Pokemon vs Monster Rancher – Cryptic Love
Similar games with substantially different degrees of success… Which one is better?
Welcome to another series from the Physics of Video Games. This time around, exclusively on the lovely Leftover Culture Review, we are going to do some comparing and contrasting. We will take two games that centre around a similar theme, whether it be gameplay, story, controls, music, etc., and try and demonstrate how the less popular/worse reviewed game actually has some superiority. Let’s start this series by talking about Monster Rancher and Pokemon.
I sincerely doubt that anyone reading this right now hasn’t heard of Pokemon, and probably has at least some familiarity with Monster Rancher, but I will provide some context at the slim chance that you haven’t heard of either. Both series centre around one major concept: get monsters and train them to be stronger than the monsters of any opponents. There are secondary objectives, but that is the most important and where we’ll focus our attention.
It should be no surprise that most people would consider Pokemon to be the more popular and refined series. Pokemon is one of the top selling series of all time. It has more monsters, customization, environments, moves, battle types and strategies, exploration, and so on. It continues to impact newer generations by introducing new shows, movies, games, etc. Monster Rancher had a few games and moderate success, and isn’t really talked about. So by the context of the description of this series, what could possibly be so great about Monster Rancher to put it above Pokemon?
The fundamental difference lies in the methods which the player takes to train monsters. Pokemon has a very user friendly, time tested method: beat things up, get points, enough points will gain a level; rinse and repeat until the Pokemon is at a desired strength level. Rinse and repeat with 5 others to create the perfect team that can take down any trainer. Straight forward, simple and effective, what could be better?
Monster Rancher forces players to train one skill a week, having to be rest and fed periodically, taking away from training time. There are opportunities to train more than one skill in a week, but that comes at the cost of lowering another skill. To make things even more irritating, there is the possibility that the monster will fail its training, unlike Pokemon where results are guaranteed. If you want to battle with this monster, or go on explorations, you have to take away from training time and risk your monster being hurt, which will induce months of hospital time. Your monster may also run away for months on end depending on how you treat it.
Remember when we talked about monsters failing training? You have the chance to punish, praise, be indifferent, thus impacting the temperament of your monster. But be wary, scolding leads to running away at times, and more failures. High praise regardless leads to total dependance, being sloth like and useless in battle. You have to strike a balance, so that they respect you and you respect it.
Speaking of temperament, your monster can have likes and dislikes, it can hate battle and love the most expensive monthly food. But don’t always feed the monster its favourite food, it will lose its nutritiousness, and will probably bankrupt you (pending that it’s expensive). You will have to battle to get more money, but remember to be careful about battling because you might lose with a weak monster, injuring it and not making money. New monsters can be quite difficult to take into battle, their stats and move sets are low, and lacking rapport will make them mess about rather than fight.
When problems with weak monsters arise in Pokemon, players can just scamper about in the bushes until they reach a desired level. The same should apply to Monster Rancher, right? Wrong.
Monsters die. But not like in Pokemon, where monsters can be revived with an item or at a Pokecentre. They die, and in a relatively short amount of time. Losing battles, too much scolding, training sessions, running away, injuries, not watching your monsters weight; everything lowers your monster’s life expectancy, quite drastically too. To make matters worse, monsters only train well during the middle of their life, failing and gaining very little at the start and end of their life cycles.
All of this cryptic nonsense is what makes Monster Rancher excel over Pokemon with respect to the player’s connection to their monsters. Pokemon almost seem disposable. They are easily trained, and usually chosen based on types and personal favourites. In Monster Rancher, there is the possibility to make every monster excel, especially if it matches your play style. In order to get the perfect monster, there are so many considerations to make. Since nearly every action can have a severely negative consequence, players must ensure that things are planned methodically if they want to get to the top of the S-rank. It takes a great deal of practice, but it can be done.
After playing so much of Monster Rancher 3, I can start a new file and become the top S-rank with my first monster. I used to have to train multiple monsters to almost get to S-rank, and have to upgrade all of my equipment, locations (it depends on which game you play), have a ton of money, and then I might have stood a slim chance of winning. There is a good chance that I can tell you about most of my monsters, what sort of things they did, what tournaments they won, prizes they got me. All I can tell you about my finals in each Pokemon game is that my teams always had Gyarados and a fire-type starter.
You do everything you can to make sure that you monster is well taken care of. You never want your monster to die, inducing the Monster Rancher funeral. You consider every possible scenario to make sure that your monster is the best it can be. There is a deep and meaningful connection that Pokemon could never hope to achieve. Sure, Monster Rancher has an incredible amount of cryptic nonsense. Sure, Pokemon is a much better game in almost every respect imaginable. But I can’t deny the fact that there is something much more fulfilling about training the perfect monster in Monster Rancher, instead of wandering aimlessly in shrubs and caves until enough points are gathered. Monster Rancher has a lot of love to give, and I am a sucker for it. Time to go build rapport with Lapras, my lovely monster with a top hat and an S-rank champion.