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How Monster Rancher generates monsters

A basic overview of how Monster Rancher works with using CDs or Music to generate monsters in the original mainline games.

 

Changes to the Switch/Mobile/Steam (DX) re-releases

MF1 was released on Switch/Mobile platforms in 2019, MF2 in 2020 with MF and MR 1&2 DX released Dec, 2021.

These versions of the game have an offline/internal CD Database with a fairly even spread of Titles/Artist entries that create a given monster, including Rare monsters (Rare/??? types are much more common/obtainable)

It works by Text searching for a Title & Artist, and you get a monster.
Internally this Title/Artist entry refers to an Entry ID# which is bound to a Monster ID#. The Monster ID# is referenced from a master table list that includes every variant of every monster, including variants within each sub-breed.

Several determinations are made at this point: Including if a monster is born with a static set of stats, or if offsets are applied after it is shrined. Monsters with NO offsets will always be identical regardless of Title/Artist used. Monsters WITH offsets have small degree of variation depending on which Title/Artist is used, in addition to the random roll within the offset range after it is shrined.

Even though the CDDB is a limited 644k entries, the resulting monsters have more variation and options than the original game

 

How the heck does this game make Monsters from CDs?

The trademark novelty of Monster Rancher is how you get the actual monsters

During Gameplay, at the shrine, there is an option to create monsters from mysterious "Disk Stones" or "Saucer Stones" (this is in-game mythology that equates to your CD collection).
Monsters are generated by your favorite Music (Audio) CDs, Games (anykind in CD format), and MR1 and MR2 can also create monsters from any Personal Computer CD. So, if you have ANY of these in your home... You truly have Monsters in hiding just waiting to come out!

So, while at the shrine, When prompted, you swap out the Game Disk and insert your CD of choice.
After a few moments the game prompts you to enter the Game Disk back into the Playstation.
Once the Game Disk is back in, there is an animation on the screen and then your monster is born! - you even get to give it a name.

 

Other Consoles

Over time, across other consoles and games, other methods have also been included to generate monsters depending on the limitations or exclusive features that a given console provides.
  • Passwords (Game boy Advance games)
  • Drawing (Nintendo DS)
  • Keywords & NFC (Nintendo Switch)

 

Technical Details

What is really going on here, is that the the game was created to read the Table of Contents data from CDs to randomly generate monsters.
Some specific CD's table of contents are hard-coded into the game to create the unique monsters as well!

What is a Table of Contents / TOC data?

Every CD has a TOC. It basically describes the CD layout (Tracks and Sessions), This basically tells a disk reader where things are on the disk itself, and is not the actual contents of a disk.

Slightly more Technical details

Now that we know how this process works, you can actually use this knowledge to create the exact monsters you want!
A very specific software called Clone CD creates temporary files during a CD reading process that separates the actual contents of the CD data from the Table of Contents into 2 different files.

Because this process pauses between reading and writing a CD, the TOC data from a completely different CD can be copied into that TOC file. Since this is the only data the game reads, the game will think it is that particular CD!

 

Of Note

Sometimes you may have the Album of an Artist that is Supposed to create a special monster, but when you attempt to do so, it doesn't. Why is that?

This caused confusion in the beginning, but it turns out it was due to differences in the CD manufacturing process between publishers of CDs, like those Columbia House or BMG where both would have a particular CD title available but they were created differently enough between them that the Table of Content data were not 100% identical.

So, sure, as far as listening to music, the CDs were identical, but the underlying TOC data the game actually uses to create a monster was not the same.

Using the TOC data of the CD known to work, the CloneCD process can be used to capture that data. And because it is text, it is very easy to share with others, who can then use CloneCD to take that shared data and insert it into the TOC file prior to burning a CD. Now everyone can technically share their entire "Disk Stone" collection without violating copyright law!

Visit the Laboratory page to download TOC data and learn how to use CloneCD to create a CD that makes the desired monster for the game!
This section contains text files of many rare and unique monsters so you can use these files along with CloneCD to make any of these monsters. This was a huge community effort to gather this data and collect it into one place.

 

Major News for the Laboratory

  • In late 2020, a MR community member, SmilingFaces96, was able to extract the data tables from the game and discern the exact values and locations that are read by the game for creating monsters.
  • SmilingFaces96's documentation is here. This data allowed the CD read process to be reverse engineered and you could manually create your own text files to make ANY monster and ANY variant of any monster within the game's defined limits.
  • After a discussion with both SmilingFaces96 and another community member, Teawch, this process was turned into an automation via a web application we call Make-A-Monster, a CD Shrine Generator you can use for MR1 or MR2, where the code can be generated on the fly and you can download the files required to immediately burn your CD to make your monster without the TOC swapping method from 2001.
  • You can check out the MR1 and MR2 Make-A-Monster apps from the Laboratory page!
  • This page was last modified: July 27 2024
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