During the early-to-mid aughts we had an infestation of monster shows, with Pokémon and Digimon leading the charge, and stuff like Medabots, Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh! not far behind those two juggernauts... but then, there was also the likes of Monster Rancher.
Monster Rancher is interesting to me in the sense that I have never seen a "Pokémon-clone" that was so widely unpopular... everyone (myself included) tried giving it a chance, and yet no-one ever stuck with it for more than six episodes. But the people behind it decided to ignore all of that and presented us with the most hilarious thing: the fact that they dared throwing shade at Pokémon through their very own version of the "Pokerap", in which they boasted about having "more than 400" monsters, which is undeniably far more than Pokémon's original 151... but the thing completely falls off a cliff when you take a look at Monster Rancher's line-up and realize that the vast majority of these "400" monsters are recolors of existing creatures or just ones with accessories added. Furthermore, most of them are boring-looking and not really that interesting to watch. You'd be hard-pressed to find an uninteresting design among the original Pokémon. And same goes for Digimon, Medabots and many others, but these are truly boring. And I have had that opinion ever-since I first watched the show when I was 10.
But Monster Rancher's problem is not that (although it is very hard to ignore), but the fact that the extremely limited cast of characters isn't interesting to watch or easy to root for, either. After only about seven episodes, the main group of characters features half-a-dozen members, but I have only ever cared about two: Holly and Hare. Holly because she is the only character on the entire show that didn't feel one-note to me (and her motivations are actually important within the story) and Hare because... well, because he's a complete jerk. The rest I found to be kinda annoying, especially the main character, Genki (although Golem has his moments).
No-one I have ever met was able to endure watching the show for long, and as a result of that, we never tried playing the videogames, either (and it's kind of ironic, because the show couldn't brag about being a videogame fast enough). I took a look at them and... yeah, they didn't look like they'd have appealed to me any more than the show had, although I would be remiss not to mention one really cool feature they had: you were encouraged to swap any CD you own (and I do mean any) whilst in designated areas of the game and a semi-original monster would be created exclusively for you based on the CD you entered. That's honestly really cool and I would love for Pokémon to try its hand at something like that.
Aside for that, though... not much to see.
What about you, though? Ever watched the show or enjoyed the games?
Monster Rancher is interesting to me in the sense that I have never seen a "Pokémon-clone" that was so widely unpopular... everyone (myself included) tried giving it a chance, and yet no-one ever stuck with it for more than six episodes. But the people behind it decided to ignore all of that and presented us with the most hilarious thing: the fact that they dared throwing shade at Pokémon through their very own version of the "Pokerap", in which they boasted about having "more than 400" monsters, which is undeniably far more than Pokémon's original 151... but the thing completely falls off a cliff when you take a look at Monster Rancher's line-up and realize that the vast majority of these "400" monsters are recolors of existing creatures or just ones with accessories added. Furthermore, most of them are boring-looking and not really that interesting to watch. You'd be hard-pressed to find an uninteresting design among the original Pokémon. And same goes for Digimon, Medabots and many others, but these are truly boring. And I have had that opinion ever-since I first watched the show when I was 10.
But Monster Rancher's problem is not that (although it is very hard to ignore), but the fact that the extremely limited cast of characters isn't interesting to watch or easy to root for, either. After only about seven episodes, the main group of characters features half-a-dozen members, but I have only ever cared about two: Holly and Hare. Holly because she is the only character on the entire show that didn't feel one-note to me (and her motivations are actually important within the story) and Hare because... well, because he's a complete jerk. The rest I found to be kinda annoying, especially the main character, Genki (although Golem has his moments).
No-one I have ever met was able to endure watching the show for long, and as a result of that, we never tried playing the videogames, either (and it's kind of ironic, because the show couldn't brag about being a videogame fast enough). I took a look at them and... yeah, they didn't look like they'd have appealed to me any more than the show had, although I would be remiss not to mention one really cool feature they had: you were encouraged to swap any CD you own (and I do mean any) whilst in designated areas of the game and a semi-original monster would be created exclusively for you based on the CD you entered. That's honestly really cool and I would love for Pokémon to try its hand at something like that.
Aside for that, though... not much to see.
What about you, though? Ever watched the show or enjoyed the games?
