Koei Tecmo has announced that the Monster Rancher series is finally back in the west with the release of Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX, a compilation release aimed at Switch.
As you may have guessed, the new version includes both Monster Rancher 1 (1997) i Monster Rancher 2 (1999), all along with the 25th anniversary of the series. The last time they gave us a Monster Rancher game in the west was when Monster Rancher DS launched the Nintendo DS in 2010, you guessed it. Although at that time it only reached North America, completely skipping Europe.
“In celebration of the magical ’25 seriesth anniversary, Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX brings the very popular simulation games to modern hardware, where players raise their own monsters and train them to compete against other eccentric creatures in combat and tournaments. With hundreds of different types of monsters, each with their own skills and abilities, each rancher will be able to raise and train monsters that are perfectly suited to their personality and style of play. “
This new special release will arrive on December 9, 2021; if you haven’t checked it out yet, watch the video that includes a message from Kazumi Fujita, executive producer of the series.
When the package launches on Switch later this year, you can expect to find some features that were never present in the original Western PlayStation versions of the games, such as additional guard slots, Freeze slots, Monster Hall of Slots Fame, a memory feature and high speed mode to play through the game at a faster pace.
Do you have any fond memories of the Monster Rancher series? Will you check out this compilation version? Let us know with a comment.