tending to run away from fights. Gosh, what in blazes could that be a reference to?
  • Errick in DS, after Cleo misinterprets his mumbling as talking about a "curse," says a curse might not be so bad: "Black magic woman..."
  • Some of the Pancho's animations are direct imitations of Tama dancing inside the chestnut in the Sazae-san opening.
  • The Password system in Advance has a variation of Kenshiro's infamous battle cry produce a special Raiden, a martial artist bird species.
  • In 4, various then-prominent US game magazine disks (such as PSM, the unofficial PlayStation magazine) would give unique monsters bearing the magazine logo.
  • Even FIMBA is a play on the real-life soccer/football organization FIFA (Fraternal International Footballer's Association), only with "Footballer" swapped for "Monster Breeder".
• Silent Scapegoat: MR4 has the hero, who took the blame when one of his friends stole a book of forbidden techniques, and got expelled from the academy over it.
• Spam Attack: The series has several moves that can upgraded into its higher level version, many of which are this. The second game employs a system where you need to use the same move over and over again until it reaches the necessary number required to learn the upgraded version. Essentially, you need to spam attack to learn a spam attack.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Your assistant in MR4, Rio, can understand monsters. She was despised by many for this in her childhood.
• Squishy Wizard: The Pixies, who have very high Intelligence, but low Power, Defense, and Life. They're pretty fast, though.
• Stalker with a Crush: Errik from DS. More or less the first words out of his mouth? "Definitely not a stalker!"
• Stealth Pun:
  • Apocolis can be obtained in the first game by scanning in an R.E.M. album. Which album, specifically? Monster.
  • Zilla is a Gorilla Whale mix.
• Stone Wall: The Monol species. Both figuratively and literally.
  • Niton from 2 also qualifies, but in a figurative sense, of course.
• Super Mode: Every game has special status effects that give status modification or special effect to a monster in specific condition. There's some that are species exclusive. In the second game, two are available to every species depending on how good/bad they are.
  • Joker's Real status effect gives it better guts regeneration, and increases its stats by 50% for a limited time. When it ends, the opposite occurs for the remainder of the match.
• Tail Slap: The Trope Namer, Dinos, Suezos, Zuums and Nagas make heavy use of it. Dragons use this too, but it is less common compared to their significantly more powerful attacks.
• Take That!: Using the password "POKEDEAD" at one point in the game adaptation of Monster Rancher Battle Card will give you a special card.
• Take That, Audience!: 4 devotes a large part of the story to taking apart competitive players and speedrunners by having many antagonists in the story use methods real-life players use to get ahead. Diehl trains monsters from birth to be fighting machines by using piles of money and training gadgets, letting go of any monsters that don't make the cut. IMa, the region in 2 and the most popular game for raising/training, outclasses FIMBA, the region in 1 with lower stat gains, by using military-style training regimes. Your character deliberately registers in FIMBA to prove they can still win without using such monstrous training methods.
• Tech Tree: Several techs in the series are found through using certain moves over and over until they 'evolve.'
• To Be a Master: Your goal is to win the Major 4 and become the best monster breeder.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: The Suzurin species' name is a Japanese pun that doesn't particularly translate well into English, so it stays despite not meaning anything in particular in English. The Suzurin is a monster made out of bells, which also happen to make it look like it's wearing a robe. Its overall outfit resembles a Japanese feudal suzeran lord. That's the first part. The second part is that "suzu" is Japanese for "bell," while "rin" is the onomotopoeia for a bell ringing.
• Tough Beetles: Beaclon (or Beaklon) is a large rhinoceros beetle-like monster, usually with life, defense, and strength as their best stats.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Monster Rancher EVO changes the training/raising automatically to mini-games in a circus. So, now it's up to you the player to determine how well they do by button mashing.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: A number of games, such as 2 and 4, feature special monsters that show up either as wild opponents or bosses. While you can get info on them, you can't use them for yourself. Especially frustrating in 4, because those bosses frequently represent past species, but you can't get them.
• Updated Re-release: Monster Rancher 1 + 2 DX for the Nintendo Switch and smartphones. In addition to being a direct port of the original first two games, it features a new "CD Database" (due to the lack of CD drives on the platforms the game is on) to create monsters with, brand-new monsters, online functionality with a Tournament Mode, as well as new Anti-Frustration Features such as auto-save and additional save slots.
• Use Your Head: So many species of monsters have headbutt attacks, it isn't even funny.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Raising your Monster invokes this, as it's a personal investment. Doubly so if it's a game where Monsters can die.
• Video Game Time: The games use a timeframe based on years but while your ranch can run for well over a hundred years, the characters stay the same. In fact, in MR Advance 2, your assistant, Holly, will always say that she was a representative of the monster league FIMBA until "last year"—even if she's been your assistant for decades!

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