My copy of MF2 just came in the mail! wohoo! Keep checking the site as I'll be updating as find out new stuff! no, I couldn't wait until it came out here :)
-- B Campbell
Answers
Campbell, I want to hear every little detail. By the way, can you tell me what I need to play import games? I have a Game Shark, but not a mod chip or stealth chip (or whatever they care called). I heard somewhere that you can play imports with only a game Shark. Do you know if this is true? I'm dying to order MF 2, but only if I can play it with my playstation as is...
I don't think you can use a Gameshark to play imports. I have my PSX chipped. There is a 'trick' that I've heard of though: with some games, what you have to do is put in a US game and let the PSX title screen come on. Then, you need to switch the CD as it loads the game info. To do this, you need some way to hold down the button in back of your PSX. What this does is use the US CD for the country code verification, then it never checks it again. I don't know if it works with all games. Here's what I found out so far: I put the Monster Rancher CD in and got a monster with a main type 'Blob' (that's just what I'm calling it, the names are in Japanese) and a tiger sub-type. Not a rare monster, by any means. Most of the monsters from the first are still there. I've seen tigers, dinos (which got a huge facelift), hares, jells, plants, and pixies. The new ones I've seen are Lemure-looking monsters, ones that look like a cross between a dog and Eeyore, and the pig guy (he's a 'standard' type that you can get in town). I think Apes are out, as the Hare has the farting attack. Some of the new attacks are cool... the Jell can turn into a cube and 'roll' toward the enemy, etc. the battle system is very much the same, however when you threaten the enemy, it doesn't neccessarily send them all the way back. The hare will only send you back to 3rd range, and my blob would only send enemies back to the 2nd range. There are now 4 different classifications for the attacks... the standard damage, %hit, take will (now called guts), and another that I can't figure out. When an attack takes away guts, the amount of guts taken is shown on the screen along with the damage... Pixies have an attack that does 0 damage but takes away guts :) In addition to the normal types of round-robin battles, you can also enter a single-elimination type of battle called a 'fresh cup'. Fresh cups appear for all classes at once on specific weeks. I haven't figured out their purpose yet. When you win a fight, not only do you get money, but your monster's stats go up! I think the stats that go up are dependant on what type of monster you have; my blob/tiger gets increases to str, spd, and int. Working doesn't give you money anymore, only stat increases, but otherwise is the same. it's now just a way to raise loyalty and pass time. Training is very different. You monster has 4 attempts to pass 4 trials, and passing each one will give you an increase to two stats. For example, I sent my blob to train, and he passed the first two trials. He failed the third one on his first try, but passed on his second try, and then was finished with his 4 weeks of training. When you pick training, a 'wanted' poster shows up, and you can select various monsters from E to S-class, which I assume you fight at the end of the 4th week. Everything's in 3-D now, the whole ranch, which you monster roams about on. The graphics are a bit nicer, but not the best, though that's never where the first game's greatness came from anyway. I'll keep this updated as I find new things.
I never really raised too many hares, so maybe they did. I'll let you know as I find other types of monsters. I'm also going to attepmt to translate the names/types, at least into words I can type in here. One more thing I forgot: when you win an official cup, you don't always just go up one class. My blob entered a D-class cup, and after he won, he could compete in C-class and down. It may be that winning in ANY battle in a class moves you up, but I'm not sure yet.
so is it actually coming out in US or not? I'm not about to get a jap game when i can't speak or read jap unless it isn't coming to america, besides, why would i want to buy some creepy chip to run the game? Anywho... more more more!! I want to know everything about the game before i can get it so i can have the same title in MR2 that i have in MR. So please, gimme more!! Oh, and about the Ape thing, even if you did see Ape pictures on MR2 sites or pictures of apes supposedly in MR2, it coulda been faked. oh, and B... Are the Suezo's really in it? (i know the answer but i must ask), and have they had a face lift? Have they got any new attacks? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Here's another link... this one is to Tecmo's Japanese website. It shows a bunch of the MF2 monsters (Ape, too!). BTW, Campbell do you mind if I ask how much MF2 cost you? How much was the shipping charge and how long did it take?
Okay, a few things... First, suezos: They are there, but I haven't seen any in battle yet. When you go to training, you have to select what monster you want to fight at the end. When you select them, you see the picture of them as it appears in the breeder's book. A couple were suezos, and in fact, there's a new scorpion-type monster, and I think one of the suezos had that monster as a sub-breed because it was Suezo with claws! I think the scorpion monster is a replacement for the worm, as it has a couple worm-like things such as the pierce attack. I'm not sure why/when the battles are round-robin or single-elim. Some of the normal battles are now single-elim as well, which confuses me. I haven't seen an official cup be single-elim yet. Training is very interesting now. As I mentione,d your monster has 4 week, 4 chances to get through 4 trials. If it succeeds, it fights the monster you chose at the beginning. This is a totally AI fight, you con't control your monster. If your monster wins, he gets a new technique and you get money. My monster dfeated a D-class opponent after one session and earned 2000G, enough to make training free! A couple things I forgot: I think you can now choose the sex of your monster, for the effects of messages. When you get a new monster, there is a choice you can make (it's all in Japanese, so I have no clue), and it think it's M/F. There's also a series of 10 yestions you anser yes or no at the begining of a new game, I think the way you answer has an efect on your breeding of your monster and how they are raised. It would be nice to know what they were, though. It cost me, all told, about $50. The game itself is about $45 (Y4980 ) and since my brother shipped it over, I just make it an even 50. it took about a week.
Okay, this is the coolest thing ever: Your monster will let you know wether it wants to work or not. When you select the work and holly asks you 'do you want to do this work' or whatever, the monster will look sad or angry if they don't want to do it! Otherwise, they just stand still. I haven't had them be happy about the work yet. If you make them work when they don't want to, chances are you'll get a worse result. There are also various results you can get from work. There's pass and fail, like before, but there's also a 'questionable' result, where your monster doesn't quite do it right but still does it, and gains a couple points in that stat, and 'great' result, where you monster does excellently and gets a bonus in that stat. Also, there are LOTS more CD's that you need permission for. Out of about 10 I've tried, 4 have been locked. I don't think they're all locked in the same way they were in the first one, but possibly you need to be a certain level breeder to unlock some of them.
checked out tunnel rat's site[the geocities site] and it looks like most of his freezes come from the "book". 408 monsters! b, this is how dense i am - is this playable on my existing playstation, or am i going to have to get new hardware?
Evil: I HOPE I have 4 rare CD's! That would be great! Only downside is figuring out how ot get the 'rare' monsters in the game! ouch... Torey: all you have to do is get your current PSX chipped. If done right, you'll have no harmful side effects and it will play imported, copied, and normal games just fine.
So I was looking at Tunnelrat's screen dumps of the monster cards, and I noticed that the monsters have a class (E through Any class). when you create monsters in the Shrine, are they always E class? Do you need to be a C class breeder to generate a C class monster in the Shrine? If that is the case, perhaps that's why so many CDs need to be unlocked. What is your Breeder rank now, Campbell?
I'm assuming that that's right... ATM I'm a 'D' class breeder, but I've only shrined out E-class monsters (though I've only used about 10 CD's as well). I'm working on getting a monster up the ranks right now to test it out. The game seems to be a bit harder now; It's extremely hard to raise the monster's loyalty. It doesn't just go up when you send them off to work or whatever, it depends on how you treat them. Right now my monster's completely spoiled and only has 50 loyalty. I'm sure part of this has to do with the fact that I can't read japanese as well. So yes, I'm assuming that you have to be a certain rank of breeder to unlcok certain, more powerful or rare, monsters. There's another new thing that happened too. once in a while, your monster fights YOU. It's very strange... a 'warning' flashes on the screen when your monster is about to hit you, and if you press the right buttons, a 'chance' follows where you can land a blow yourself. I'm not sure what effect winning or losing has yet.
ya know.. that sounds exactly like how my son would do it... beat it until it obeys... I myself would shower it with apple cakes until it loved me so much that it wouldn't want to hurt me by disobeying or losing...
have you figured out if you can actually hurt your monster, or if it can hurt you? it sounds like MR2 has a lot of really neat things going for it that the first one didn't...
Yes, the music is MUCH better. it still is upbeat, but it doesn't get as annoying as before. There are more themes too... the music for deaths and getting lost is actually very cool.
By torey_luvullo on Thursday, July 13, 2000 - 01:41 pm:
this is the "kickoff" post for b campbell's board, all right, but it was not the first post on the board. there were several "preseason" posts before this, mostly chatter about the establishment of the board, and how he was going to try to get mf2 from japan. those were about a month or so before this one.
Wow. It's amazing to be able to look back on things this way. Especially with thnigs that are so commonplace now, that were such 'amazing' things. Like the 'blob/tiger', whoch I'm assuming is a Frozen Gaboo. And the monster fighting _you_ (playing the 'sparring' game). The question you answer when you get a monster (do you want to keep it?). Spoiling the monster rotton, and wondering why its loyalty wasn't going up.