Koei Tecmo announced the remaster of monster training and fighting game Monster Rancher and its sequel are now out globally.
Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX as it’s called, is a 2-in-1 release that not only makes it playable on modern platforms, but also adds in features never seen in the original western release, including additional save slots, additional freeze slots, additional Monster Hall Of Fame slots and 27 additional monsters.
Plus, the remaster also includes Training Records to help you keep track of your monster training regime, rankings for random battles and a fast forward mode.
Not only that, all players can participate in the Monster Koushien World Battle. This was only available in Japan, and is now a worldwide tournament where you get to upload your save data to the game servers to see who has the strongest monster in the world.
Monster Rancher 1 & 2 are mostly known for their big gimmick, where you can get monsters by inserting a CD into the PS1. Since the Switch, PC and mobile devices don’t use CD anymore, the monster summoning method is now replaced with a lookup to an online music database. So you just pick an artist or album name to generate your monsters.
The monsters you summon will then need to be trained, fed and properly raised for fighting tournaments. Take good care of them and they will live a happy life and can be fused to create stronger monsters. Or you can see them end up dead. It’s a contemporary of Pokemon and Digimon, but with its own angle on the monster-collecting genre.
Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX is now available on PC via Steam for RM130. It’s also available on the Nintendo Switch, and on Apple App Store.