As you unlock more powerful monsters, you will notice something happening at the Shrine in the early game. Each unlock for the rarer breeds requires a certain series of steps. To actually get access to the full monster roster, you need to complete a few steps for each monster breed. And that process often involves raising tough monsters, and winning tournaments. Winning the battles in Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX are the true end goal. For one thing, you need to unlock higher Breeder ranks by raising monsters of a certain grade. To get into the higher ranks, you must win the Official IMA tournament that takes place every three months.
Preparing Is Key
Each monster will have a set series of stat gains rated from E to A. The closer to A a monster is in a stat, the faster they gain that stat in Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX. Here’s a great tool for checking the stat gain rating of each breed. You can also use items to gain stat buffs and boost the impact of training. The best approach is to try and manage fatigue and keep your monster healthy. The best way to get ready to brawl is to focus on the three stats that your monster has the best rating in. For context, I’m currently raising a Mia that has SKI, SPD and INT as its best stats.
How Should I Approach Tournaments?
There are many different tourneys throughout the months of your monster’s life. Most monsters live about 300-500 weeks, so you need to train for their peak stats during that time. Knowing how to train your stats is key, but it’s also great to know your opponents. There will be around 8 main monsters you will encounter in each rank from E to S during each official tournament. The higher you go in ranks, the more stats scores each opponent will have.
For context, the basic E and D ranks have stats that top out just below 200. A-rank monsters will have 2-3 stats that they are focused on, with scores in the 400-500 range. The rest of their stats will be in the 200-300 range. S-rank opponents will be much higher, with some stats above 900. The difficulty spike is huge between those two ranks. You don’t have to force your way into every tournament. Managing stress and fatigue is key for raising a monster that’s Loyal and has good stats for its rank.
How Battles in Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX Work
Aside from the stats there’s a lot more to manage. For one thing, the lower your Loyalty of a monster, the more likely they are to be confused and refused to attack when in a battle. It’s a great idea to manage your training to keep Loyalty above 70 for most monsters, this seems to be the threshold. You need to feed items and play with your monsters when they ask to raise loyalty. Then there’s Guts.
Each attack will come with a chance to hit rate and a cost. In Monster Rancher 1, this is done with Will. In Monster Rancher 2, it is Guts. Each technique you have costs a certain amount of Guts. Also, there are four ranges to worry about. The techniques on the far-right of a battle menu are close, and the farthest left can only be triggered when you’re far enough away.
One of the key things to do in battles is to pay attention to both Will/Guts and your technique Hit%. The better chance you have to hit, the better you’re going to do. The goal in fights is to end with more health than your opponent. This means that the player will want to send their monster on Errantry to get new Techniques. You will need much more powerful techniques to win at higher ranks.
Forfeits and KOs
If you play enough tourneys, you may notice a few things. The monsters may sometimes forfeit before they even battle you. If there’s too much of a difference in stats to your CPU opponent, they won’t even fight you. The thing you must keep in mind is that getting KOd has a lot of impact on the game, too. If you keep KOing enemy monsters, they will be much less likely to fight you. The downside is that if your monster gets KOd, you will shorten its lifespan by several months each time. This is why it’s important to have an eye on that Forfeit button. If you’re about to lose and don’t want to risk a KO to bring it back, forfeit.
