LogFAQs > #954959663

Poor Monster Rancher had all of the ingredients for a mega hit, but it never truly took off. It managed to get in a lot for what it was, though, including *two* CCGs (even if one was a physical version of what was in a video game... and then the other was based on that awful anime).

And when you think about it, there really wasn't much reason for it to not succeed, except maybe just the fact that monster-trainer games tend to appeal to a younger audience and the MR mechanics were geared more towards an older audience (although the spinoffs should have caught some of them). Granted, at a surface level, the core concept *could* be compared to the original Digimon devices (which sought to cash in on the success of Tamagotchi -- Bandai's other product -- with something that could appeal more to boys), but Digimon as a franchise gradually became more like Pokemon (even when, hilariously enough, later on Pokemon's designs became more like what you might see in Digimon) -- with games going more the RPG route.

I can't help but wonder if the MR franchise had something closer to a traditional RPG, if the anime was better (or even just got better distribution), etc, could it have been at least as successful as Digimon? Instead, MR exists as this absurdly impressive also-ran which has some name recognition but is very frequently left out of conversation because, at best, it's a seen as a very distant third (if at all)


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