A First Time Beginner's Walk-through for
Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher

THIS GUIDE CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS
(In a couple of screenshots shown).

Is this your first time playing Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher? This beginner’s guide and walkthrough will attempt to help the first time player with simple explanations and guidance to help you navigate and beat the game without spoiling too much of what's going on under the hood.

What is Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher?

Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher is a spin-off cross-universe game between Monster Rancher and Ultraman, and collaboration between BandaiNamco and KoeiTecmo. At it's core, it is an open-ended menu driven pet raising simulation but with real-time battle for tournaments and progression. Roots for the Monster Rancher series of games go all the way back to 1996, from Tecmo's Gallop Racer, A Horse Breeding, Raising, and Racing simulator that replaces horses with fantasy creatures, and races with Tournaments and battles.

In typical game play you will manage two budgets; One is Gold you've earned from competing in tournaments, and the other is your Kaiju’s Lifespan. You want to make the most out of both to have a productive Kaiju. Your first Kaiju may not be particularly strong, but your personal progress is retained, even after your Kaiju ages out and retires, allowing you to start a new Kaiju, hopefully with a better budget to make it further than you did prior.

Because decision paths can be so varied, this walkthrough is not going to give you exact step-by-steps, but instead inform you of how things work, and help you make the required determinations so that it can be applied to any Kaiju and as many raising scenarios as possible.

While on a new play-through many options will be unselectable until you have progressed far along enough that you are ready to learn something new.

The game opens with an explanation of Ultraman, Kaiju, and Breeders and quickly discover that the Association doesn't appear to have your Breeder's License. You You will meet Holly almost immediately, and shortly afterward Kanezo. These two will be ever-present while you raise your Kaiju, giving you guidance, advice, or general dialogue of things going on through out the game.

Over the course of roughly 6 months, You will be walked through quite a bit of game mechanics including getting your first Kaiju, how real time combat works, doing Drills and going on Errantry, and equipping Traits with the Cookie system.

While all of this is slowly introduced to you, each new bit of learned information this is added to the in-game Help section for future reference, which has been transcribed here for easier searching.

There's several things that can only be done while in the City, and you'll find yourself needing to come back here often.

Acquiring your first Kaiju

This will basically be the first thing you do in the City. After all, you can't go to the ranch to raise a Kaiju without first having one! As you progress, more options will be available to you, but here's what each of the options are for:

Altar: This is where you get Kaiju, and through a few different methods.

• Memory Board: This is the spiritual successor to the original game's "CD Reading" gimmick, but instead, it can read any NFC capable device apart from Amiibos.
• Keywords or Search for Music: This is a substitute for the original gimmick. This option allows input of Keywords (NA version - This can still be any Music Artist you want to input, or any word or name you wish) or Search through a Database of song title/artist (SEA/JP version - Limited to the pre-selected build-in database) to generate a monster. The main difference is that when using Keywords, if you generate a locked Kaiju it will make something else as a substitute, but the Song Lost will tell you that it is locked and won't give you a substitute.
  

  
• Enter Code: If you have any Ultraman collectible cards that have redeem codes, they can be used here. Don't worry, there's nothing available here that isn't available from the above two methods.
• Receive Supplied Kaiju: This is a changing roster of Seasonal Kaiju available for free.
• Select from Field Guide: After you have generated a Kaiju from any method, it is entered and recorded in the Field Guide. After, with this option, you can directly create any previously recorded Kaiju from the guide instead of one of the above methods.

Inheritance Cookie Shop: This is where you can bake cookies which can give your Kaiju additional Traits than what it is born with. Feeding a cookie, and "equipping" a trait is considered permanent, however when you have access to Expeditions you can find "Reset Powder" at some locations which will erase all traits aside from the born-with trait, so that new ones can be equipped.

There are two cookie types, and 3 quality/stat levels of each type depending on how they are generated. The bonus is the same regardless of the quality, however, Cookies are coveted for their stackable bonus attributes they apply rather than the minimal stat bonuses.

• Rearing (Green border): These Cookies give your Kaiju benefits that can help make raising easier or are directly related to Ranch activities.
• Battle (Red border): These cookies give your Kaiju benefits for any battle/tournament related activity. This can be helpful for progression if you're getting stuck, or very useful if you decide to try PVP tournaments.

Association: You can store Kaiju here for later use. Kaiju placed under care do NOT age. You can swap out your active Kaiju at any time. The active Kaiju will be green. Retired Kaiju will be gray. You may hear this referred to as the Freezer by long-time Monster Rancher players, as traditional MR games use Cryogenics to store monsters.

Research Center: This is locked until you reach Breeder Rank 2. This is where Fusing Kaiju happens. There's a whole guide specifically for fusion since, especially for high stat newborns, it can be a complicated topic. In most cases you'll visit here any time you discover items that unlock Kaiju so you can fuse them to unlock a new breed.
Fusion without planning or using the calculator in the guides section is a game of roulette if you're trying to get stats. However, passing down extra attacks to baby Kaiju is practically effortless, as long as the first parent knows 1 of each tech type or knows many techs.

When you fuse 2 Kaiju to create a new baby, the Parent's are consumed in the process! When you are unlocking a monster that just needs 2 other monsters to be fused with a special item, I suggest acquiring free ones from the Altar's "Receive Supplied Kaiju" option, and save your well raised Kaiju for future fusions.

This example isn't typical of an inexperienced fusion roulette, but rather an example of an intentional and planned fusion in advance. Don't worry about getting something like this just yet, but it's possible to use even your very first Kaiju in Fusion to make something decently stronger than something straight from the Altar!

Now that you have your Kaiju, it’s time to take it to the ranch!
Time passes in weekly increments, so any action you’re doing is assumed to be taking place for the entire week (or in several other occasions, lasts for multiple weeks). Monster's lifespans are also measured in weeks, so as you spend time on the ranch you'll be choosing to accomplish things within the budget of your monster's lifespan (and your wallet).

On a first play through, expect the first 6 months to hand-hold you through all of the basics of Ranching, along with an entry in the Help guide as you progress through the tutorial phase of the game. Your choices will be limited during the un-skippable tutorial as to help guide you through as many of the game's basic mechanics as possible. Help manual transcription.

Once you've finished the tutorial, you'll choose from a number of menu options to progress forward however you choose to do so, though most likely you'll be doing Drills for quite a lot of your Kaiju's life (Covered below).

• Drills: Your primary means to raise your monster's stats. There are two types of drills for each location, in addition to Drill Levels (which are raised as the corresponding stats are raised).
  A appears if a territory is being contested.
• Errantries: Primarily used for learning new attacks, especially in the beginning. You will choose a trainer that is at a random location periodically.
  • The Trainer determines the Techs that can be learned, while the location determines which stats are also raised.
  • Errantry will adjust 4 stats over the duration, increasing 2 and lowering 2 (Though the amount dropped is fairly small in comparison to what is gained).
  • Bonuses can also be applied to stats gained from Errantry as well, especially when the trainer is at a location that lines up with the trainer's preferred stat indicated by the icon shown on their profile.
• Adventure: Primarily used as a side quest to find items that unlock new Kaiju to raise. You can also find numerous other items on Adventure for raising or fusing Kaiju as well.
  A appears during Adventure months when your Kaiju qualifies to attend.
• Rest: The standard for helping lower Stress, Fatigue, and Anger. It's free and fairly effective. If a Kaiju is too angry, it may not get enough rest overnight and fail to recover fatigue. Additionally, Rest consumes a week of lifespan. Eventually you will be able to raise monsters with minimal, or no resting at all, once you have acquired many of the passive effect items and have the money to afford weekly feeding items.
• Items: A will appear if you've already fed your Kaiju for the week. Often overlooked, items are some of the most powerful things you can use in the game! They are costly though. Some items are your weekly bread and butter while others have more niche uses. You'll see in the Raising Methods guide that items are used every week, but this may not be sustainable for a first time player or brand new game.
• Shop: A will appear if there's a sale for the current week. This is where you buy items. There's an items guide that lists out in great detail every item and their effects. If you win a tournament that rewards an item, then that item should immediately be available in the shop to purchase afterward.
  - SALES! Any time you beat a new tournament, Grandma Teresa will offer a sale the following week. Teresa also holds a sale two weeks out of the year regardless.
• Letters: A will appear if you've received a new letter. You will get letters concerning fan mail, unlock clues, adventure invites, sales, and other random letters from various characters you've met. Recurring letters are replaced with the current date while 1-time letters are retained for later viewing.

Your budget may not include affording items right away, but don't forget about them just because they're not accessible just yet. Items are easily one of the most overlooked aspects of the games due to being entirely optional and costing money, often with crytptic descriptions about what they can do. Consider beginning regular and scheduled item usage when you reach roughly 2 to 3 Million Gold. With the right ones you'll notice your Kaiju are able to live longer, and reach higher stats!

The items guide page has extensive breakouts of effects for every item. Some items can be sorted out by observing their effects, but if you want to be sure, you can refer to the Items guide to learn exact effects on everything. Additionally you can refer to the Raising Methods guide for a regimented schedule of Items and Drills.

Monthly Items: Robots have 3 food choices, and Non-Robots have 7 food choices. You won't be allowed to feed each type's food to the other type, the options will be greyed out.

• Robots: Heavy Oil is the best food. Light Oil is slightly better than neutral. Avoid Old Oil if at all possible.
• Non-Robots: Giant Egg is the best food followed by Nutrition Pellet. Most of the foods have positive benefits, however. 6-Grain Brothers is neutral and Dried Grass should be avoided if at all possible.

Monsters get tired of the same old stuff. Avoid feeding the same food/spice combination 3 weeks in a row. On every 3rd week, either use a different spice with the same food, or switch to a different food for a week, then switch back. This will help prevent getting tired of monthly foods.

Weekly Items: Monthly foods are important, but Weekly foods can be given... well... every week! The Raising Methods guide details out several schedules for Drills and Items, however, for early game you can use Ultra Mangos to help keep fatigue down. Tournaments reduce stress greatly so during the early game, while fighting many tournaments, you can get away with mangos and rest in between.

Passive Items give benefits without having to use them, simply by having them in your inventory. Start collecting passive items as soon as possible.
Gemini Pot and Artemis Statue are from low grade tournaments, Charm of Light is from mid grade tournament (You can skip Ring of Darkness or acquire/sell it). Pandon Stone and Peguila Stone are from Adventures.

Cookies! When a Kaiju is born, they are born with their own Self-Trait (This can be acquired as a cookie to be given to other Kaiju!) and 1 vacant Cookie Slot. At 1 year old the 3rd slot opens, and at 2 years old the 4th slot opens.

Briefly discussed in the City section above, Cookies can be invaluable bonuses to help raise or battle your Kaiju. Your first Kaiju will probably benefit more from Battle Cookies to help you earn money that can be used towards future Kaiju. Rearing cookies are excellent to use for Long-Haul training schedules with minimal battling when money is no longer a concern. It's OK to mix them up as well with whatever you think will be useful.

Cookie Generating Tip: Save money and make cookies quickly!

• Put your Kaiju in the Association.
• Save the game.

(This eliminates accidentally equipping a cookie, and also avoids extra dialogue in the below steps)

1. Start spam creating Shop Special cookies until you get one you want immediately, or in future, or up to your 30 cookie limit.
2. If you got one you wanted, immediately discard any unwanted cookies up to that point, save, then start again at step 1.
3. If you didn’t pull any you wanted during step 2, Press + to Go back to Title, and reload, and start again from step 1. (You get your money back, and it's faster than deleting a ton of cookies 1 at a time).

Once you're finished you can bring your Kaiju out of the Association and equip a desired cookie, or continue your normal play.

Drills are one of the primary methods to raise your Kaiju's stats.
To get into why results from drills seem abysmal at first, and improve later requires explaining a bit about other aspects of the game: Life Stages, Stat gains (aptitudes) and Drill Levels.

A simplified overview:

• Life Stages: Kaiju start out as a baby, grow into adolescense, Reach their Prime/Peak, then become elder and eventually into their twilight days until they are retired. This affects Stat Gains across the board that scale up then back down during these life stages.
• Stat Gains (aptitudes): Different breeds of Kaiju have affinities towards certain stats, so those gains can be better. Mixed breeds of Kaiju can adjust those affinities to try and get the best of both worlds.
• Drill Levels: As your stats are raised to certain thresholds, the Drill levels also raise. When a Drill Level is raised it's like a specialization, and they begin to get more stat gains from a higher level drill than a lower level drill.

Let's explain what the Stats actually do which will help you determine which drills you'll want to focus with your Kaiju:

• LIF: Health Bar for Battle, and Energy for Expeditions.
• POW: Increases POW (Red) Attack damage + lowers damage from POW attacks
• INT: Increases INT (Blue) Attack damage + lowers damage from INT attacks
• SKI: Increases Accuracy / Counters opponent SPD
• SPD: Increases Dodge / Counters opponent SKI
• DEF: General DEF that lowers dmg from both POW and INT attacks

^{It should be noted that Techniques have their own values for accuracy and damage depending on the Technique type. These effects are enhanced by raising your Kaiju's corresponding stats.}

There are two types of Drills: Light and Heavy. These are most likely the primary things your Kaiju will do for the majority of it's life to raise their stats.

• Light Drills: Raise a single stat by a medium amount and incur a small amount of stress, fatigue, and anger.
• Heavy Drills: Raise 2 stats; The primary by a large amount, the secondary by a small amount, while lowering a tertiary stat by a small amount, and at the cost of higher stress, fatigue, and anger.

As your stats increase, the corresponding drill level for that stat can increase. When a Drill level is increased, the amount of stats gained from that drill is also increased. There are multiple bonuses you can acquire (Territory, cookies, racial) to boost the total gains acquired per each drill.

What is Stress, Fatigue, and Anger? Stress is COMPLETELY hidden in the game and is a silent killer. Fatigue and Anger have on-screen displays to keep note of. Regardless of which it is, these are values that go up and down by varying amounts based on your actions. When Stress and Fatigue climb too high you start losing additional week(s) of lifespan for each week lived. When Anger gets too high your monster will Rampage.

• Having high Stress and Fatigue can cause your Kaiju to lose additional lifespan and is better to be proactive about this, rather than be reactive.
• Having high Anger has pros and cons. High anger makes it difficult for your monster to Rest and recover. Maxing out Anger causes a rampage which usually ends up costing a small amount of money to repair their rampaging damage, but it builds up tolerance to things that make your Kaiju angry. Additionally it allows you to starts with more Guts in battle, but it also increases the chance for confusion.
  - At high loyalty and several rampages under your belt, you'll start seeing "MAX" stat cap increases, raising the ceiling to raise stats from 10,000 up to 12,000.
• Stress can be lowered with Rest, Mint Leaf (50%), and Mandarin Juice (25%)
• Fatigue can be lowered with Rest, Mandarin Juice, and Ultra Mango
• Anger can be reduced with Rampage (drops to 0), Rest, Relaxing Cocao, Territory battle. Other things that can raise or lower anger may be dependant on their Likes and Dislikes in the "Other" tab of the monster data.

Techs: Babies are born with basic techs, and some variants seen in the Keywords/Song List can have an extra non-basic techs. You can use Errantry to learn more techs later.

While it might be a spoiler, it’s worth it to look up your Kaiju’s Tech List to see what options it will have available to it, and at which thresholds, to help in your decision making about which stats to raise. (You may not want to invest heavily into INT if your Kaiju only has mostly POW Techs, or INT techs that look terrible etc.) A Kaiju’s best Techs are also almost always going to be ones they’re not born with, so knowing in advance can be helpful here as well.

Finally... Which Drills to pick!
Now that you understand stat gains, and which stats are used for which attacks, and how to find out what any given Kaiju can learn... you’re at a good decision point to know which stats to focus on based on your Kaiju's Gains and current or future techs.

As a new player in a fresh game, raising all the stats high is very unlikely, and in most cases raising stats very evenly feels strong at first, but by the late game you won’t have enough punch to knock out the end game Kaijus.
Instead, you’ll want to focus a few stats very heavily, and a couple of backup stats.

• Choose 1 attacking stat (POW or INT) for your Kaiju.
• Choose 1 defensive stat for your Kaiju (SPD or DEF).
• Supplement SKI in your routine, this is very important later.
• Enough LIF to avoid 1-hit KO for Speedsters, or Loads of LIF for slow tanky Kaijus.

Whichever attacking/defensive stat is chosen, ignore the other stat in the pair, so if you choose INT, don’t worry about raising POW and don’t worry about dropping POW by using Heavy Work. You'll be filling in with SKI and probably enough LIF to avoid being 1-hit KO'd.

This will typically lend itself to one of the following builds:

1. Speedster build: INT/SKI/SPD (filling in with LIF) largely because Heavy INT drill raises SKI, and Heavy SPD drill raises INT. It's possible to have a Power based Speedster but requires a lot more effort and planning.
2. Tanky build: POW/LIF/DEF (Filling in with SKI, maybe SPD) largely because Heavy drill that raises POW & LIF drops SPD. Heavy DEF drill raises DEF and POW so you will kind of have to choose SKI or SPD. SPD is very valuable, but not landing hits is incredibly frustrating, so if you're attempting this on a first time Kaiju, i'd prioritize SKI over SPD.

I personally recommend avoiding Heavy SKI and LIF drills, as tempting as they may be. Heavy SKI drops LIF and vice versa, so which ever build you go with, you'll be getting your LIF or SKI gains from Light Drills (or secondary stats from the build-specific Heavy Drills)

When you do which drills is important! If you paid attention to what your Kaiju is good at, and have determined which stats you will be raising, the most efficient way to gain the most stats, is to:

• Drill for the stats they are best at during the early life stages when the stat scaling is low overall.
• Avoid the Stats they're bad at during the early stages because the gains of stat points per week will be incredibly low by comparison and you have a finite amount of lifespan to work with.
• Wait until they are closer to prime to raise stats they're bad at, if you happen to need/chose one of those stats to raise.
• SPD is weighted as a more valuable stat than DEF, so if you focused DEF on your Kaiju, Prime is a good time to also catch SPD back up if your other stats are sufficient.
• Consider Cookies/Traits Drill bonuses which can supplement gains and help you reach higher Drill Levels faster.
• ALL Unique bonuses stack (Cookie + Breed + Territory etc.) and when lined up can make an otherwise low stat gain feel much higher!

A territory is contested! Should I defend it? Seeing a on a Drill location means that a Rival Kaiju has taken up residence. Choosing to defend a territory should take a few things into consideration. It can be a similar effect to doing a Drill depending on the scenario. There are several reasons to defend your territory.

• If your gains are poor and you really need the +5 point bonus.
• If the stats to be gained from the encounter align with the stats you want, and would be more than doing a normal drill.
• If you can defeat the Rival Kaiju. Pay attention to the Kaiju's Class level. You can always save before trying, and reset if it was a bad choice.
• You want to drop Anger

The higher the Rival's class, and the closer your Kaiju's class is to the Rival's... the better the rewards from defending a territory.
The opposite can be true if your Kaiju is a high class such as A or S, and the Rival is E or D, the stat gains and anger reduced will be minimal.
Lastly, defending a territory that you don't have a claim in, or that raises an undesired stat might simply be a waste of a week.

Errantry's intended purpose is for learning new attacks, as opposed to raising stats. Errantry causes loads of Stress and Fatigue on your Kaiju without a break for 4 weeks. If used haphazardly and often, it will help to shorten your Kaiju's lifespan and the Stat gains received for the lifespan hits likely won't pay off. Don't worry, it's not hugely detrimental when used correctly.

There will come a time when you do want to learn new attacks. Either because it's fun, or you need a new or better attack type to help you progress because the Basic attacks just don't do it in tournaments anymore.

Attempt to start Errantry on Week 1 while in the best condition (No stress or fatigue). If possible, avoid skipping over week 1. It may feel like you're saving big by not having to feed your Kaiju the monthly foods, but the monthly food is an opportunity to help drop stress, fatigue, and anger which helps avoid unnecessary lifespan hits.

Do you qualify? The Errantry locations will require specific prerequisites to learn a new attack. Learning to attacks is explained in great detail on the Kaiju Techs guide, however, a simplified explanation:

If you see a on a trainer, it means you have a chance to learn a new attack from Errantry. If Holly indicates that it "May be difficult" it means it's the lowest chance without any starting bonuses, but it's still possible.

Which Trainer and Location to send to?
- The Trainers aren't arbitrary. They teach very specific attacks and represent an attack type regardless if the Tech uses POW or INT as it's base damage.
- The Trainers randomly change locations. The location determines which stats are raised and lowered. If a Trainer is not at a desirable location, you can try again on another week and see if they've moved to a preferable locale.

• Basic Techs: Kaiju are born with these.
• Hit Techs: Learned from May. (Typically favor hit% over damage).
• Heavy Techs: Learned from Victor. (Typically favor damage over hit%).
• Sharp Techs: Learned from Colt. (Sharp = Crit chance. Crits deal 150% damage).
• Wither Techs: Learned from Neel. (Wither = A focus on damage to guts over damage to health).
• Buff/Heal/Drain Techs: Learned from Leila & Lira. (More often than not aren't very useful. Niche use cases).
• Special Techs: Learned from Alvaro. (Generally more costly attacks weighted heavily in a particular area more than the other types).

Going to errantry while a trainer is in a location of their preferred stat will give an additional bonus to that stat.

Your Kaiju is allowed to fight in their Current and lower Grades. Promoting your Kaiju too early can land you in a difficult bracket where you can’t beat the opponents to make money.

You need money to purchase ranch upgrades and repairs, and useful items if you hope to raise a powerful Kaiju. Money allows you to invest into your Kaiju which returns on that investment by living longer, allowing you to raise stats longer and fight in more (or higher) tournaments that have higher payouts, or simply for progression on a first time playthrough.

There are many tournaments littered through out the year. Official tournaments give the least amount of money, and the regular tournaments in-between will usually give more or also give an item of value that can be kept or sold.

[E-S] Class Off. Battles: Official battles (Week 4 in March, June, September, December) are used to increase your Kaiju’s Grade, and promote your Kaiju to the next level of tournaments & difficulty. If you haven’t beaten that level yet, it will also increase your Breeder Rank which serves as one of several things to progress the game.

Non-Official tournaments: Any tournament that is NOT an Off. Battle won’t raise your Kaiju’s Class/difficulty/Breeder Rank, but will reward more money, or items that can be sold for money, or even a few tournaments that are story driven to help unlock some of the hidden breeds that you don’t yet have access to. Early game, feel free to sell any won items you get for extra money on top of the prize money, except for the Passive Items listed above in the Items Section.

How often should I battle? In the beginning, do it as much as you would like. Fresh games require you to battle because it is your only method for earning money until you have access to Adventures, or the end-game tournaments that reward massive amounts of gold.

Battles do have a small lifespan cost and increase fatigue, but they also reduce stress, and after a battle you can get a boost in randomly chosen stats (more stats at higher Grade tournaments). If your Kaiju is tired before entering a tournament, depending on how tired, use Mandarin Juice or Ultra Mango to get back into shape (or rest the week before the tournament). After a tournament, either use Ultra Mango with Rest, or try a Mandarin Juice to recover the fatigue so you can resume your raising schedule.

Fighting in tournaments introduces new mechanics apart from the pet raising sim portion of the game. This is covered very early in a new game's tutorial.

Prior to joining a tournament, you can adjust your Kaiju's attacks from the Monster data screen. They can be disabled/enabled, and re-ordered within their respective ranges so that your favorite techs are on top (immediately available when battle starts).

Skip Battle is a new behind-the-scenes Battle feature that will run a sim in the background, and quickly come to a determination as to which Kaiju won the fight.

Auto/Manual Battle: If you want to watch your Kaiju fight on it's own must be chosen in the in-game options before a tournament starts. Once a tournament starts the Fight Option can't be changed until the tournament is over.

Matches in a tournament last 1 minute. Each fighter starts with 50 Guts (Sometimes more if they're angry) and can regenerate up to 99 Guts at different speeds based on the Kaiju breed and which sub-breed it has.

Cookies! (Again!): Remember when we talked about Cookies earlier? These can be used for rearing your Kaiju, or for use in Battle. Battle Cookies can give traits that can change a variety of things during a fight. They'll have no effect on the ranch but the right battle cookies can greatly empower your Kaiju for tournaments. Cookies are Semi-Permanent, but they CAN be replaced by using an item called "Reset Powder" found on June and October Adventures. Using Reset Powder deletes all learned traits at once (not the born-with trait), and you can use any new cookies you have stored to learn new traits.

Guts is the resource for your Techs (Attacks) and different Techs have different costs. Additionally, there are 4 ranges in the arena, and Specific Techs fall into 1 of these 4 ranges and can only be used while your Kaiju is in that range. You can change your range by moving forward or backwards, Charging forward, or pushing the opponent back.

If you have more than one Tech to use in a particular range, you can toggle the currently active Tech. (There will be a gloved hand that has the range/tech pointed to; Move the pointer to the range that has multiple Techs, and you will see an arrow. Press down or up to cycle through that range’s available techs).

Changing the Active Tech

• With the D pad (or Stick) use Left/Right move the cursor to the range slot you want to adjust, then press D pad (or Stick) up or down to toggle the active tech if you have more than one attack within that range.
• You can adjust any range's tech at any time that either fighter is not attacking, but you can only use a tech that is active and in the range you're currently in.

The arena has limited space. You can push your opponent back to force range 3 or 4, but if you are too far on their side of the arena, you will have to move backwards instead. Alternatively, you can only back up so far.

The more Guts you have, the better! Saving up Guts is advantageous as it increases hit%, damage given, and lowers damage taken. It is very tempting to spam attacks immediately to try and KO an opponent before they can hurt you, but if you can’t win by KO this way it will put you in a bad spot, because the Opponent will get the same benefit.

While attacking, the Attacker’s Guts is frozen in place (and subtracts the Guts spent to perform the attack), meanwhile the Defender’s Guts is still regenerating the whole time. If you can dodge or soak the first attack or two, this will put you at the advantage. It also opens up opportunity to attack while the opponent is confused!

Your guts are also frozen for the short animation while pushing back an opponent. Dashing uses up guts, so use it sparingly and when it is advantageous. Don't be silly using Dash to get in range just to have it drop your guts to a low enough amount that you cannot attack.

Observe your Opponent: Pay attention to opponent stats, especially their Attacking Stat (POW or INT). Try to stay in the range of their weakest techs or supported by their weakest attacking stat. You can often force a Guts advantage by dodging/soaking weak hits then retaliating after.

Confusion/Foolery: When the attacker’s Tech icons convert to "?" in each slot and get's the confusion graphic around their heads, their chance to dodge drops significantly, indicated by the attacker’s hit% increasing for a short duration. Confusion is caused by low Loyalty. High anger can increase your chances of confusion even at very high loyalty.

As your loyalty increases the chances of this happening decrease, but Tournament opponents don’t evolve over time, so they always retain a chance for Confusion which you can use to your advantage, especially if you have a hard-hitting attack with a low hit%/SKI. Patience can help win fights!

Know your attacks: POW and INT determine damage for Red and Blue Techs respectively, however there are different attack types that can be either POW or INT: Hit, Heavy, Crit, Wither, Buff/Heal and Special. Some are heavy hitting with low accuracy... others are low damage but high accuracy. Early game you'll be relying a lot on the base stats of the Techs, but by raising correlating stats you can adjust the potency of the Tech's attribute. (Raising SKI, for example, raises HIT% across the board, but is very beneficial for Heavy Techs to have a better chance of landing). Use the appropriate Techs for the opponent, and for which stats you've raised.

• Basic Techs: As the name implies, these are fairly basic techs and what your Kaiju is born with.
• Buff/Drain Techs: These are mostly niche case uses. A variety of techs fall into this category that can Self Heal, Steal life, Buff self, or debuff the opponent.
• Heavy Techs: These can be 1-hit KO moves with a high enough supporting stat, though at the cost of base accuracy.
• Wither Techs: Withering attacks do damage primarily to the opponent's Guts.
• Hit Techs: Usually a better base hit% with low damage.
• Crit Techs: Usually favor a higher chance to crit. Critical hits provides 150% damage. They may not be strong as other techs but sometimes the average between regular and crits mean more damage.
• Special Techs: These are often high Guts cost techs that can be a mix of some of the above Types.

Techs Also have their own attributes. Each tech has letters as values indicating a Tech's attributes. Please see the Kaiju Techs guide for exact values and translations of the letter values.

From weakest to strongest: E < D < C < B < A < S... The letters listed on your techs indicate a range of values. The techs do actually have specific numerical values assigned to them, so even if you see a same value in two techs, they are likely slightly different.

• Damage: The base damage force of a tech before the corresponding POW or INT stat adjustment.
• Ski.: the base % chance to hit from 50% (-10 is 40%, 10 is 60%) before your SKI, or opponent SPD adjustment. "C" for Ski. can be approximated as roughly 50% give or take.
• Withering: Guts damage to the opponent. The greater the value, the more guts damage is done.
• Crit: Base % chance to crit starting from 0% (E(5) is 5% Crit. E(9) is 9%, etc.) before fame adjustments.
• Fame is a Kaiju stat rather than a tech stat, but it adds 1% additional crit chance for every 10 Fame your Kaiju has.

Some of my attacks have an Icon in the corner?
Techs icons with an Element graphic indicated in the upper right corner have a chance to apply a Status Ailment to the receiver of the attack during battle.

¹Poison and Burn damage happens while walking, being pushed, dashing, or attacks / actions that cover distance!

A new game will not give you many options. You cannot skip the opening tutorials and guidance. The game will teach you many of the topics here at least minimally. After unlocking Rival Breeder: May as an Errantry Trainer, there will be opportunity still to optionally unlock Rival Breeder: Victor and Neel after winning the two different D class tournaments that they are featured. Also during the tutorial, towards the end of the 6 months from starting, you'll eventually land on fighting in the D Class Off. Battle and be given Breeder Rank 2, allowing you to fight in C class tournaments... This is likely where you have reached the end of the in-game tutorials and are ready to move on... However...

Once you've finished the tutorials, You must defeat Rival Breeder: Colt in C class IMa Exhibition tournament on Feb or Aug Week 3, and acquire your Breeder's License to be able to progress further in the game. After defeating Colt, you will have unlocked Rival Breeder: Colt as an Errantry Trainer, unlocked a new monster breed, and can now be allowed to fight in the C Class Off. Battle (and higher) to continue to raise your Breeder Rank!

Finally! It's time to make progress!

You’ve raised your Kaiju a bit, maybe you’re easily defeating the current Grade of tournaments without effort, then it’s time to do the IMa Official Cup. Beating an official cup promotes your Kaiju to the next Grade where there are higher payout tournaments, and if you hadn’t beat a particular Grade before, then you will also earn a new Breeder rank. Beating E through S Grade will get you to rank 7, then the last 3 ranks are earned from special invitational tournaments called "The Big 3". Breeder Ranks are permanently earned, and once you reach Rank 10 (MAS / Master), you will get the game credits.

Along the way, several Breeder ranks will allow you to upgrade your Ranch. These are permanent upgrades. The last Ranch upgrade will occur at Rank 6, and both Ranch upgrades combined will be 1,200,000g. Plan ahead so the expense doesn’t catch you off guard. You'll have occasional Rampage expenses but these are very minor. Aside from a specific item required to be purchased as part of a specific Kaiju unlock, most future expenses will be entirely related to what you're spending to feed your Kaiju.

When should I progress in [E-S] Class Off. Battle tournaments? The choice is ultimately up to you. [E-S] Class Off. Battles occur 4 times a year on the 4th week: (March, June, September, December), so you have plenty of time to beef up your stats, and opportunity to promote when you're ready to advance.

Typical play will ususally suggest to go with your primary attack/focus stat as the highest, with secondary stats close behind, consider the following stat totals as a rough benchmark when to fight in the official... though there are optional ways to progress, like Only raising/maxing SPD and save-scumming lost tournaments until you chip the opponent and dodge/win your way to victory.
The below table begins at C Class since the in-game tutorial walks you up to this point before allowing you to make all your own decisions.

If progression is going too fast, it's OK to stay at a certain Grade for a while and just participate in many tournaments to earn income you'll need for future upgrades and expenses. Promoting too early may land you in a Grade that you can't earn income. If you find yourself in this situation, you can still fight in lower grade tournaments for income, but be prepared for a small penalty of Fame and Loyalty drop each time you do it.

To qualify for the first time invitations to the Big 3 tournaments for the last 3 Breeder ranks there are 2 conditions:
  1: You MUST beat any of the S Class Off. Battles once.
  2: Any Kaiju you've had at any point in their life has to have had at least 1 "Rampage!"

IF you are having issues beating the game don't use your progression Kaiju as your income Kaiju. Have a few fodder Kaijus to earn the money first, then go all in with Drills on your Progression Kaiju. Put off fighting with your progression Kaiju until you're fairly confident it can do very well in the higher Classes.

My Monster Retired! Now What? Spoiler.. your Kaijus have a finite amount of time they can be raised. Anything you've earned with your Kaiju is kept. Hopefully you've earned plenty of money and can repeat the process, but this time with a better Feeding/Drill schedule to raise your Kaiju more effectively, which means you can train harder, and longer, and even without Resting.

You're telling me I have to start all over? In a sense, you do, but not really. Consider this as a Roguelite style game. Any Breeder rank you've earned you keep. Any Kaiju you've unlocked you still have access to. Any money you've earned, you still have.

Yes, Kaiju will always start out as Babies and at E class. Each Kaiju must re-earn it’s way back up, but hopefully when you are done with the previous Kaiju you are now in a better financial place, or game progression place than you were before. It feels like a step backwards when starting a new Kaiju (gains feel low because it’s a baby etc.), but you should be able to progress farther than the previous attempt since you’ll have the benefit of ranch upgrades, and hopefully even more money so you can start using items sooner.

While certainly not required, Fusion at the Research Center, especially when done correctly, can allow you to create a baby that starts with many techs already, and even higher than average stats!

Adventures are extensively covered in the Adventures guide for all the requirements, Kaiju hazard immunity, where to find the items from which locations and all of the hidden paths, random tiles, obstacles, and opponent data. Here's a peek at one of the maps for an idea of the territory you'll be navigating while on adventure.
Please see the Adventure guide for full legend details, loot tables and explanations.

It’s highly common to do Adventures during normal play before you beat the game, but it’s entirely optional. Once your Kaiju’s Grade is high enough, is famous enough, and you have enough LIF, you can start having regular invitations to attend an Adventure. It is suggested to always save prior to adventures in the event something goes wrong.

While on adventure you'll have a starting position, and an Energy gauge determined by your LIF stat. Higher LIF stat means more energy. Every tile you move consumes 1 energy. Destroying obstacles costs 5 energy per attempt. Hazards can sap a random amount of energy. Random Tiles might give or take energy, and lastly, Searching a location costs 20 energy per attempt, wether or not you find an item.

You must return to the starting position before your energy runs out or risk losing the items you found. Adventure can yield a decent amount of money, various items like food spices, other consumable items, Disc Chips, Monster unlock items.

What is a good Kaiju to use for Expedition? Eleking is probably one of the best beginner expedition Kaiju. Most of the Eleking breeds have medium to great stat gains for INT, making it easier to reach the 5000 INT required to open secret passages (These stay open after they are discovered, even for low INT Kaiju!). It is immune to hazards in 2 of the 3 Adventures, and is also required for an unlock event on one of the Adventures.

Unlike previous Monster Rancher games, INT is not a requirement to find items in searchable locations, just for opening up the secret passages permanently. The best late-game expedition monster is a locked monster (Tyrant) which is immune to all hazards on all Adventures.

Your ranch in Ultra Kaiju has two upgrades. These upgrades are gated by your Breeder rank. They'll be available to purchase from the Shop at Breeder rank 3 and 6.

Upgrading your ranch affords more item slots (up to 30 total), and is also a conditional requirement for several Kaiju unlocks!

Refer to the Unlock Everything section in the main guides for specifics about the Ranch upgrades and Kaiju unlocks.

It's that time. Your Kaiju say's goodbye and becomes permanently placed into the Association's care.

What does it mean? In the original games, when monsters reached the end of their lifespan, they died and were forever gone after that. The only way to keep your monster was to save frequently and put them in the Freezer the week before they died. In Ultra Kaiju, they are simply automatically placed into the Association (UKMR's equivalent of the Freezer from other games) so that you can still use the Kaiju for Fusion or register for Versus mode if desired.

Should I let it naturally retire? In Single player there is absolutely no reason to put your Kaiju in the association early. Retirement basically allows you to get every single week of potential out of your Kaiju without fear of permanently losing your Kaiju, the way you could lose your monsters in previous games.

Manual Retirement: Manual retirement isn't a term in the game, it just means you've chosen to stop raising your Kaiju before it's lifespan has been exhausted.

If your Kaiju isn't actually retired, the benefit of putting a Kaiju into the Association "permanently" before it's lifespan is actually expired, is mostly important for PVP reasons.

A naturally retired Kaiju cannot be fed items, namely Reset Powder, to be able to change equipped traits from Cookies, and cannot access the "Change Tech" menu for optimizing your Kaiju's tech loadout for AI v AI play prior to registering your Kaiju to Versus mode. The Kaiju must be active and on the ranch to be able to do this.

Having some lifespan remaining allows you to bring your Kaiju out of the Association to be able to make fine-tuned adjustments for community run tournaments, or to play around with Versus mode.

To recap:

• For single player, it's Fine to let it naturally retire.
• Retirement (manual or natural) has no direct effect on Fusion in of itself. Indirectly it just means that natural retirement cannot make adjustments to Stats or Techs (if they were needed) prior to fusion.
• Naturally retired Kaiju cannot adjust Tech loadout or Traits due to not being able to bring it back to the ranch.
• Manual retirement before it's natural retirement is a personal choice, Beneficial for mainly PVP reasons, and technically reversable since all you have to do is decide to keep raising it if you wanted to.

Once you’ve Beaten the game (Breeder Rank Master / Credits), there’s probably still plenty to do.

Unlocks: Want to find all the Kaiju breeds to raise? There are 18 hidden/locked Kaijus that you can acquire. You may have already unlocked some by this point. They aren’t necessarily overpowered or better/worse than other Kaijus, they’re just more choice and options with some fun Kaiju designs and new ways to beat down opponents in battles. Complete unlock details in the Unlock Everything guide

Fusion for super Kaiju babies! Fusion isn't as random as you think, quite the opposite. With planning, you can engineer parents to create ridiculously amazing babies with incredibly high starting stats or number of techs. Check out the Fusion Calculator guide and watch the tutorial video to get started!

PVP: It's not as scary as it sounds. Most tournaments have stat caps and specific rules to follow so that it's not just "max everything out" and fight. There are rules and etiquette to follow. Tournaments can be Round Robin or Elimination (or double Elimination) based on the Host's preference or number of entrants. Please join the Discord for more details!