Originally launched for the PlayStation in 1997, Monster Rancher was Tecmo’s take on the Pokemon franchise. Now, after much lobbying, the original and its sequel are getting re-released in English for PC, Switch, iOS and Android.
The games will be called Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX, and according to Koei Tecmo’s announcement they’ll be available from December 9 this year. Kazumi Fujita, executive producer on the Monster Rancher franchise, added that the games will be rebalanced for the launch, and online play will be updated as well.
“We are preparing features to allow you to play with players in Japan as well,” Fujita-san said. “This will allow both Japan and the rest of the world to play a new version of Monster Ramcher 1 and Monster Rancher 2 together.”
The original Monster Rancher games launched with CDs that people could use to unlock certain monsters, although that obviously won’t be a factor this time around. Instead, Koei Tecmo will use a keyword system for the re-release. The keyword system will let you search a database for a monster’s data, and you can generate their data from that.
You’ll also get additional save slots, a fast forward feature to speed up gameplay, the ability to view rankings from battles, special Freeze slots, and more. Monster Rancher‘s re-release comes after the Japanese re-release of Monster Farm and Monster Farm 2 — the game’s Japanese title — for the Switch in 2019.
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