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Beneath the fluffy and child friendly goodness of pokemon is a dark secret that pokemon has KILLED OFF THE COMPETITION WITH A NINJA PIKACHU...... OF DEATH!!!! As the yellow rat sits in your lap and warms your heart; he is secretly: DESTROYING ALL OF YOUR OLD FAVORITE GAMES OF MONSTER BREEDING!!!
Disclaimer: I love playing the pokemon games and dabble in the card game time to time, so don't think I'm bashing it out of hate.
My insanity aside, This topic is to discuss the monster breeding video games that were unfortunately released around the same time as pokemon and have been left behind to be crushed in the dust. I'm only going to mention ones that have had an impact on me and would like to know what everyone elses is if there are any people around with games that been crushed....by popularity.
Starting off with one of the few games I have the earliest, fondest memories of, Robopon. The game released back in 1998 around December and competed against pokemon Yellow, Red and Blue. They had 3 versions of the game as well, but only 2 versions made it to the western shores being Sun and Moon versions. The game itself attempted to compete with pokemon using a system that nintendo later adapted to use in pokemon Gold, Silver and Crystal; The Day and Night System.
The Game:Robopon was a monster breeding game, however instead of breeding monsters, you were breeding robots. You could only carry about 4 robots per team, though you could modify almost anything and everything about them. Their moves could be edited with software, some software even crossed over and made special fused moves like "Oil 1" and "Fire 1" could make the powerful fire based Attack "Napalm" along with the regular "Fire" and "Oil" Moves. You could also edit their methods of fighting such as the weapons from punching to shooting. The robots could also "evolve" in a sense and become more powerful! The game even gives you your own Robopon company where you can invest you money into to develop new robopon, robopon parts, software, it was an awesome setup. The game's Day and Night System also made a difference to where certain events would only happen between Day and Night. Example, School is open without much danger to where only student robopon owners would be fighting while at night while the school remains closed; rouge robopon would roam the halls. The day and night system was incredibly innovative during the time of it's release; innovative enough that the pokemon team either stole the idea or happened to develop it for Gold, Silver and Crystal out of pure coincidence. I'm only stating this because Robopon released about a year before the Johto region game came out; we probably have a day and night system in pokemon today because of Robopon, though that's just me speculating, I have no hard evidence to prove that.
Sequel: Robopon did get it's sequel, but it was very....short lived. Robopon had a secondary release to the GBA, though the team didn't do anything more innovative with the idea itself. You could now create your own robopons on the spot, but only through the way of mixing batteries together. The battles are no longer 1 on 1 but 4 on 4 and there was the addition of the battle slot, where when a robopon used a move, the slot would give a random symbol to where if a move did normal damage or multiplied. The only other ideas they put into the game that were idealistic were that you could change the color of your robopon and they gave some of the un-evolvable robopon from the GBC era an evolution in the GBA version here. Everything else though in the GBA game is just garbage; the maps were terrible, the time traveling joke of a the lab constantly exploding is terrible and the game never did do a good job pointing the player in the right direction to progress the story, which is ok starting out though it gets hard to understand near the end. It's as if they didn't care near the end of development.
Special?: The GBC cartridge was modified to have a battery door to the game's watch battery the player could change out when it was about to die out, it was this same battery that kept the RAM on the GBC cartridge alive to keep your Save File from dying out. Meaning while other GBC cartridges Today are losing this kind of power to where you have to either re-solder the battery to the cartridges or emulate the games, Robopon would be the only game cartridge that could stand the test of time in Memory Saving Storage; which would be perfect for retro gamers, considering today how most GBC cartridge batteries are dying, this one you can change out with a screwdriver alone and a spare new battery. The only other item special about the GBC cartridge is that it would chime when something eventful happened in game like when your company expands. GBA versions did not follow suit.
Cons:
~In the GBC version, While Evolution was possible, you needed to take your Robopon to a mechanic to complete the evolution process.
~The GBC game cartridge itself have an RF unit built into the cartridge to communicate between other cartridges or your TV remote controller. This is a con because it feels like a waste since the gameboy color had it's own RF sensor unit built into the console itself. I would understand if it was there for the older gameboy systems that didn't have the RF sensor for this feature, but it still feels like a waste.
~While the GBA version is fun to play, towards the end-game it feels like a bad anime. Its as if the developers but some heart and soul into the start of it and wanted to give up on it for good.
Ports:
Robopon got it's own N64 release, but to Japan only. We never got it in America.
The Game: The game itself revolves around a youth named Koh or whoever you want to name him and his quest to be a great monster tamer by scaling the Monster Tower in Monsbaiya. Years prior before you were of age to enter the tower, your father disappeared without a trace after an indecent takes place at the top and you decide to go in and seek him out. While climbing the tower, you will come across monster eggs which you can hatch to add to your monster collection/crew or sell off to make a large amount of moolah and upgrade your current living situation or your home town; since your bath is literally one large barrel of water over a pump.(You might want to stay poor, show off to the ladies your bone and muscle... Koh likes to do it XD. *Am going to be shot for this*) You can only carry 5 items into the tower at a time and can only control up to 2-3 monsters at a time. Periodically, you will have to feed the team that travel with you as you scale the tower providing you want to use their magic or have them fight for you unless you store them back to the inventory. There is a dating system in the game as well across 7 different women. You can't "marry" them, but you can increase their affection for you. They even have "heart" events.
Sequel: The game had an unannounced, unheard of or unseen sequel released on the DS called Tao's Adventure. It was not easy; as vague as the game is to find, but I got my hands on a copy and it was not like what I was expecting. You don't play as the red-headed youth anymore, but as a mage from a village that has been despised across the planet. The game makes references to Monsbaiya, the town in Azure Dreams and makes reference to the monster tower there; only to claim the town and tower have been destroyed, releasing a dark and evil raven to turn your village to stone. You have to go to a desert town with their own monster tower to get an egg from the same species of giant evil raven monster to cure your village. The game is pretty good for a monster breeding game and has several systems/ideas from the first Azure Dreams put in. Only bad news is the floors aren't randomized, you can't fuse monsters and your starting partner looks like a wobbufet ate a platypus with wings. I still recommend the game if you see it in this day and age; don't let the title fool you.
Special: Aside from Kewne, your awesome goggle wearing dragon, you can fuse your monsters in the game to get an even more powerful monster. While this is seen across several different monster breeding games; I thought it should be pointed out.
Cons:
~You can only carry 5 items into the tower.
~Your Monsters get Hungry. While it is interesting mechanic to add challenge to gameplay, I don't see it as necessary.
~There are only 3 elements in the game, Fire, Wind and Water.... because **** earth.
~You need a wind crystal to escape the tower or a monster that goes by the name of "Baloon," which even then seems a little stupid. Also, Wind crystals are hard to come by starting out. You can't even buy them in the shop until the town upgrades a little.
The Game(s): The most notable monster rancher games are the ones where you care for one monster at a time. Training it day and night whilst feeding it monthly, making it stronger and stronger to fight in large arenas and contests until it gets too old that it has to either retire until it dies or become a coach itself to train your future monsters. While the older PS2 games where few ask to insert a CD to act as your monster disk, (Monster Disk based off the TV show for those who never bothered to watch), it's still highly playable on the GBA and DS.
Ports: There were releases of the game on PS1, PS2, GBA, GBC(A card game), Nintendo DS and MASTER RACE PC. Though on the PC, they've released an MMORPG which those out west will never see. I heard it's just "ok" though, last I checked my sources.
Though this is old news, but for those living under rocks or in the forums, A digimon game has resurfaced and so is the TV series; taking the original cast of characters fromt he first iteration of Digimon; except have those kids grown-up to their middle school - college years. I don't know a thing about the TV series except that it was announced and when it hits American shores, it may be poised to make a killing over the "Pokemon Anime" with an Ash Ketchum who is still 10 years old.... Stupid writers...
The game I'm referring too is Digimon Rumble, It's made an updated re-appearance on the PS3 as Digimon Rumble All-Star.
That's all I got; anyone got a game that they loved as kids but pokemon killed, post it up. Otherwise, if you want to discuss these old days, I'm all ears.
Disclaimer: I love playing the pokemon games and dabble in the card game time to time, so don't think I'm bashing it out of hate.
My insanity aside, This topic is to discuss the monster breeding video games that were unfortunately released around the same time as pokemon and have been left behind to be crushed in the dust. I'm only going to mention ones that have had an impact on me and would like to know what everyone elses is if there are any people around with games that been crushed....by popularity.
Robopon
Starting off with one of the few games I have the earliest, fondest memories of, Robopon. The game released back in 1998 around December and competed against pokemon Yellow, Red and Blue. They had 3 versions of the game as well, but only 2 versions made it to the western shores being Sun and Moon versions. The game itself attempted to compete with pokemon using a system that nintendo later adapted to use in pokemon Gold, Silver and Crystal; The Day and Night System.
The Game:Robopon was a monster breeding game, however instead of breeding monsters, you were breeding robots. You could only carry about 4 robots per team, though you could modify almost anything and everything about them. Their moves could be edited with software, some software even crossed over and made special fused moves like "Oil 1" and "Fire 1" could make the powerful fire based Attack "Napalm" along with the regular "Fire" and "Oil" Moves. You could also edit their methods of fighting such as the weapons from punching to shooting. The robots could also "evolve" in a sense and become more powerful! The game even gives you your own Robopon company where you can invest you money into to develop new robopon, robopon parts, software, it was an awesome setup. The game's Day and Night System also made a difference to where certain events would only happen between Day and Night. Example, School is open without much danger to where only student robopon owners would be fighting while at night while the school remains closed; rouge robopon would roam the halls. The day and night system was incredibly innovative during the time of it's release; innovative enough that the pokemon team either stole the idea or happened to develop it for Gold, Silver and Crystal out of pure coincidence. I'm only stating this because Robopon released about a year before the Johto region game came out; we probably have a day and night system in pokemon today because of Robopon, though that's just me speculating, I have no hard evidence to prove that.
Sequel: Robopon did get it's sequel, but it was very....short lived. Robopon had a secondary release to the GBA, though the team didn't do anything more innovative with the idea itself. You could now create your own robopons on the spot, but only through the way of mixing batteries together. The battles are no longer 1 on 1 but 4 on 4 and there was the addition of the battle slot, where when a robopon used a move, the slot would give a random symbol to where if a move did normal damage or multiplied. The only other ideas they put into the game that were idealistic were that you could change the color of your robopon and they gave some of the un-evolvable robopon from the GBC era an evolution in the GBA version here. Everything else though in the GBA game is just garbage; the maps were terrible, the time traveling joke of a the lab constantly exploding is terrible and the game never did do a good job pointing the player in the right direction to progress the story, which is ok starting out though it gets hard to understand near the end. It's as if they didn't care near the end of development.
Special?: The GBC cartridge was modified to have a battery door to the game's watch battery the player could change out when it was about to die out, it was this same battery that kept the RAM on the GBC cartridge alive to keep your Save File from dying out. Meaning while other GBC cartridges Today are losing this kind of power to where you have to either re-solder the battery to the cartridges or emulate the games, Robopon would be the only game cartridge that could stand the test of time in Memory Saving Storage; which would be perfect for retro gamers, considering today how most GBC cartridge batteries are dying, this one you can change out with a screwdriver alone and a spare new battery. The only other item special about the GBC cartridge is that it would chime when something eventful happened in game like when your company expands. GBA versions did not follow suit.
Cons:
~In the GBC version, While Evolution was possible, you needed to take your Robopon to a mechanic to complete the evolution process.
~The GBC game cartridge itself have an RF unit built into the cartridge to communicate between other cartridges or your TV remote controller. This is a con because it feels like a waste since the gameboy color had it's own RF sensor unit built into the console itself. I would understand if it was there for the older gameboy systems that didn't have the RF sensor for this feature, but it still feels like a waste.
~While the GBA version is fun to play, towards the end-game it feels like a bad anime. Its as if the developers but some heart and soul into the start of it and wanted to give up on it for good.
Ports:
Robopon got it's own N64 release, but to Japan only. We never got it in America.
Azure Dreams
Another Monster Breeding game from my childhood is Azure Dreams. One of the few games to help pioneer Dungeon Crawling. The game originally released on the GBC and later had it's own 3D port created onto the PS1. I enjoyed playing this because of the character, monster design, and level design. The lore stored in the game is worth reading into if you have the time to be a monster "egg" hunter.
The Game: The game itself revolves around a youth named Koh or whoever you want to name him and his quest to be a great monster tamer by scaling the Monster Tower in Monsbaiya. Years prior before you were of age to enter the tower, your father disappeared without a trace after an indecent takes place at the top and you decide to go in and seek him out. While climbing the tower, you will come across monster eggs which you can hatch to add to your monster collection/crew or sell off to make a large amount of moolah and upgrade your current living situation or your home town; since your bath is literally one large barrel of water over a pump.(You might want to stay poor, show off to the ladies your bone and muscle... Koh likes to do it XD. *Am going to be shot for this*) You can only carry 5 items into the tower at a time and can only control up to 2-3 monsters at a time. Periodically, you will have to feed the team that travel with you as you scale the tower providing you want to use their magic or have them fight for you unless you store them back to the inventory. There is a dating system in the game as well across 7 different women. You can't "marry" them, but you can increase their affection for you. They even have "heart" events.
Sequel: The game had an unannounced, unheard of or unseen sequel released on the DS called Tao's Adventure. It was not easy; as vague as the game is to find, but I got my hands on a copy and it was not like what I was expecting. You don't play as the red-headed youth anymore, but as a mage from a village that has been despised across the planet. The game makes references to Monsbaiya, the town in Azure Dreams and makes reference to the monster tower there; only to claim the town and tower have been destroyed, releasing a dark and evil raven to turn your village to stone. You have to go to a desert town with their own monster tower to get an egg from the same species of giant evil raven monster to cure your village. The game is pretty good for a monster breeding game and has several systems/ideas from the first Azure Dreams put in. Only bad news is the floors aren't randomized, you can't fuse monsters and your starting partner looks like a wobbufet ate a platypus with wings. I still recommend the game if you see it in this day and age; don't let the title fool you.
Special: Aside from Kewne, your awesome goggle wearing dragon, you can fuse your monsters in the game to get an even more powerful monster. While this is seen across several different monster breeding games; I thought it should be pointed out.
Cons:
~You can only carry 5 items into the tower.
~Your Monsters get Hungry. While it is interesting mechanic to add challenge to gameplay, I don't see it as necessary.
~There are only 3 elements in the game, Fire, Wind and Water.... because **** earth.
~You need a wind crystal to escape the tower or a monster that goes by the name of "Baloon," which even then seems a little stupid. Also, Wind crystals are hard to come by starting out. You can't even buy them in the shop until the town upgrades a little.
Monster Rancher
"Monster Rancher, monsters rule!" One of the few series and games I've enjoyed the most straight out of japan and my second favorite monster breeding game. We don't hear much of it here in the west anymore, but the series is still reproducing like wild fire over there for our asian friends and is still growing. Well, the last time I checked my contacts.
The Game(s): The most notable monster rancher games are the ones where you care for one monster at a time. Training it day and night whilst feeding it monthly, making it stronger and stronger to fight in large arenas and contests until it gets too old that it has to either retire until it dies or become a coach itself to train your future monsters. While the older PS2 games where few ask to insert a CD to act as your monster disk, (Monster Disk based off the TV show for those who never bothered to watch), it's still highly playable on the GBA and DS.
Ports: There were releases of the game on PS1, PS2, GBA, GBC(A card game), Nintendo DS and MASTER RACE PC. Though on the PC, they've released an MMORPG which those out west will never see. I heard it's just "ok" though, last I checked my sources.
Digimon
I would be an idiot not to mention Digimon; the only other series to compete WITH pokemon successfully and still keep running on both sides America and Japan. I have only watched the first season of Anime to the end and know very little about the games, so I can't give my pro's nor my cons. What I do know is that while both Digimon and Pokemon have been running alongside each other; Digimon games have slowly faded from both console and PC until it was all about the toys and crappy Tiger created electronics based of the Digital DNA saga.
Though this is old news, but for those living under rocks or in the forums, A digimon game has resurfaced and so is the TV series; taking the original cast of characters fromt he first iteration of Digimon; except have those kids grown-up to their middle school - college years. I don't know a thing about the TV series except that it was announced and when it hits American shores, it may be poised to make a killing over the "Pokemon Anime" with an Ash Ketchum who is still 10 years old.... Stupid writers...
The game I'm referring too is Digimon Rumble, It's made an updated re-appearance on the PS3 as Digimon Rumble All-Star.
That's all I got; anyone got a game that they loved as kids but pokemon killed, post it up. Otherwise, if you want to discuss these old days, I'm all ears.
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