Monster Rancher

4 had retirement, I believe. I was D: when i discovered frozen monsters couldn't be revived in that game.

Oh yeah, i managed to get a Game Over in 2 once. I combined too much at the very start and wasted all my money. D:

I always find myself raising Pixies. Any monster types you gravitate towards?

Monster Rancher 2 was THE SHIT, seriously, too bad my monsters always died when I finally managed to get them really strong.

: Suzurins, Mocchis, Panchos, Gitans, and I really like the Nitons though they're only in MR 2.

Mocchis, garus, hengars, dukkungs, and durahans.

edited 4th Jan '11 11:18:35 PM by Aondeug

Partly depends on what's available in the given game, and what my C Ds unlock as, but I tend to raise... Hares, Pixies, Mews, Gitans, Suzurans, Piroros... along with Tigers, Mayas, Ogyos, Lesiones... and the occasional Durahan, Suezo, Dragon and Naga.

...I sort of wish Mayas would appear more. I have a weakness for kitties, even brightly colored ones. :(

Hares, Nagas, wolves, and the dino guys (forgot the name. Saurians?)

Zuums?

Captain Black Dino?

edited 5th Jan '11 1:21:43 AM by Aondeug

Yes! Zuums! Damn, how could I forget that? Haven't played in a while, I suppose.

I admit I like Phoenixes and Galis too, though those feel like kind of "cheap" options for some reason.

...did they ever fucking find that phoenix in the anime? When I stopped watching all I knew was that Holly was Muu's daughter and he could like brain wash her or something and...I don't recall anything about the phoenix beyond "We're looking for him!".

edited 5th Jan '11 11:48:21 AM by Aondeug

Yes, and they killed all their party members to get it because the parts of the Phoenix were inside them all along.

Harsh.

Awesome. I always knew that finding the phoenix would require something horrible like that. It makes me want to watch Sailor Moon S though...

Haruka: We must find the things and defeat evil no matter the cost!

Michiru: Yeah! (also you're sleeping on the couch today dear)

Villain Woman: I HAVE YOUR GIRLFRIEND MWUAHAHAH!!!

Haruka and Michiru: NOOOOOOOO!! -dies-

Sailor Moon: Hey look they had the things in them all this time!

I have 1, 2, 3 and 4. I like the rival and dungeon exploration elements in the later games, but I'm still pissed off that they haven't managed to match the sheer diversity of monsters from the second.

In the second game, I found one disc which would yield a Naga/? type with some time related name like Eternity, which was the only monster type I ever discovered out of a library of several hundred to have S class rarity. It didn't have particularly good stats, but I regret never raising one, because I suspect it may have had an unlimited lifespan.

: Nope. The longest monster lifespan is that of the Wracky type, who live 13 natural years. The only way to get an unlimited-life monster in that game is via Min-Maxing slash Save Scumming the rare banana.

And I still note that Monster Rancher Advance 2 has more species than ordinary-2. Yeah, there's palette swaps, but there's also that huge species diversity.

Is there a chart that lists the lifespans of all species?

I looked into it a bit more; the monster in question is the Time Noise, with the species description "The secret goal that this one has is to obtain the secret of immortality."

Of all the unique monsters I obtained (and I got quite a lot of them) it was the only one with S class rarity, so I figure there was supposed to be something special about it, and it certainly wasn't its stats.

It had a neat robe on?

Although does rarity = power? I figured it was a pretty arbitrary ranking.

edited 5th Jan '11 6:50:10 PM by ShirowShirow

I think rarity means how easy they are to raise. I had a Draco Mocchi that wasn't very willing at first :<

I thought rarity meant just that - rarity.

The S Ranks were usually certain disks which contained unique monsters (like Gex 3 had a Frog Hopper, and you got the Birdie Suezo from some golf game).

Some of those rare monsters were... interesting.

Like MR4 had the 'Miku' and 'Kasumi' Pixies, from Fatal Frame and Dead Or Alive... And I remember being really amused by the leopard-print Hare MR3 pulled from one of my sister's Britney Spears CDs.

Yeah, when i first learned you could raise a Kasumi monster i thought nothing of it. But that was before i knew what Dead Or Alive was. I guess watching Kasumi obey your every command while frolicking around oblivious to your leers is Older Than They Think in comparison to the Xtreme franchise.

I liked the rare Pixie Poison, cause she was in the anime. I dn't remember what CD makes her, though.

^ One of The Matrix soundtracks unlocked her in MR2, I believe.

Come to think of it, I'm fairly sure that in EVO, you could actually BUY certain 'rare discs' in the shops... Been a long time since I played that one, though. Like, I think there was a Maid Mocchi you could buy in one area, which was a Mocchi in a maid outfit, implied to be trained as a house servant...

Monster-rancher-metropolis.com has tables with breakdowns of all monster lifespans. Like I said, in 2, Wrackys live the longest. Rarity is mostly just rarity, but it can also involve "hidden talents" that trigger the different Standard Status Effects. The GBA games and the DS games actually list those by name, so it's easier to see what hidden skills they have (like how one rare Zuum has "Expert," which means it gets boosted stats from every single training). Usually I think that's what makes rarer monsters special. I think the fusion clinic can diagnose some of those, though.