Beginner's Guide & Walk-through for
Monster Rancher 2 (+DX)

Is this your first time playing Monster Rancher 2? 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 Monster Rancher?

At its core, Monster Rancher 2 is an open-ended pet raising simulation with real-time battle for tournaments and progression and has a bit more complexity over the original. There are basically 2 budgets; Your Gold and your monster’s Lifespan, and you want to make the most out of both to have a productive monster. Because there is a lot of variety, this walkthrough is not going to give you exact step-by-steps, but instead help you make the required determinations so that it can be applied to any monster.

Monster Rancher 2 introduces some changes and features that set it apart from MR1. If you used the MR1 guide you'll notice quite a bit of the guide is the same with some tweaks here and there to compensate for the changes introduced in MR2.

This is not an extensive list, just a few things of note:

• Monsters now have Monthly food preferences based on their main breed (And 6 choices, instead of 3). Each food given can have 3 different effects depending on their natural preference. These preferences may be randomly overwritten when a monster is born, as indicated in the Likes/Dislikes page of the Monster Data.
• Monsters can only be fed weekly items once per week (MR1 could be fed unlimited).
• Monsters can only be fed 1 Gold peach and 1 Silver Peach (Plant Egg equivalent) in their life.
• Training is now called Errantry, and learning Techs has new mechanics/requirements, and introduces Tech Chains (Some techs must be used x# of times before being able to learn the next in the succession)
• Work is now called Drills, and you are no longer paid for it, but monsters can get "Greats" or "Cheats" during drills as well.
• Will is now called Guts (called guts the rest of the series), but it functionally identical.
• "Seriousness" (a hidden stat that could not be adjusted) is replaced with "Nature" which can change over time based on positive reinforcement to a monster's behavior, or by using items.
• MR2 increases the number and types of Battle specials from 1 type to 13 types, and a monster can have multiple battle specials.
• Expeditions are much less random, cannot be Lost, and can have increased odds when raising the required stats, however you must return to the starting point before your energy runs out.
• Combining is completely overhauled and is no longer seeded by monster ages and times of year.
• Tournaments now award bonus stats afterward (More stats for higher Grade tournaments)
• Disc Chips have more variety and purposes to grant Breed bonuses to other breeds that might not have them. Instead of MR1's lackluster +10 to a stat, Chips in MR2 can now give effects such as Battle Specials and Drill bonuses (See items page).

On a fresh play-through you will answer a questionnaire (Answers are arbitrary and simply world-building, don't stress about it) then be introduced to your assistant Colt, along with a few IMa organization members (International Monster Association) with a few vague explanations of things if you choose to have Colt explain them. Ultimately you will end up in Town where you can pick your first monster. This can be done either from the Market or the Shrine.

Market: a choice of a baseline monsters: Mocchi & Zuum + a seasonal monster that swaps out: Suezo, Arrowhead, Gaboo, Hare (Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall respectively).

Shrine: The game’s famous gimmick; Pop in CDs and seeing what monster you get.

Disc Stones (Shrine): Chaille gives this message when you have attempted to shrine a monster that is locked behind in-game events or accomplishments.

I regret to tell you that...
this rare monster can be generated only by an authorized IMa trainer.
Please come again...

If you see this message, You have attempted to create a monster that is locked behind such an event. See the Unlock Everything guide for Ranch and Monster unlocks.

Slate (Shrine): If you have a MR1 monster in the freezer you can use this instead. It creates a baby version of the former monster in MR2 and adds 10% to 15% of the MR1 monster's stats to the baby's starting stats. Not overpowered but it can be a small boost if you had a very strong MR1 monster.

MR2DX (2021) replaces the old 1999 CD gimmick with a Song List lookup feature instead that also has a Randomize button to simulate putting in any given CD at random. The Song List database is finite. You can search by Title, or Artist, or Both. It is easier to search in only 1 field, and Partial searches will automatically include a wild card for the remainder of the searched Titles or Artists.

Which monster to pick? This is personal preference. If the market monsters seem bland, use the Shrine and start with your favorite Artists. although you can choose intentional monsters if you look at the Shrine Song list on the site. Some monsters will be easier to raise than others on a first playthrough. The higher the Nature value, the easier time you’ll have raising your monster.

New Game / New Player: Tier List

Loose recommendations for a first monster (if you're not playing blind):

Use a monster with Good (+20) through Best (+60) starting Nature.

For example; Leaf Hare (Hare/Plant), Tropical Ape (Ape/Plant), or Jungler (Naga/Plant) are a few good nature first picks.
Plant & Tiger as sub-breeds are generally are decent choices if they're available for this tiered list:

• Better: Ape, Hare, Kato, Suezo, Naga
• Decent: Jell, Gaboo, Gali, Zuum, Arrowhead, Mocchi, Tiger, Pixie
• Not as great: Plant, Hopper, Monol

This list is only a suggestion, and only includes the starting breeds.

Tier lists are a dangerous thing to rely on completely, since there are so many factors to consider (What techs do you have, are you using Manual control for best outcome, etc.). Sub-Breed can sway how easy a monster can be to raise, or use in battle (And also Variants in DX can shift decisions too since they can have unique attributes outside of the original baselines).

Again, It can't be emphasized enough that this list is only suggestion, and for a new player on a new game. Tier lists can shuffle priority in all kinds of directions depending on Single Player, PVP, or other specific considerations.

Check your monster's information after it is born in the Monster Data screen. There are several pages of data you can tab through. If it has undesirable attributes (like Disliking Fish, Cup Jelly, or Tablets, etc) you can "Sell" your newborn monster at the market (for 0g) to get ready to use the Shrine and try again. It doesn't cost anything to use the Shrine so feel free to play around until you come across something you want.

If you are still uncertain, just pick the one that is the most interesting to you, and do your best to apply this guide's information to it.
Here's a quick explanation for one of several tabs in the Monster Data screen:

NOTE: On a new game, MANY monsters are locked (22 hidden/locked monsters (39 in MR2DX))
While at the Shrine, there's a chance you will be told you can't use that particular CD. The notice is just an indication that there are in-game events you must complete to unlock the monster it would otherwise create. Locked monsters are just like any other monster, some are easier or more challenging to raise. Unlocking the additional monsters are a remnant of the 90s games to include replay value and something to do after getting to the game's credits.

You don’t have to stick with the first monster you create. If you want to keep several options at the ready, In Town you can go to the Lab and freeze your currently active monster. This opens a vacant spot to use the Market or Shrine to create a new monster. Frozen monsters are frozen in time and can be pulled out again later in the exact same condition (for better or worse) that you froze them with. Swapping out monsters from the Lab is commonly referred to as "Freezer Juggling".

Unlocking some monsters often requires using some found item while fusing 2 monsters together to create a new breed of monster correlating to the used item. For simply unlocking new breeds with a Combination Unlock Item you found, it is suggested to use any 2 unraised market monsters, or use one raised parent as Monster #1 that has learned additional attacks along with any other unraised monster as Monster #2.

Combining can create stronger babies. The combining process can create new crossbreeds for you, or can be beneficial for monsters to pass down Stats, Techs (attacks), or both. On a fresh game as a new player, don't expect to see much from combining except to have a monster possibly start with a few extra attacks, and to unlock hidden monster breeds that use a combining item to unlock them.

Combining for super babies with incredibly high stats is not straight forward and is considered a more advanced topic. Technical details are fully covered in the Combining guides once you're ready for more advanced (but optional) meta mechanics.

Dadge's Analysis might seem like random unhelpful phrases, but each phrase correlates to a Battle Special that a monster has. Battle Specials are things that can trigger during tournaments. Example, if Dadge says "You won't see its true abilities until it's cornered" about your monster, this equates to the "POWER" special, a Good-Natured Battle Special that can trigger when your monster gets knocked into the Yellow healthbar range and gives them 100% bonus damage. These are covered in great detail in the Battle Specials guide.

Time passes in weekly chunks, 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).

Now that you have your monster, it’s time to take it to the ranch! This is where most of the menu and choices are. You’ll likely be bombarded with multiple messages from Colt on this first week on the ranch such as Preparing for an Official Tournament, or an Errantry sale notice. IGNORE THIS; This is just an unfortunate lining up of events triggered by the game on the very first week without explanation or context.

Official Tournaments will promote your monster to a higher Grade and more difficult opponents (probably not something you want to do right out of the gate, even though Colt will constantly remind you about the Official Tournaments regardless).

Errantry is for learning new Techs (attacks) and has minimum stat requirements that must be met before they can be learned. As a baby, it’s likely to fail multiple weeks and not learn any new attacks. We’ll cover Errantry more later.

Oh and while we’re here, Visit the Item shop before you do anything else, and start the dialogue with Aunt Verde. You don’t need to do anything else at this point. Once introductions are complete you can exit this menu to get back to the main Ranch menu.

Next, it’s time to start doing Drills so you can raise your monster's stats and preparing your monster to compete in tournaments.

These are two stats you see immediately for your monster upon bringing it to the ranch to begin raising.

Your Style indicates the Balance of Fear and Spoil of your monster. Fear and Spoil are hidden values that determine your Loyalty stat.

Loyalty has several uses.

• It helps you in Battle. Low loyalty means your monster will get confused more often. In battle, when a monster gets confused, their chance to dodge drops dramatically, allowing the attacker a massive hit% bonus. This goes both ways.
• It helps to learn Techs. For techs that have stat requirements to learn during Errantry, Loyalty behaves like a bonus stat that is added to your current stats to try and meet the learning thresholds.
• It helps with Drills. Loyalty (specifically the Fear portion of it) is one of several factors that can help increase the chances of Success.

Drills raise your Stats. Before we get into drills, let's explain what the Stats actually do which will help you determine how you want to raise your monster:

• LIF: Health Bar
• POW: Increases POW (Yellow) Attack damage + lowers damage from POW attacks
• INT: Increases INT (Green) Attack damage + lowers damage from INT attacks
• SKI: Increases Accuracy / Counters opponent SPD
• SPD: Increases Dodge / Counters opponent SKI
• DEF: General defense stat that lowers dmg from both POW and INT attacks

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

• Light Drills raises one stat a minimal amount but causes a lower amount of stress and fatigue.
• Heavy Drills can raise two stats at a time (A primary stat and secondary stat by a lesser amount) while dropping a third stat, at the cost of higher stress and fatigue.

What is Stress and Fatigue?

These are hidden values that go up and down by varying amounts based on your actions. Having high Stress and Fatigue can cause your monster to lose lifespan. It is better to be proactive about this, rather than be reactive.

Colt only warns you about Stress on week 1 of every month and only if your monster is on the ranch. Colt gives you weekly status updates regarding fatigue which can also be loosely observed by your monsters animations walking around on the ranch.

Techs:

Most babies are born with 2 Techs, and some variants have additional bonus techs. You can use Errantry to learn more techs later. There are a few outliers with special exceptions that can be born with more.

Almost all monsters are born with POW techs, and sometimes they are born with INT techs. Some have an even mix of INT & POW types, while others are heavily lopsided to one or the other attack types. While it might be a spoiler, it’s worth it to look up your monster’s Tech List to see what options it will have available to it to help in your decision making about which stats to raise. You may not want to invest heavily into INT if your monster only has POW Techs, etc. But it’s also possible that a monster’s best Techs could be ones they’re not born with, so knowing in advance can be helpful here as well.

What does all this have to do with Drills?

Now you’re at a good decision point to know which stats to focus on based on your monster'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 monsters. Instead, you’ll want to focus a few stats heavily with a couple of backup stats.

• Choose 1 attacking stat (POW or INT) for your monster.
• Choose 1 defensive stat for your monster (SPD or LIF/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 monsters.

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 Drills. You'll be filling in with SKI and probably enough LIF to avoid being 1-hit KO'd.

SKI is a secondary stat and has no Heavy Drills to help raise it by large amounts, but it is incredibly important to keep this stat raised as you progress through the game. Opponents will inevitably get faster (high SPD) and your SKI stat helps counter the opponent’s SPD and helps increase the base accuracy of a given Tech.

Raising/Drill Schedules:

There are many different schedules you can follow, and while it is not a requirement, their importance is for allowing your monster to live the longest by keeping associated Stress and Fatigue under control. Cash on hand is usually the determining factor for single player raising schedules, since this is a Beginner's Guide, You can use the Cheap Schedules to begin raising your monster. These are the cheapest lifespan neutral schedules that can be done, but once you have money you can refer to some of the more advanced schedules for more stats per month.

When you do which drills is important!

Monsters live through 10 "Life Stages" from Baby to Adult/Prime to Twilight. In addition to a monster's aptitude towards a given stat (stat gain) their overall gains start low and scale upwards as they age towards adulthood, then gradually scale back down as they become elderly.

This demonstrates scaled Life Stage Stat Gains, for Light and Heavy drills, based on monster's aptitudes for a given stat. You can see that if a monster's stat gain is "E" in a given stat, raising it will be far fewer points per drill than a stat with an "A" gain:

If you paid attention to what your monster 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. This ensures the most points per week in the early stages.
• 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 monster, Prime is a good time to also catch SPD back up if your other stats are sufficient.

What is the +1 that shows up on Drills and Errantry?

These are breed-specific traits that indicate you are getting a bonus point on a specific drill or errantry stat. Mixed breed monsters can benefit even more if the breed of the main and the sub both would give bonuses.

For example: Henger gets a +1 to Shoot drills, and Zuum gets a +1 to Run drills, so an Omega (which has both breeds present: Henger/Zuum) get's +1 to BOTH Run and Shoot drills!
Additionally, some monster's Disc Chips, when used in combining at the lab, can pass on these bonuses to breeds that might not otherwise have them.

Continuing from the last example, if we combined a Henger and Zuum to get an Omega, and used Durahan Disc Chips in the process (which gives a +1 bonus to Domino light drill), then the baby monster would have +1 to Shoot, Run and Domino drills!
Not every breed has a bonus to drills. Some have bonuses to Errantry, or battle specials like Grit for example.

The +1 bonus is already applied to the visible result, so if you see a "9" with the +1 bonus, that means your result would have been 8 without the bonus.

Weird technical stuff with "1s"

In the event you see a +1, but only see that a stat raise by 1 point, this is due to how the game manages minimum rolls when "succeeding" a drill but rolled 0 points. Without a bonus it gets a minimum of 1 point. With the bonus You rolled a 0 with a bonus of +1 so you still get 1 point. This scenario is very niche and usually only will occur in baby stages for Light Drills that raise stats where a monster's corresponding stat gains is E or 1.

You may notice that while doing drills, a monster will have certain behaviors either before or during a drill.

• A reaction before doing a drill can indicate a monster's motivation for that drill. Motivation for drills changes sporadically. Motivation doesn't guarantee Success or Failure but sways the chances of it.
• Requesting an Item or Activity from you just after committing to a drill.
• And Drill results: Sucesss, Cheat, Great, Fail.

There is a complete (and very technical-heavy) break down of Drill Processing and how it works, but for sake of simplicity of the beginner's guide, this is what you can expect:

• Drills: The following table are typical/simplified results for reactions:

  Result	Reaction	Nature	Stress	Fear	Spoil
  Cheat	Scold
  Cheat	Don't Scold		-
  Great	Praise		-
  Great	Don't Praise
  Fail	Scold	-
  Fail	Don't Scold	-	-

• Requests:
  • Deny Requests: Stress goes up.
  • Grant Requests: Most of the time this just avoids the Stress of denying the request. There are a few minor exceptions.
    • Playing with your monster is almost like a Rest action (less effective but decent).
    • Requesting Nuts Oil actually gets the full fatigue relief and doesn't count towards your weekly items fed.
    • Most other items have almost no additional benefit (usually +/- 1 point for the better).

Why this is important to know: Stress is a factor for losing lifespan, along with Fatigue. Scolding and Denying requests can really stress out your monster, but raising nature also means your monster has higher chances to get Greats as well. During a monster's earlier stages, their stat gains can often be fairly low anyway, Correcting behavior in the early stages and incurring possible lifespan hits from stress is usually considered an acceptable trade-off. Using Items consistently such as Mint Leaf (for stress) and Nuts Oil (for fatigue) will help mitigate much of this.

You can get a general idea of a monster's nature in the Monster Data window. This chart shows the differing natures a monster can have. What they're born with can change, as you can see from the above example with positive reinforcement of a desired behavior.

Increased Cheats Decreased Greats			Increased Greats Decreased Cheats
Worst	Bad	Neutral	Good	Best

For the single player game, there's little reason to want to stay bad natured. Many monsters have Nature-Based attacks that can only be learned while a specific nature (and they can always be used reglardless, once learned) but you really want as high a nature as possible for the additional "Great" chances.

Errantry is hard on your monster's lifespan. Errantry's intended purpose is for learning new attacks, as opposed to raising stats. Errantry causes loads of Stress and Fatigue on your monster without a break for 4 weeks. If used haphazardly and often, it will speed your monster through it's lifespan quickly and the Stat gains received for the lifespan hit don'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.

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

Do you qualify? The Errantry locations will require specific prerequisites to learn a new attack. This is why the beginning of the guide mentions to avoid the Errantry sale at the beginning since it's highly unlikely you'll qualify on a fresh/new game.

Without using tools, pay attention to what Errow says when you select a location. If Errow says "It must be quite difficult" it means you don't yet meet some requirement(s) to learn available Techs. Use the Monster Techs & Errantry Calculator web app in the main guides if you want exact % chance to learn which attacks from which locations, once you've input your monster's stats.

Which location to send to? The locations 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. (Just because a location raises Power doesn't mean it teaches POW based attacks etc).

• Basic Techs: Can be learned at any Errantry.
• Hit Techs: Learned from Torble Sea.
• Heavy Techs: Learned from Mandy Desert.
• Sharp Techs: Learned from Papas Mountains. (Sharp = Crit Chance. Critical hits deal 150% damage).
• Wither Techs: Learned from Parepare Jungle. (Wither = A focus on damage to guts over damage to health)
• Special Techs: Learned from Kawrea Volcano. Your monster must be B Grade to visit this locale. Special are usually high cost attacks that often have several attributes of the other locales.

If your stats are high enough that your monster has 100% chance to learn an attack you'll learn it on the first Successful week of Errantry. If your monster has a higher than 0% but less than 100% chance to learn an attack, the game will "roll the dice" each Success week of Errantry to attempt to learn the Tech. Errow will tell you that you can learn a new technique as long as there is a non-zero chance. A few Techs also have a minimum 3% chance to learn even if you don't qualify to learn them normally.

What are these icons? Some Techs specifically require Good or Bad nature to learn (in addition to any other possible requirements). The Good or Bad nature icon shows up on the tech as vanity only. You can always use the attack, regardless of your monster's current Nature, you just had to be a specific nature to have learned it in the first place.

Items are some of the most powerful things in the game and are often the most overlooked and ignored. This is because the game often has cryptic descriptions about what they do or don’t really tell you at all.

Monster Preference - Monthly Items: Every monster has a baseline preference for each of the 6 monthly foods. You can tell based on their reaction if they Like it, Hate it, or are neutral to it. These natural preferences can be overwritten upon birth where a randomly rolled Like/Dislike item can replace their baseline preferences.

• Tablet is always the best food, even if they Dislike it, but it is expensive.
• If your monster Likes Fish or Cup Jelly (Either specified in Monster Data screen or you observe the "Like" reaction) these can be used on a budget until you can afford Tablets.
• Avoid Potato unless it is the only way to avoid a Game Over by running out of money. It is the worst food and can end up causing lifespan hits due to stress. (If they randomly request Potato, it is OK to give it to them.)

Weekly Items: While you may not be able to afford it yet, Nuts Oil and Mint Leaf are the only items you should concern yourself with for typical monster raising. If you see a Shop sale, these are the two items you want to stock up on. These two items drop Fatigue and Stress respectively by a static amount and can even be used to replace rest entirely (meaning more weeks to raise stats). Some shop items do have a niche use, but for a new player and fresh game, don’t worry about these yet. You can always view the Items List page to see every item’s exact use later.

Pro Tip: Regardless of the version you're playing, Get Gemini Pots! These can be acquired by winning the May Week 4 D Grade tournament. This is a passive item that uses up 1 inventory slot, and stacks for each pot held in inventory. Try to collect 3 to 5 of these for early game. More is better but you have a small house and low inventory capacity when first starting out. Speaking of tournaments...

You are allowed to fight in your Current Grade, and 1 Grade higher (useful to see if you are ready for Official tournaments, or making extra money), or any Grade lower than your current Grade (There is a small penalty to Fame and loyalty for fighting below your weight).

You need money. It’s important to save up to a point, but you also need to invest money into your monster 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 give more. Promoting your monster too early can land you in a difficulty bracket where you can’t make money, and the game penalizes for fighting in a bracket below your monster’s current Class.

IMa Official Cup tournaments: (Week 4 in March, June, September, December) are used to increase your monster’s Grade, and promote your monster 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 IMa Official Cup won’t raise your monster’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. Feel free to sell any Disc Chips you get for extra money on top of the prize money.

How often should I battle? Fresh games require you to battle because it is your only method for earning money until you have access to Expeditions. Battles do have a small lifespan cost. They Reduce stress, they increase fatigue, and after a battle you can get a boost in randomly chosen stats (more stats at higher Grade tournaments). If your monster is tired before entering a tournament, use a Nuts Oil to get back into shape (or rest the week before). Use a Nuts Oil after battle to recover the fatigue and you can immediately resume your Raising Schedule, otherwise you’ll likely need to rest if you can’t afford it yet.

My monster Dislikes Battle! Don't worry this only means you get 1 less point awarded in the post-battle stats. If your monster LIKES battle, then you get 1 additional point in the post-battle stats.

The most important Tournament in early game is May, Week 4, D Grade "Gemini Cup" tourney which rewards the Gemini's Pot. This is one of the best items in the original game, and MR2DX has made this even better.

For each Gemini's Pot you have in inventory it relieves Stress (Always a minimum of -1 per pot in MR2DX. Original game it is 3% rounded/floored so not effective at low stress levels) and a free bit of Fear (helps raising Loyalty).

The Arena and fighting in tournaments introduce new mechanics apart from your pet raising sim portion of the game. Matches in a tournament last 1 minute. Each fighter starts with 50 Guts and can regenerate up to 99 Guts at different speeds based on the Monster and which sub-breed it has. Some battle specials can change your Guts regeneration too!

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 monster is in that range. You can change your range by moving forward or backwards. 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

• For MR2 (1999/NTSC): Use the shoulder buttons to move the gloved hand to the range slot that you want to change, and press the ☐ button to cycle through the techs. (D pad is only used to move monster left/right)
• For MR2DX (2021): With a controller, use the D pad Left/Right move the gloved hand to the range slot you want to adjust, then press D pad Up/Down to change the active tech. The shoulder buttons now move your monster Lef/Right.
  For Mobile and Keyboard: Touch/Click on the tech in a given slot to cycle through the techs.

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 easily this 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!

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 does an animation that isn’t an attack, and their chance to dodge drops significantly, indicated by the attacker’s hit% increasing for a short duration. Confusion is caused by low 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 Yellow and Green Techs respectively, however there are different attack types that can be either POW or INT: Hit, Heavy, Sharp, Wither 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 Tech's function. (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.
• Hit Techs: Usually much higher base hit% with very low damage.
• Heavy Techs: These can be 1-hit KO moves with a high enough supporting stat, though at the cost of base accuracy.
• Sharp Techs: Sharp = Crit (150% damage). They may not be strong as a base tech but have a higher chance to critically hit.
• Wither Techs: Withering attacks do damage primarily to the opponent's Guts.
• Special Techs: These are often high Guts cost techs that can be a mix of any of the above Types, available at B Grade or higher.

Techs (Attacks) Also have their own attributes. Each tech has letters as values indicating a Tech's attributes.
From weakest to strongest: E < D < C < B < A < S... The letters are an approximation. The techs do actually have specific numerical values assigned to them.

• Force: The base damage of a tech before POW or INT stat adjustment.
• Hit%: the base % chance to hit from 50% (-10 is 40%, 10 is 60%) before your SKI, or opponent SPD adjustment.
• Withering: Guts damage to the opponent
• Sharpness: base % chance to crit from 0% (E(5) is 5% Crit. E(9) is 9%, etc.) before fame adjustments. Every 10 Fame gives 1% extra crit.
  • Fame is a monster stat rather than a tech stat, but it adds 1% additional crit chance for every 10 Fame your monster has.

It's time to progress! Maybe you’ve raised your monster a long time, 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 monster 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 6, then the last four ranks are earned from special invitational tournaments called "The Major 4". Breeder Ranks are permanently earned, and once you reach Rank 10, you will get the game credits.

Along the way, several Breeder ranks will prompt you to upgrade your Ranch via the Stable, House, or both. These are permanent upgrades that future monsters will benefit from. To be prompted for an upgrade you must have enough gold on May week 4 to afford the upgrade cost + 5000 so that you are not left broke. The last Ranch upgrade will occur at Rank 8 if you have the funds, and all upgrades combined will be 90,000 G. Plan ahead so the expense doesn’t catch you off guard. Once the upgrades are done, then there are no other expenses except what you spend on your monster.

When should I progress in IMa Official Cup tournaments? The choice is ultimately up to you. Official Tournaments 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.
With your primary attack stat as the focus/highest stat, consider the following stat totals as a rough benchmark when to fight in the official.

Remember, it's OK to stay at a certain Grade for a while and participate in many tournaments to earn income you'll need for future upgrades. 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.
^{(The penalty for fighting below your monster's current grade in MR2 is much gentler than MR1's penalty, but it can still add up quickly. Try not to promote too soon, especially if you're low on funds)}

What is F Class? This is NOT easier than E class. F is "FREE FOR ALL" and contains opponents around the C and B Grade difficulty levels.

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

My Monster Died! Now What? Spoiler.. your monsters can die. Anything you've earned with your monster is kept. Hopefully you've earned plenty of money and can repeat the process, but this time use Nuts Oil and Mint Leaf more frequently to keep your monster in a permanent state of Very Well, which means you can train harder, and longer, and even without Resting.

Monsters will always start out as Babies and at E class. Each monster must re-earn it’s way back up, but hopefully when you are done with the previous monster you are now in a better financial place, or game progression place than you were before. It may feel like a step backwards when starting a new monster (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.

Expeditions: It’s highly common to do Expeditions during normal play before you beat the game, but it’s entirely optional. Once your monster’s Grade is high enough, and is famous enough, you can start having regular visits from Expeditioners that want your monster’s help.

During an expedition you'll be navigating a maze-like region with obstacles, hidden paths, and locations to search.

Expeditions can yield a lot of money, Special items, Monster unlock items etc.
Expeditions also include obstacles that require POW to remove, and hidden paths that need varying levels of INT to reveal. Hidden paths stay permanently removed, even for future monsters, but POW obstacles always return. You'll want to prioritize INT > LIF > POW for expeditions. INT increases your chance to actually find the items inside the buildings, try to have 600 INT as a minimum to avoid frustration. LIF is your alloted time to explore and search (Caps at 700 LIF). POW is needed only to remove obstacles. 350 POW is enough for most obstacles to take only a few tries or less.

See  How to Train an Expedition Monster  for a guide on raising an Optimized monster for expedition.

It is suggested to always save the week prior to expedition since the results can be heavy RNG.

Please refer to the Expedition Maps in the main guides for all Expedition information, such as loot tables of searchable locations, Stat requirements, etc.

Having enough money on May, week 4, will trigger a prompt from Colt that it's time to upgrade your Stable or House. Both of these contribute towards new monster unlocks, and the House upgrades give you more item space.

If you don't have enough money, Colt will not prompt you for the ranch upgrades. You will need 5000 G + the cost of the current qualifying upgrade for your Breeder rank to be prompted. Ranch upgrades range from 5000 G to 20000 G. All ranch upgrades combined come to 90,000 G.

Refer to the Unlock Everything section in the main guides for specifics.

Oh no, Colt has given me a warning about retirement!

What does this mean? Your monsters have a finite lifespan. Before factoring in lifespan reductions or extensions that can change a monster's baseline lifespan, Every week that it lives reduces their remaining lifespan by 1 week, until eventually their lifespan is exhausted, and they die.

Colt's Warnings are an indicator that you're reaching close to the end of a monster's lifespan. You will typically receive 3 warnings, the first warning is roughly a year's notice. The last warning is 9 weeks remaining.

What to do to retire my monster? When a monster dies, it's gone forever. There's no in-game option to retire, but the "Retirement Warning" is a chance to put your monster into the Freezer, which means it can be used later for combining, or for PVP if desired.

Should I always retire my monster? It is entirely up to you. Death is a part of the game, and 3 hidden monsters actually require a death event as part of their unlock conditions, however the game does provide monsters that only live 1 week that can be used to trigger these events without throwing away all your hard work for a well raised monster. This allows you the option to keep all your monsters before they die, and if you want to, you can use the 1-week monsters to trigger the death events.

Once you’ve Beaten the game (Breeder Rank 10 / Credits), there’s likely plenty to do.

Unlocks: There are 22 hidden/locked monsters (39 in MR2DX) that you can acquire. You may have already unlocked some by this point. They aren’t necessarily overpowered or better/worse than other monsters (Though, several certainly are), they’re just more choice and options with some fun monster designs.

Combining for super babies! Combining 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.

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. Some of the more exciting tournaments are lower stat cap tournaments. Stat Capped tourneys will indicate what is the Total number you can allot to your monster's stats, if there are any stat ceilings to obey, or banned monsters. The tournament host will take submissions then usually live-stream the matches. It 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.

How to upload your monster for Competitive

Tournament Hosts running MR2DX will require you to upload your submitted monster to the cloud so that it can be accessed for the tournament. The below process will copy the the chosen save number with every lab-frozen monster up to the cloud. Once copied/uploaded, they remain there in perpetuity, as-is and independent of your local save number or continued local game progress. If you change/progressed your monster and need it updated for online matchups, then you must upload the save file again (with the updated monster frozen at the lab). You can only have 1 save number uploaded at any given time. New uploads will overwrite your previous uploads.

1. Make sure your monster is frozen at the Lab.
   
2. Save your game on any numbered save slot.
   
3. Exit the game and go back to the Title, and choose "Vs. Mode" in the menu.
   
4. Choose the same numbered save slot from Step 2, to register the frozen monsters online.
   
5. Once the Frozen monsters have been registered, Select "Check Frozen Monster".
   
6. In the list, confirm your monster shown, then click "Display Search Key".
   
7. Note the Search Key. Providing your Search Key may be required to submit your monster, if the monster name has censored characters. Censored character strings show up as question marks.
   

Different Tournament Hosts may have different information requirements on their forms. This should help you correctly get your monster online, and collect everything that is required for any tournament submission in MR2DX.

NOTE: you can only have 1 save slot uploaded at a time. Whatever is the last save uploaded is the only save in the cloud. You may overwrite the save slot on your local game however you want, it will not change what was already uploaded unless you re-register/upload it again.