Let's talk about Monster Breeding games

[Guest MegaMagikarp]

I get it, this is a Pokemon fan-game website and I am posting on a Pkmn forum: please no shots fired. HOWEVER, we got to admit the thing that keeps Pokemon at its peak is the meta game. Without the nostalgia and fan base, on its own it has pretty blatant limitations (thank you for games like Reborn that keep it worthwhile and engaging). But, there are so many great monster breeders out there that died out or just don't rank so high in popularity. So I thought I would just chat a bit about some other monster breeders. What mechanics/gimmicks are your favorites? What was your favorite games? Some of the ones I would mark are:

* Jade Cocoon (PS1) has an amazing breeding/combining system and cool mechanics but just a painfully short and eventually redundant game without a good continuation (excluding PS2 sequel).

* Azure Dreams (PS1) was a wonderful dungeon crawler with cool egg system, albeit terrifyingly difficult and grind-y if you are not ready for it.

* Monster Rancher 2 (PS1) is probably the best monster breeder ever and it has never gotten old for me.

* Dragon Seed (PS1) was a great knock off with a bitchin soundtrack.

* Monster Seed (PS1) was alright, although it was pretty lame overall.

* E.V.O: search for Eden (SNES) was entirely mesmerizing with a cool body part modification system of evolving.

Sure there are other like Shin Megami and Digimon, but I never got into them. What do ya'll think.

[Greed_Demon]

I played E.V.O: search for Eden. It was a crazy ass game. Once I became a flying creature I never left the air. Stayed as a dragon monstrosity all the way through. even when I was supposed to turn into a mammal I was like "fuck you ice age Ill keep my wings". as for shin megami tensei I played both 1 and 2 for a bit but the interface is soooo archaic. You literally have to learn another fucking language to know what the fuck the spells do. Plus the games do not explain what certain attacks or weapons do or what certain actions you do and how they change the plot. I liked the convincing monsters to join you part. and the fusing monsters was fun because of the mystery. As for digimon most of the games suck bricks! only a few decent ones here or there but thats it. after digimon world championship years back I swore off the franchise. I have been dicked around by them long enough.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Greed_Demon

[Hutch333]

I loved EVO. I don't even remember how I found the game but I played it non stop for like a week. The dragon quest monster games were decent too. I did have to give up my save data on the first one for gbc because I needed the internal battery to put in red version.

[Etesian]

Well-versed in PS1 games and a fan of Azure Dreams? Oh, I like you, fella. But yeah, I adore Azure Dreams. It's one of those games that doesn't explain some things about the breeding system too well or...at all (like the fact that leveling a spell ball to 10+ lets you feed it to a monster to teach it a new spell, which is the only way for a monster to have 3 spells at once) and basically everything to do with Selfi and Ghosh is a cringe-fest, but it's just such a fun game.

Though I didn't find it as difficult as you say, but then again, rogue-likes are my jam. No denying that the grind is freaking real if you're trying to find a specific monster egg though, especially for some late-game monsters.

[Guest MegaMagikarp]

Well-versed in PS1 games and a fan of Azure Dreams? Oh, I like you, fella. But yeah, I adore Azure Dreams. It's one of those games that doesn't explain some things about the breeding system too well or...at all (like the fact that leveling a spell ball to 10+ lets you feed it to a monster to teach it a new spell, which is the only way for a monster to have 3 spells at once) and basically everything to do with Selfi and Ghosh is a cringe-fest, but it's just such a fun game.

Though I didn't find it as difficult as you say, but then again, rogue-likes are my jam. No denying that the grind is freaking real if you're trying to find a specific monster egg though, especially for some late-game monsters.

I am all about the ps1. Haha. Were these adaptations for psx or gbc Azure Dreams? It killed me pushing to the 30th floor to get cheap shot by a maxim and have to start the whole ordeal over without my plus 20 sword to boot. I did a run now where i had a noise that i boosted to hell and back and fused with a block cause I love noises. I also threw an egg fruit at a maxim and fused him for 2x hp so he is a beast. 3rd in lineup for h20 coverage is a spider that i tanked out by fusing with the griffon. A really fun run tbh. Considering what to play next. Probably revisit MR2.

[Etesian]

I am all about the ps1. Haha. Were these adaptations for psx or gbc Azure Dreams? It killed me pushing to the 30th floor to get cheap shot by a maxim and have to start the whole ordeal over without my plus 20 sword to boot. I did a run now where i had a noise that i boosted to hell and back and fused with a block cause I love noises. I also threw an egg fruit at a maxim and fused him for 2x hp so he is a beast. 3rd in lineup for h20 coverage is a spider that i tanked out by fusing with the griffon. A really fun run tbh. Considering what to play next. Probably revisit MR2.

Hit me up if you ever wanna nerd out about ps1 games lol. And Playstation version, never got my hands on the gbc one (from what I've seen, the ps1 version is better anyways, just that the gbc one has a few more monsters and got way more exposure...somehow). I wasn't too lucky with gear. I steered clear of rust traps cause I've been hyper paranoid of traps ever since I had a bomb trap destroy an egg right in front of me (you can imagine how pissed I was).

You just gotta know when to go home (and pray you find a wind crystal if you didn't bring one). Even if you don't achieve anything special, chances are you still let your familiar get some good XP. I'd usually beat the game with an elemental sword and steel/diamond shield at +7 each and a level 25-30 familiar. You just gotta conserve your familiar's MP (don't have them fight on the early floors, try to go on your own as long as you can. If you've killed most of everything and are just running around to explore, put the familiar back in the bag) so that you can use spells a lot. Mostly the sword spells (the ones that have a familiar add magic to your sword hits) as those are really good.

Props for using Noises, love those things. Me, I'm a huge fan of the level 7-9 monsters. U-Boats just look really cool and DeRock is a neat spell, evolved Nyuels are stupidly sustainable, Krakens damage-on-contact trait works really well with Block's double defense. But the clowns, man. Their trait that doubles spell levels is insane. Their innate spell, LoDown, is just a level-down, which is trash, but as mix magic, it's a really nice ranged electric attack that lets a level 28 Death (clown evolution) one-shot basically everything up to floor 30. And that's just it's own trait/spell, you can add whatever. Cyclone's MP-cost-halving trait is great if you wanna spam spells, but I prefer Arachne fusion. Clown's/Death's attack is really good with the doubled attack trait and Arachne's DeMirror when converted to Wind Genus has possibly the best mix magic, adds good wind magic damage to your attack and is guaranteed to paralyse on hit.