As most of you know, there are a few monster breeds added to this game, all of them types from games of the past. So, you have a few more monster choices.

Right now, I just have the basic drills and they are the same as in the first game.

Town looks a bit different, and so does the ranch.

The ranch has a little tree that appears to be growing, on the lower right side of the screen. I will keep an eye on it.

You can still discover items by using the stylus to guide your monster around the screen at the ranch menu. Items seem to be harder to find than in the first game. -At least with a baby monster.

Regeneration allows for sounds, drawings and book creation. Once you shrine a type, even if you do not keep it, it stays in your book. So far, I have not gotten a duplicate, so I do not know if the book can be overwritten or if it might represent a baseline value.

There is a lot more conversation and interaction with other people in MFDS2. You'll also find more explanations and demonstrations.

Looking at the map of the area in a screenshot from the official site, it seems that the game takes place in the FIMBA area, plus a part of the IMa area accessible for ventures. Has anyone mentioned BOMBA yet?

Additionally, the chairman of BOMBA apparently returns, albeit wearing a hood.

Yes, someone spoke to me about BOMBA, I went quickly through the dialog so I could start shrining...

Well, if it isn't the FIMBA, then BOMBA must be a new association whose jurisdiction is over the area northwest of FIMBA on the same continent, according to the map in MFA2's instructions booklet, which would explain what Kawera is doing there.

The technique arranger doesn't list techniques with letter grades anymore. We used to see things like Guts Down A, damage B, Accuracy D, etc. Now it has gone to the symbolic versions with double circle (highest), then Circle, then Triangle, then X (lowest or none).

A new addition that I find very interesting is a journal of the last 6 months of your ranch. It shows the calendar and what you did on each week. it shows when you changed monster and everything. It also gives a rank on how you did with various things. For instance, if you trained on a given week, It shows an icon for the specific drill and a symbolic rank for how well you did. (Circle is success, double circle is Super success) If you went to a tournament, it shows your final placement position too. This is a really great tool for people who put the game down and then pick it up at a later date, or if you only play occasionally.

Another addition I just found is the Memo function. It basically acts as a notebook about Monster raising, Battle, and expeditions. It has a complete explanation of all the important data in all the menus and status screens. Basically it's a built-in guide. New players will find this immensely helpful.

another great thing is that the Breeder's list of tournaments starts of with all 100 tournaments listed. This means you can tell much more easily when you have completed them all. Some of them have no dates of names because you haven't unlocked them yet, but these are filled in when find them.

Battles have a few changes too. You can no longer spam attacks. Every attack has a short cool-down period that gives your opponent a window of time to react. It's about 2 seconds long. Also, tournament grids show KOs. If a monster wins by KO, they get a double circle on the grid instead of a regular blue circle. You can also change your techniques before each battle!!!

One last thing, the battle timer now PAUSES when a monster attacks. This is a big change and makes battles seem longer. Before, you could find a long animation technique to kill of the last 10 seconds of the clock. Now, it no longer matters. When you start your attack, time freezes. Guts counters do not raise and time doesn't come off the clock. this is something I have always thought should have been in there and I am glad it is (even if it does mean that I lose few close battles).

Ah, I'm not too fond of the timer pausing attacks. It kills the suspense. But I can live with it.

They've certainly added lots of splendid stuff to this game. The memo and journal are so obvious, yet so useful. I wonder if the composite cap is still 6000?

How many items can you give/feed your monster in any given week?

I am curious about what you mean by 'it kills the suspense'. I know that I sure hated it when I only needed to hit my opponent with one small attack to win and the opponent rolled out looooong attacks that killed the clock so I didn't have any opportunity to hit. It was even worse if they could do it 3 times in a row without me being able to have any opportunity. But now with the 2 second cooldown and the clock pause during attack animations, the match goes back and forth much more frequently and feels like a brawl instead of a beatdown. If you plan to pick it up, you might change your mind.

One last thing I forgot... You can now find out your monsters current status ANYTIME. In the DATA menu the very first option is "monster status". Hit it and your assistant tells you how tired and stressed your monster is, just like she says at the beginning of every week. This is immensely helpful in my mind and yet another thing that should ALWAYS have been in MR games.

Cap of 6000 - unsure, but probably still true.

Items per week - unsure again. I almost never use items, so someone else will have to answer. Maybe once I get a boatload of money then I will test it.

Something else of note - the BOMBA building is not open to you when you start the game. It gives a message that notes "6 months", but I am not sure if it means that I have to have had 6 months of ranch time or if my monster needed to be 6 months old. I do know that I got a visitor telling me about errantry training about 4 months into the game, but I couldn't get into BOMBA yet.

Also, I am at breeder rank C and still do not have the option for text entry at the shrine. I lost the Official C cup on my last go, so I will see if it opens up at rank B on the next one.

Another new addition..

The breeder data now has 2 screens for monster breeds instead of 1. MFDS had 1 screen that showed all of the base breeds and how high you have managed to raise each one. MFDS 2 now has 2 screens. The first screen shows all the breed available at the start of the game. Screen 2 has 12 spots for unlockable breeds. It basically tells me that I have 12 breeds to discover.

Here is something I haven't figured out quite yet..

https://www.thorrsoldhammers.com/MFDS2/INDICATOR.JPG

If you look next to the rank of the monster, you can see a blue square with 3 stars. I have yet to see this icon change on any of my monsters.

I like the changes, especially the battle clock -it seems so much fairer than before.

No idea what the stars are. A guess is that it indicates if a monster is first gen or combined, stars indicating first gen. -Or, it's about wifi. Guess it will be discovered eventually!

Noticed something about the Memo just now. Apparently, you only get them if you have received the information. Example - There are supposed to be 11 pages about raising monsters on the farm (middle choice). When I first brought my monster back to the farm, I could view the first 3 pages but nothing else. I thought I could view all 9 pages of Battle memos, but I can only view 8 of them. So, there is a mini-goal of filling out the Memo book..

As far as MR goes, one of the main draws for me was the fact that the clock was constantly ticking, like a real sports event (that is timed), and the tide could turn at the very last second. I find that very exciting. It may be annoying when you lose, but it feels fantastic when you win. I suppose the reasons I love the constantly ticking clock are the same reasons you don't.

MR4's timer also stopped during attacks, and while the battles were still lots of fun, much of the tension I was so keen on was gone. Virtually all matches ended in knockouts. Then again, the guts counter didn't stop in that game, nor was there a delay between attacks. That definitely evens things out, at least.

These extras are looking better and better. My copy arrived recently, but I won't be able to play it until I return from vacation, which won't be much longer.

Now give the shrine another try!

Very fair point. I think I like it because it can be less cheesy. But now that I hear your explanation of your statement, I definitely agree with what you meant. (I never played MR on consoles after MR2, so I didn't know that about MR4.)

You are also right in that there are more KO's, but there's also a lot more standing around while your guts counter goes up.

I think it would be very convenient if a future MR game gave you the option to turn timer-stopping during attacks on or off, like how games like Chrono Trigger and some Final Fantasy titles allow you to force enemies to wait while you're making combat decisions instead of constantly hitting you. According to what a few friends have told me, it's pretty easy to implement.

Stars - Haven't figured them out yet, but I now have a monster with only 1 star. He's a pure plant I made by combining to other mixed plants. The mixed plants were both 3 Star monsters, but the resulting plant is only a 1 star monster.

I made a pure pixie from an ogyo/pixie and a pixie/piroro, it has three stars...

Perhaps it has something to do with the monsters' compatibility?

Or just its overall growth patterns. I noticed that this 1 star monster had all triangles and X's in the growth stats. y starting pixie was 3 star and I was gaining 7-9 on drills. This plant is only gaining 3-5 no matter what I train.

So apparently 1-star monsters are duds.

Have you ever gotten any 1-star monsters from the shrine? Also, how many grids do you have access to now?

How many grids? I have access to no grids at all. I still cannot use the word input screen. It's not an option yet.

My 1 star plant is ticking me off so far, so it may be a dud. I was figuring that Plant monsters usually have high Life stats and that raising one would be great for exploring. (I named her Dora...) However, Life training is getting me 3 life at a time. The pure Plant in MFDS1 has good life gain. Apparently not so in MFDS2.

Have you tried regenerating a new Plant from the book to see how many stars it starts of with? It might be worth a shot.

Yes, I got a 1 star plant from the book. The combined plant in my freezer is 3 stars (even though its starting stats are lower than the book monster)

I found a new icon.. My dragon has a Moon instead of stars.

Oooh....

The game's screwing with us.

Say, has anyone managed to get two different star ratings with the same monster? Also, has anyone managed to find a three star Suezo? I want one!

Also, I finally obtained the game earlier today, and noticed almost immediately that all of the music from the previous game (which apparently make up most of the soundtrack) have added instrumentation. While it seems like a minor addition, the improvement is very noticeable. It sounds much better this time round.


Also, I found that you can skip through the regeneration scene by tapping the screen, and you can now zoom in and out when viewing monsters in the book. And since all the dialogue takes place on the bottom screen, the camera zooms in on the monster a bit closer than in MFDS.

And is it just me, or are some of the monsters' stats much lower than they used to be? Looking at the screenshots Thorr provided, some subspecies of monsters (i.e. Hornie, Zanzo) have higher stats than the main breed in certain areas than they're supposed to. I wonder what the story behind that is?

Wow. I just got a Pixie-Modoki by combining a Green Suezo with a Pixie while trying to get a non-existent Pixie/Plant. The reason I did it in the first place was because while the Suezo/Pixie and Pixie/Suezo combos gave circles, the Pixie/Plant combo got a double circle.

That's a good idea by TECMO; to give Modoki monsters whenever the combo doesn't have a true mix. That's the way it -should- be instead of giving away modoki monsters every time you screw up a drawing.

I have not seen any monster change stars during its lifetime. My Pixie/ogyo stayed 3 stars its whole life and my current Dragon still has a Moon icon after 1y4m.

Here is something I noticed - It seems that a monster can enter ANY tournament with a rank higher than itself. However, I can't enter one higher than my breeder rank. So, my rank E Dragon can enter Rank B tournaments. Monsters can still only sandbag one rank lower though. Anyone else try it?

The kudos goes to Cing for that one.

Being able to skip several ranks is a fantastic idea, especially if the combination results in this game are as generous as the last one.

MFDS2 is a dream so far. So many fantastic new elements that are not only extremely useful, but extremely obvious. The sorts of things you'd take for granted. This is how you keep Monster Rancher fresh.

I should note that, unlike MFDS, when you shut off the game without saving and load it up again, you don't get a message from your assistant. Additionally, my monster almost never fools around during matches. I've yet to see how difficult it will be to move it around during ventures.

Ventures are difficult. You can get a good idea of how it will be by trying to get your monster to walk around your farm.

That reminds me. Have you noticed any changes in your monsters' loyalty? Can you tell what the loyalty indicator says?

I haven't translated the loyalty indicators. The Loyalty and Popularity numbers are gone. They are replaced by 'level' names. Example - Popularity from around 60-80 = Star, 80-100 = Hero (these were easy to read...)

The loyalty info uses Kanji that I can't quite make out. (The lowest level of Popularity too..)

Note: My tree seems to be full grown. (the icon for it is now quite huge). It hit full size at the beginning of year 6. Not once has the assistant said anything about it. I tried bringing my class A dragon over to explore the area in October a couple of times, but no Beaclon event.

Heh,I just looked in the perfect guide for MFDS and it reminded me that I should be looking for Beaclon in AUGUST.. Duhh.....

It looks like the 999 stat cap is back. I can't seem to raise my Pixie's INT higher than 999.

It may be that you can't go above it until you hit Class S. Will find out, I hope..

It's been a while since I played MRDS1, so I may be mistaken, but didn't the original DS game have people come by to offer to explore with you?

In this game, you have to visit the association to explore.

I may be remembering a different MR game though...?

MFDS2's exploration is the same as MFDS. You're thinking of MR2, and to a lesser extent MRA2.

Yeah sorry...
Dunno what I was thinking.

I guess I didn't play MRDS as much as I thought I did?...

I just found this out by accident: You can compare your monster to any monster in a tournament by tapping their names while in the comparison screen. Handy!

Here's an interesting observation; Have you ever tried pushing back a monster with a much higher Pow stat than your own? There were several instances in which my Pixie, with only 95 Pow, tried pushing back a monster with much higher Pow several times, and it wouldn't even budge. Looks like your monster's physical strength determines whether or not you'll be able to push back the buff guys. Something to consider when thinking of ignoring the stat altogether.

Here's the latest MFDS2 blog entry. It looks like an interview. Anything noteworthy in there?

Oh, I forgot to post this earlier. Does the chart look familiar to anyone?

The chart on the right is the Lifetime Stat-gain pattern chart. It has been simplified to 4 patterns this time around. In your combination screen, the life pattern is show on the lower left area for your new monster. The characters will match the legend exactly.

The chart on the left side is the punishment chart and shows the effects on stress, leniency, closeness when you choose to punish/not punish your monsters when they fail to do your bidding. The White rows are Praise, the grey rows are Punish.
The first chart is for doing excellent training. The second is Failing training. The third is for Cheating.