Can I just say I absolutely adore the intro to this where you explain why Non-Competitive Monster Rancher is great and why the game is "solved" for Competitive? Excellent explanation. Fingers crossed a new Monster Rancher can make competitive play better (I'm thinking a trainable A.I. system like Smash Amiibos, KI Shadow Fighters, and VF4 A.I.s would fit Monster Rancher REALLY well). Keep up the good work!
Competitive play is far from solved, thankfully. Knowing how to optimize stats is an entry-level knowledge check to competition. Tech loadouts and scouting a meta are the really challenging parts of tournament play.
I found your channel shortly after I learned DX was releasing and it just delighted me to learn that there are people who love my favorite game that no one has ever heard of even more than I do. Watching people's beloved monsters battling it out in the hands of the idiot god that is this game's AI is some of the most fun I've ever had with a videogame, and I haven't even been able to do it live yet. I'm entering my first competitive monster inTo JP's 311 JoR tournament this month and I couldn't be more excited. I thought that I had mastered this game when I learned how to consistently max stats, but now I'm stepping into an entire world I've never touched before and it's awesome. I love making sausage. Learning how to raise my evil garbage baby's stress without making it hate me or outright die is incredibly hard and I'm still very far away from that point, but the process is a lot of damned frustrating fun and it just feels amazing to be looking at techs in a way I never have before. I'm so happy that you make these videos, thank you so much.
I found this channel looking for tips on how to plow through the single player easily, but keep watching these videos because of how well made and entertaining they are. Its a shame they dont get more views, but i guess that comes with the niche content.
It was very interesting to watch this! I only ever played this game as a kid and very casually! This time around I want to improve my training method by using some items but still okay pretty casually! Thanks for the info!
I just played through DX and beat the game with my first monster ignoring almost all of the optimization stuff, so it's definitely possible to still do everything you want to without stressing about the math.
@@Moosebones I originally beat the game with a Kato/tiger so I am going to try to do that again! Will probably raise 2 and combine them and train up that kid to beat it! Then I will probably unlock beaclon and a pheonix to train and have a lot of fun with!
Hey man i wanted to say thank you. I haven't picked this game up on years and was on it the moment it came out on switch. Because of you, i unlocked Undine and am 1 tourney away from beating the big four with that powerhouse of a lady. Thank you thank you! The way you convey info is wonderful (:
That was information overload lol I adore your knowledge and passion for the game. Really enjoying the game so far, both have it on steam and emulator lol
I played this as a child with my older sister's CD collection. I must have brute forced the S level tournaments. Just a flood of memories when I saw Monster Rancher DX on the steam store.
I have to say, I’m definitely one of those players who never saw the appeal of using items. I did use them on occasion in MRA2, but I think it was only correctional items to keep them at even. Now, after having my first monster ever to reach 999 across the board after putting in the time and dedication to pull it off, I definitely can see why these methods are used. I probably won’t use these banana methods myself (A bit too much saving and reloading for my tastes), but I can safely say I can probably see myself using the no rest method. I would probably still get some Gemini pots despite not using bananas just for a bit of a safety net since stress is so much worse on your monster then fatigue is. I honestly wonder if I could apply this to MRA2, I actually had a monster, fresh from the tablet that almost beat the entire game, but he got too old right before the finish line. Feels bad man, he even liked smoked snek! I didn’t even know that was possible!
"Every choice has a varying impact on the game", yeah this is one of the reasons why MR2 is a great game. The problem with competetive gameplay though is the mindset about the choices being only either "optimal" or "not worth doing". Optimal training involves save scumming, not just with the random banana effects, most people would recommend that you load your game every time a monster gets a failure or get any bad result from anything. When a monster is raised like this then it is no different from the "dialogue trees" or "multiple endings" that make the players think their choices matter, when in fact it does not in most cases. Getting Failures, Cheats, Succeses, or Greats does not feel like it matters when you can just change the outcome everytime. This is just my opinion, but raising a monster in the ranch feels much better when you don't load your game every other week. That means living with its successes and failures. Praising, Scolding, giving rewards and even playing with the monster made it so that you can interact with your monsters in more ways than just getting stronger and battling it out. You can beat Akirel or Most anyway with a 1st gen monster even without reloading.
You dont have to play competitively, but half of the competitive scene started out with the same mindset as you where their version of casual play was the correct one and other people were playing the game wrong. Then they found out how fun the competitive scene is. The whole point of the video is that if I dont want to play with my monster I dont have to, but if you want to you can.
@@Moosebones lol what? I didn't say anyone's way of playing is wrong, I merely stated the problem with it and the game because it limits "competetive play" almost to save scumming because of rng. I used to play like that as well but I realized it wasn't enjoyable because it doesn't feel like raising a creature anymore. If they introduce an Iron-man mode so that outcomes for drills, battles, errantry, and feeding items cannot be changed everytime something goes wrong then it's good for me. I've been playing monster rancher 2 since the psone, and been playing the mod Hard mode on epsxe. So I don't have the mindset of "my version of casual play was the correct one and other people were playing the game wrong". Actually I've never heard anyone saying others were playing the game wrong.
@@paulievespucci6867 It's a very common opinion, and it's not confined to monster rancher. It definitely felt as if you were saying "playing this one specific way is the right way" so if you weren't then I apologize for inferring something you didn't mean! A lot of the casual community views competitive monster rancher the same way people on facebook react any time a big news outlet runs an article about speedrunning; like it's wrong and that there is no fun to be had in playing the game in a new way. Fact of the matter is that the competitive scene loves the game just as much as any casual fan does, they just also find additional joy in the challenge of optimization.
So am I correct to assume that the original No Rest method is still viable in the DX version but the new Magic Banana method is there now just in case you feel like using it?
Well apparently Paradoxine was a bean all along, didn't see that coming. (Was there any specific reason you used Ecce Homo for that bit? I'm genuinely curious). Anyway, thank you for another great Rancher Rundown video!
MF2 is full of great puns that are completely lost or bastardized in localization. It's really sad tbh, it's a genuinely funny game and no one in the West knows.
Thank you for the guides! MR2 was my childhood and I'm so happy to be able to play it again after 15+ years. I was a very casual player back then that just enjoyed the game. Now, I've slaughtered the fun and am trying to tryhard a 20-year old game 'cause I grew up becoming an efficiency-freak. With that, I'm still scratching the surface of this Iceberg, and before I can start anything, I NEED MONEY. May I ask you for a "money making" guide? I'm guessing there's two ways: One for a fresh save, and a more profitable, efficient way after raising a strong monster who can farm the higher ranks. Again, thanks for all these guides! You have no idea how much I've learned in a few days in comparison to my years of playing this as a kid.
Good stuff. There's definitely more than enough info in here for a compromise between maximizing your monster's lifespan without having to sacrifice all realistic/non-meta choices from a playstyle.
I just found out recently that this ENG port was released. I have min-maxed PSX MR2 decades ago and I'm excited to try this out, specially the competitive aspect of it Quick question: where do you get that status checker widow on the bottom right at 1:42? Thanks.
Hi bro, I love how your videos are simplified and made me understand all the nooks and cranny of this game better than what I know before. Especially in the competitive sense. Just one thing. May I ask for your strategy on how to get a 1 Int and 1 def character? I still seem to have problems of implementing it on the DX version without all those monster editors and even with Paradoxine I can't seem to hit the lvl 1 in either of the 2 even after I finished this. What I'm having trouble is that raising speed via leap gives me small Int gain, while lowering Int means that I have to use swim which raises my defense. Which in turn might need me to use meditate to counteract defense gain. Do I just use Dodge to be able to train my speed? I'm actually raising a Naga/Pixie that has low life which in turn might not be a good one to use Paradoxine to. Thanks so much in advance.
Honestly man theres no trick to it it's just sort of tedious bullshit. Just a lot of swims and meditates and giving your monster peaches early to prolong its baby stage. My next tournament has a stat cap but if you have a stat below 100 it doesnt count to the cap so you dont need to worry about getting it to exactly 1, theres a bit of a buffer to make the game more enjoyable.
@@Moosebones thanks bro. I think I encountered a tournamrnt regisitration like that yesterday. It's a great thing for me with that format as it is easier to achieve.
Oof. I never knew all of this. We used to just play with the pixie/??? From my mom's Shania Twain cd, and just force up the intelligence and skill and hope you could kill anything before it had a chance to hit you.. I never knew much about the items. I bought the dx yesterday, and my third monster I am raising is a hanger, and I'm like why does it feel like he fails or cheats all his training? So frustrated. I guess I never delved into all these extra stats/items as much.
I have 2 questions: 1. Which drills are ideal for a high pow/spd/ski build (SPECIFIC drills ie leap/swim etc., I already know about no-rest)? 2. Is there a trick to minimize resets for cheating on Bad nature monsters?
I usually will focus on pow first bc you end up wasting too much time trying to get speed up while doing pull drills at first. If your speed drops to 1 you can then act as if speed isnt actually dropping at all. Once power is where you want it then just do dodge drills every week. And no, no shortcut to avoiding cheats on bad nature mons.
@@Moosebones Thanks for the quick response. Too bad there isn't nature averaging in dx, and it's probably not worth using gali chips on a -40 instead of another item.
It's really fast to save scum on the DX version for the Switch. I'm curious to try this MB method. Are the stat caps mentioned in the video only specific to PvP or are there actual in game tourneys you can't enter with certain stats?
Is the effect of the magic banana determined when I use it or when it is bought? Basically do I have to buy one every second week and rebuy after a reset, or can I buy one or two and just reset if it isn't the right effect.
hi, i dunno if this has been asked before, but how do i know i get the banana -10stress if i already has 100 loyal at that week? should i try to rank up first and then entering the lower ranked tourney to drop the loyalty? also what if the likes of my monster turns from tablet, into my trainer name? did it still count as liking tablet?
If it's already at 100 the -10 stress is the the one that keeps it at 100. And if it changes to your trainer name all that means is it has high loyalty, it doesnt remove its other likes and dislikes.
it seems that you need 11 pots to use the modified 4th week method with a mon who likes tablet, tried simulating with 10 and there's that 1 stress leftover or I'm doing something wrong?
If you try to do 3 hard drills a month with 10 pots with a non-HAD monster youll lose one week of life every 2 months. Most mons can only do 2 hard drills a month with the modified 4th week method unless you have 11 pots yeah.
Mostly since the usual method with ML makes your form lower, you always get a skinny monster, with MB however, you can balance your weight more, still, its just optional.
Since the desired result for bananas is a flat -10 stress and the mint leaf effect is -50% stress, this means that as long as your monster's stress value is between 1-19, the banana will win out every time as long as you're willing to savescum for the correct banana outcome. If you start the monthly cycle with no stress then on week 2 which is when you use the banana you'll pretty much not have accumulated enough stress for the mint leaf to be worth it for that particular slot. Also, this is where the Gemini Pots come into play as you can't keep this schedule up without the extra start-of-month stress loss from the stacked pots.
@@fatedmalice5649 No problem! I just got back into this game yesterday and I have just begun to understand the mechanics so this is all fresh in my mind.
Hi. In order words, just use magic bananas to increase the lifespan of my moster, right? I'm trying my best to understand the things on this video and I'm getting overwhelmed to be honest.
If youre playing on the original version of the game you can do that, yeah, but otherwise just following a basic no-rest method will let you live out your monster's lifeapan to the max
I know this wont happen, but i would love to see a video of your training the strongest monster in MR1 , Magnet, it is super difficult to do but it can wreak most enemies if you manage to raise it , so this is kind of a challenge .
I love magnet but it's not even close to the strongest and has horrible, nearly unwinnable matchups vs the top threats. The strongest monster in mr1 is Allergen with an absolute bullet and nothing can compare; it's the strongest any monster has been in the franchise and if it was ported over to any other game with its identical numbers it would be 10x stronger than anything available. Second strongest is a Mint that has an absurd 5 guts rate for some reason. Third is probably a Magna cocooned from the new Red Express worm that has an 11 guts rate.
or maybe the one i forced to spawn in the psx with game shark was messed up, he spawn with 1 on every status, did not obey a single command, when he did train only get 1 to 2 points, but in battle he fill his gut in a blink of an eye, so i could spam heavy attacks without a care.
@@Moosebones You still need to do a video on why MR2 is preferred over MR1 competitively (and if DX is gonna change any of that). Like...what was that about some broken Plant monster? That said OH MAN DOODLES AND DISCS! LETS GO! CHICKEN MOTORCYCLE HYPE!
First vid with my name in the patreons, you love to see it. Seriously though, this vid is awesome and glad to see you breaking things down like this. I had no idea how drugs worked, but I did have a question. A long time ago, I saw something that said if you use drugs and combine a monster with another monster, it'll reduce the new monster's life span. Is that true?
Never seen a point in competitive play personally. Most people seem to just gameshark a monster out, the fact that specific stats are stopped dead at exact numbers to make a build viable to compete is just obvious. Then there's ability removal etc. I love the game, don't get me wrong, I used to sit and play it religiously during my teens but competitive play for this just seems like a joke.
You're also missing that even gamesharked stats don't give you an automatic win. The game's competitive mode is as much RNG as it is fine crafting a Monster to try and overcome that RNG by giving it the best chance. The competition isn't cut throat by that very nature. If you don't enjoy it then there's nothing wrong, competitive play in nearly all games is niche compared to the casual approach most people take. For the people that enjoy optimizing though it's a way to bring new life to a game they love.
@@rxd_titan2860 It's totally cool if it's not for you. It's just that when you've got like 15,000 hours in a video game sometimes you need to play outside the intended norms to keep it fresh.
@@Moosebones I'll give it a go. I'm just not keen on gamesharking monsters out. I see why stat caps are put on tournaments though, if they werent everyone would just turn up with 999 in every stat.
Theres like 4 ppl in the scene insane to banana scum for 100s of weeks. We run rulesets now where a stat under 100 doesnt count towards the cap so scumming is super unnecessary.
This is mostly for competitive play. The game is easy to beat so you don't really have to use any of this information to beat it. It's just there for people that want to Min/Mix and squeeze more gameplay out of the game. Outside of perhaps the "no rest" schedule, I don't think most casuals would worry about most of this in their first playthrough. As someone who put hundreds of hours (maybe more) into MR2 on the PSX, I still don't dive deep into any of the extraneous stuff, but I also don't really have any interest in competitive play.
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