FAQ - Guide for Monster Rancher Advance

Monster Rancher Advance

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This is my first FAQ, so go easy on me!



Table of Contents


Section 1 - Getting started! (Basics)
Section 2 - FAQ
Section 3 - Creating your path of Champions
Section 4 - Secret monsters and Passcodes
Section 5 - Contact Information

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1.1  Background

Welcome to Monster Rancher Advance! This game is about raising monsters on 
your ranch out in the boondocks and managing their growth from a just born 
creature to an elder creature that can call upon the powers of Heaven and 
Earth to wreck anything in their way. This series was inspired by the 
creature raising simulator Tamagotchi-Digimon and many of it's nuances are 
identical to Barcode Battlers. Pokemon did not come until a year later, so 
put all thoughts of this being a Pokemon cash-in out of your mind. While 
were at it, forget about Pokemon altogether - you're not going to be roaming 
the land, solving puzzles or any of that. Heck, the whole game is played 
from first person view and with menus. While the other Monster Rancher games 
worked on generating creatures from CDs, this one is based on words up to 
eight letters. Thats right, you can take every word in this FAQ and make a 
monster out of them.


1.2  Story

Aroma and Zest are a brother/sister ranch team from Age Island in the 
southern ocean of the Monster Rancher world. When their parents were alive, 
the ranch flourished and they were able to make an honest living. But fate 
stepped in and they lost both of their parents, leaving them to fend for 
themselves and their ranch. Things went to hell for them quite soon 
thereafter, and the ranch became run down and they were on their way to 
poverty. Zest, in desperation, wrote a letter to a master breeder from the 
mainland to come to their ranch and set them right again. That breeder in 
question is you! At first the transition will be tough for you, but with 
friends like Bolzoi, Mr. Mardoc, and Ayase, hopefully you'll fit right in 
and set this ranch upon the path for greatness!


1.3 Lets look at the basics!

Raising a monster is actually much simpler than all the menus you see before 
you would have you believe. It works like this: There is a time of month and 
year. The game I believe starts on the first week of June. Most of the 
commands on the menu before you are how you're going to spend this week. 
Training is the option you'll find yourself using most, allowing you to 
raise a monster's stats a bit. Rest will allow your monster to take it easy 
for a week. Special will open up a Special Training menu, whereupon you sign 
up for a month-long training session that may result in a new fighting 
skill.

Battle will open up a calendar. Where the pointer is when you open it is the 
current week. See how one horizontal bar on the calendar is highlighted and 
the other bars are darkened? This reflects your monster's Class. You start 
in D class and can only enter D class tournaments. Chances are, you don't 
see a "D" anywhere on that horizontal line. Push R2 to scroll the calendar 
ahead a month to take a peek to see if there are any battle events next 
month. If there are and you want to sign up for one, just go over to the "D" 
in that month and push the "A" button. Aroma will ask if you want to reserve 
a place in the tournie. Say yes and she'll remind you a week before the 
competition. If you open up the battle menu and there is a battle on the 
current week thats in your class, you can go ahead and enter it.

Time passes just like this:

Enter command --> Monster carries out (or attempts to carry out) command --> 
New week begins --> Aroma reports monster's status --> Enter command --> 
Monster attempts to carry out command --> Etc.

Easy, right?

Push start and check the Monster data to get info on their stats, record, 
moves, age, and traits. An area of special concern are the moves. There are 
two movesets labeled in roman numerals. You assign the moves for those sets 
from your total move pool. From left to right are your moves for near, 
mid-range, and far away. Remember to take the time to set up your moves 
every time you get a new one added to your pool from Special training.



1.4   Town

Welcome to Town! Here in this virtual monster mecca is the heart of your 
monster organizing, experiments, and creation!  You start here, so don't get 
too panicked!

Best part about Town is that no time passes to visit or leave here and you 
can do all the work here that you need done without worry. This is a 
relaxation time, breeder!

Shrine: Here is where monsters are born. You can create a monster either by 
Tablet (put in aforementioned words of choice!) or by the Book... (Hehehe, a 
little breeder humor there). Oh yeah... they won't generate a monster for 
you if you already have one in your current possession. But thats not a 
problem since you have a Studio!

AGIMA: Don't worry about this place for now. I'll come back to it on the 
"Creating your Path of Champions" section. Its also a place to ditch 
monsters, if you're curious.

Studio: Here is where you store unused monsters. Your monster inventory, you 
could say. If you're going to fight a human friend's monster, here is the 
stock where you draw it from. You can have up to twelve at a time. Choose 
"Freeze" to put the monster you currently have on ice and into one of your 
slots. Choose "Revive" to bring said monster back (No "Encino Man" jokes, 
please!). Delete to... well.... heh.... put the one of your stored monsters 
to sleep. The BIG sleep. Combine lets you take two stored monsters and mix 
them.




1.5  Monster care

As nice as it would be to train a monster without thought, the monster IS a 
living creature before being your little battle beastie, and as such it has 
it's limits! It will eventually tire out and it will need a good diet to 
train well. Light drills, by the way, are Training that raises one stat and 
Heavy drills are Training that raises one stat by a lot, one stat up by a 
little, and one stat down by a little.


Train (Light drill): Go to next fatigue level
Train (Heavy drill): Jump down two fatigue levels
Rest: Jump up four fatigue levels
Battle:  Jump down two fatigue levels
Special: Jump down three fatigue levels
Item: Free command  (no time passes to visit shop or use items)
Town: Free command

1. Aroma: (monster) looks very energetic!
2. Aroma: (monster) looks pretty lively.
3. Aroma: (monster) seems to be in good shape
4. Aroma: (monster) seems to be a little sleepy
5. Aroma: (monster) seems to be tired
6. Aroma: (monster) is really worn out
7. Aroma: (monster) is exhausted
8. Aroma: (monster) is exhausted. If we don't do something soon....


Needless to say, you should not let it get down to 8 or your monster's 
health will be in danger and they'll get sick. Also do not fight if your 
monster's fatigue is 5 or below or their stats will drop drastically for the 
battle. The more often you let a monster rest, the longer it will live. Rest 
it too often and it'll get to be a weak, spoiled bum who doesn't work... but 
it'll live long. Get too stingy with resting, and the monster will grow to 
be a real bruiser but will die young.

Finally, is the issue of feeding the creature. This happens once in the 
beginning of every month. Regardless of monetary concerns, you should feed 
your monster the food that is the most nutritious for it (all four green 
bars filled) but also something it can at least tolerate (at least two 
orange bars). This will ensure the creature will get the most out of 
training it can. After all, where would Jordan be without his Wheaties?



1.6  Battle Basics


One of the first questions one will probably find themselves asking when 
they first battle is, "Whats going on?". Thats a good question. Don't sweat 
it. Relax. First of all are the two lifebars. The one on the left is yours. 
The one on the right is your enemy's. In the center is the time limit. Is 
this looking like a fighting game yet? The center of the screen, where you 
see yourself and the enemy is actually the LEAST helpful  area on the battle 
screen, so turn your attention to the bottom. You should see a little icon 
of your monster and a little icon of the enemy monster and between them a 
red bar that seems to get longer and shorter. The bar is your distance from 
the enemy and vice versa. If that jerk has you up against the wall, pushing 
left or right isn't going to do any good. If you and the enemy monster are 
right up against each other, hit "R1" to back him off. Right under your icon 
should be three other icons. Those are your moves. Remember how I told you 
to set them up?

In the bottom middle area are "Guts" and "Hit percentage". Guts are whats 
needed to make an attack and every move costs some from your pool. They 
regenerate throughout the battle. The higher Guts you have, the higher the 
Hit Percentage of the move highlighted and the lower damage the enemy will 
do if they hit you... Not to mention higher Guts will also improve your 
dodge rate. Whether to spend them as they come to try and attack or to save 
up and use them strategically is the heart of the battle system.

Finally... to wrap up the basics... to get more moves you need to attend 
Special training which I've mentioned in passing above. The Special training 
will cost a month of your time. You have to fight a Teacher... Believe it or 
not, you do NOT need to beat this teacher to get a new move. You need to 
practice moves that fit the special training.

Power: Use your strongest Physical moves (Moves that appear in red) on the 
Teacher
Sense: Use your strongest Intelligence-based moves (Moves that appear in 
green) on the Teacher
Technic: Use your most accurate moves on the Teacher.
Speed: Dodge your teacher and use Guts frugally!
Tough: Use defensive moves and try to survive your Teacher's assault!

The better you do against your teacher will affect whether you get a move, 
but as I said before, it is NOT a requirement to open a can on your sensei 
if you're that powerful. In fact, doing that once during Tough training once 
made me fail to learn a move. Finally, this battle will NOT go on your 
win/loss record, so don't dampen your Hanes just yet.

You now know enough to jump in the game and know what the heck you're doing.




2   FAQ


"What code word should I start with?"

Whatever you like. Don't sweat it with your first monster if you can help 
it. "Pabs" will give you access to a rare monster early.


"Why is it telling me I can't raise this creature?"

You just found the code to a Zan, Durahan, Dragon, or Joker. You need to 
earn those monsters in an Invitational Match which is basically a showdown 
with the monster in question. Win it to earn the right to raise them. To get 
an Invitational for Durahan or Dragon, hang around with an A class monster 
and Bolzoi will drop by with the invitation. To get an Invitational for Zan 
or Joker, hang around with an S class monster.


"Oh no! I missed the invitational battle and it dissapeared from my 
schedule! What do I do?"

Whoops. Bolzoi will come back again next year around the same time he gave 
you the first invitational. Its not too late.


"Are there any expeditions in this game?"

No.


"Can a monster die?"

Not in Age Island it can't. They used to kick the bucket all the time in the 
games before, but not here. They will grow too old to fight or train anymore 
though... Fighting will kill it's stats, so don't try it. The time now is to 
save them for VS human fighting, combine them, or make them coaches.


"Why do my monsters seem to be at their limit barely after three years?"

This truly varies from monster to monster. Joker will hit it's limit much 
quicker than Arrowhead. But general rules to keeping a monster active for a 
long time is to feed it nutritious food it likes, scold it when it doesn't 
finish training but let it go if it just didn't do well, rest it as soon as 
it hits fatigue level four or five, and don't let it get KO'd in battle. 
Battles make small cuts into their lifespan too, but unless they're tournie 
beasties it'll be by a negligible amount.


"Is there any way to make more Freezer space? Is there a way to keep them 
from getting old?"

As if this game isn't simple enough! No, and no.  Use your monster storage 
wisely - don't fill it up with barely-generated monsters. Your Book will 
keep a close enough track of the monsters you can make. And keeping them 
from getting old? Tell you what pal, if YOU figure out the secret of living 
young forever, e-mail me and it'll be our little secret.

(NOTE: That was sarcasm. I don't want your Gameshark codes)


"What is the best monster?"

I forget who said this, probably Lisa-san from MR Metropolis, but whoever 
said "There are no bad monsters, only bad raising styles" is right on the 
money. If a monster really turns out to suck, you either raised it wrong or 
its just not you. Unlike many monster raisers, its actually deadly effective 
to raise your favorites over what LOOKS to be the best.


"Isn't this game just a Pokemon rip off?"

........ I thought I cleared this up, but let me reiterate: MONSTER RANCHER 
came a YEAR before Pokemon. If its ripping off anything, its ripping off 
Barcode Battlers. Don't come playing this game thinking you're getting a 
Pokemon-relive experience or you're going to go home very sorely 
dissapointed.


"How do I get certain traits? (Gold Gift, Fairy Knowledge, Dusk Aura etc.)"

Gold Gift you get from combining two monsters that have between the 
following traits: Hi Power, Hi Sense, Hi Tech, Hi Speed, and Hi Tough. Fairy 
Knowledge comes from combining monsters that have all of the Elemental 
knowledge traits between them... Though the easier way is to just create 
Diva ("Infinite") who will have Fairy Knowledge anyway along with 
frighteningly high stats. Dusk Aura comes from combining two monsters that 
have Light Aura and Dark Aura.


"How come my monsters just don't seem to get strong? I can't beat 
(whatever)!"

Good time as any to plug the next section: Creating your Path of Champions!





3. Creating your path of Champions!


This section is for those of you who are _REALLY_ stuck and need some help 
in raising monsters. Are the ones you have just not cutting it? The quality 
of road you take is as important as the road's destination!


3.1 Coaches


As Einstein had taught us, you do not need to grow in a perfect environment 
with teachers willing to stimulate growth to become truly great. But it sure 
as heck doesn't hurt. The first thing that will stunt your potential are the 
Coaches AGIMA provides you. Don't rely on these rejects to help you raise 
your champion! These guys all have "400" or less in whatever stat they're 
training you in. To put your future champion in their hands is screaming "I 
really suck!". As well as AGIMA's intentions in giving you these guys were, 
they're not going to raise you PvP worthy monsters. What to do then? Believe 
it or not, putting these bums out of a job and usher in new generations of 
champions is not at all hard. But it WILL be extremely time consuming. If 
you're patient enough to see this through, every monster you raise 
thereafter will likely grow to be excellent.

1. Choose the Light Drill you want to bump up to perfection
2. Generate a monster that is generally good in the stat you want (Example: 
a Golem for POW)
3. Train your monster EXCLUSIVELY in that stat (yes, with the wimp AGIMA 
sent) until it hits 999
4. Get it to B-class or higher... Go for the highest class you can. With a 
999 stat, it won't be hard.
5. Continue raising it until it reaches it's limit.
6. Replace the Light Drill coach that even got him this far *evil grin*

Do that for all six Light Drill coaches. Now with all your Light Drills 
being handled by 999 men, you'll already see a difference. You can stop here 
if you want. If you want to continue, follow the steps again, except train 
THREE stats as high as you can using your new Light Drill coaches. Set this 
monster up for a Heavy Drill. Fill up all the Heavy Drill slots now with 
monsters you trained exclusively for coaching. Now you're set - just about 
any monster you raise should now grow to be a serious butt kicker.



3.2  Traits

When combining make sure that the two combinee monsters, discounting natural 
traits like Durahan's Armor, have the traits you want between them and that 
they'll add up to six. Otherwise it gets a bit randomized.  I'll make a 
Trait List here later.



3.3 Combining

(Under construction - I'm still doing 3.1, actually!)



4. Secret Monsters and Passcodes

All right... here you go. The rare monsters. Very good material to raise a 
Coach for.

I got these codes from Monster Rancher Metropolis. Go to 
http://www.monster-rancher-metropolis.com and give them a visit!

Asterisk means that they were a former enemy in MR2!


Pixie:

"Ultra" - Altima
"Nature" - Nymph

Golem:

"Luminous" - Naskar
"Crystal" - Crystallia

Mew:

"Polar" - Polar Mew
"Paleo" - Ballad

Mocchi:

"Rouge" - Soft Pink
"Pabs" - White Mocchi*

Dragon:

"Infinite" - Diva  (This is Dynast!)
"Kawrea" - Magmaheart*

Arrowhead:

"Torble" - SilverFace*
"Cyber" - Stalgunner

Suezo:

"Tesca" - White Suezo*
"ONLIGHT" - Jagandi

Ducken:

"Strange" - Piyokkung
"Football" - Fankung

Zuum:

"KEEPSLY" - Chrono
"Luxury" - Glarlie

Tiger:

"Leaf" - Remus
"Papas" - Kamui*

Naga:

"LIKETEA" - Punisher*
"Killer" - Dogmar

Octopee:

"Sausage" - Vienna
"Snow" - Yuppee

DJ Mogi:

"Jackson" - Thrillie
"WAKE UP" - Oricon

Psiroller:

"Cabbit" - Rabiroller (Ha ha ha -_-;;)
"MOTOGP" - Motoroller

Durahan:

"Selvan" - Avenger
"Paladin" - HolyKnight

Joker:

"Project0" - Gespenst
"MEGADETH" - Skull Gold

Momo:

"Citrus" - Valencie
"Santa" - Momorien

Lesione:

"SEAINSUN" - Irassie
"Jungle" - Grilief

Zan:

"Alien" - Ibuki
"Predator" - Setsuna

Antlan:

"Justice" - Moon Light
"Ninja" - Ninja



4. Contact Information

E-mail me at [email protected] if you have any information or if you 
have questions. If its a question I've already covered in much detail, you 
can expect to be ignored, but if you need something clarified, just say the 
word!


Credits: Thanks to Fade for creating Monster-Rancher.com, Thank you to Lisa 
Shock for establishing Monster Rancher Metropolis, which is without a doubt 
the best place to look for detailed information on this series. Thank you to 
the Monster Rancher dot com EZ-board and thank you to the Monster Rancher 
Advance board for supporting me as one of you. A special thank you to 
Spinneroni for asking so many questions as to build up my Guts in making a 
FAQ!  Thanks to Cjayc for giving me a place to post my FAQ... Finally, thank 
whatever deities created the Universe because its a peripheral without which 
this game may not run!