Is there a way to make Monster Rancher-like game?

Sorry. I have no idea where to post this kind of question as I only see "Plugin" Request and no regular Request board, so I'm posting it here. Please let me know if I put it in the wrong area and tell me where to go so I know next time.

Anyway onto my question!

For those of you old school gamers out there remember an old game series where you raised monsters on a farm or ranch in a Monster Raising simulation different from Pokemon? I remember them, those good old Playstation 1 and 2 games (I never played the GBA ones) and my favorite are 1, 2, and 4 the most. 3 was alright, but 5 was missing a LOT of monsters and it's more heavily focus on story wasn't bad, but it felt lackluster compared to the first 4 ones.

Now I kinda want to recreate that kind of game in RPG Maker MV, but I'm not sure where to look into to make it so.

Monster Rancher you raise monsters on a farm and only one monster at a time (until 4 where you can raise 5 monsters at once) and a week passes for each activity you pick. Like pushing carts, running up a hill, etc... and doing so increases their parameter depending on what you pick.

On top of raising your monsters you also took part in Tournament to raise your Breeder Rank so new options are available to you and new stronger monsters to fight in higher level. MR4 is my favorite in that regard when you go up higher in rank more story is unlocked along with new areas to explore and training options.

However all monsters' have a lifespan so when their end comes you can freeze them in storage to merge with another monster you raised or just got and create a new stronger monster from both parents from the fusion.

There were also explorations where you send your monster out with someone for a month to bring back many goodies and rarities as well as giving more parameter increase if they success. Failing you get nothing and a chance of them getting sick... them getting sick and overly-work will shorten their lifespan even further.

Each monster also has different personalities and favorites even if they're the same race so you have to learn more about your monster. You can even play and pet them to increase your "bond" with them and the higher their Affinity/Affection is towards you the most likely they will listen to your commands in battle.

Like in Monster Rancher 4 you can explore Dungeons to search for rare items and fight wild monsters, but there's a Stamina gauge so you can last there forever and when it empties out your mission is done and you leave. Each one consumes a week's time and you have everything on schedule to let you know where the next tournament is and other events so you can plan accordingly.

The Player never fights and issues commands (like Pokemon and Digimon for example) so there never in the party, but the monster follows them.


So what I'm saying is, are there any Plugins that could work together to make a Monster Rancher-like game in MV?

*) Having a "Calendar" system to show you the time and date you're on and a "Schedule" to show what's coming up where you can make down a "reminder" to not forget it.
*) Training Options that also serve you net you money, but is tied to RNG and the success rate only increases depending on the monster's stats, weather, and other hidden values with both a normal Good rating and a better Great rating that increases the parameter they're working on. (Plus you can save and reload if you fail in case)
*) Field Equipment with Passive Traits that improve the success rate and stat increase when doing jobs/training.
*) Battle Mode where it's setup with a Knockout Tournament and/or Bingo-like card where the most wins is the winner. (Look at old Monster Rancher videos on Tournament battles to see what I mean. Here's a video link to see what I mean about a "Bingo-like" Tournament as I'm not sure on the word)


At the 0:20 is what I'm talking about and the monster with the most wins win the tournament, but if it's even with another opponent you go into a "Sudden Death Match" mode and have to win to get the victory.

*) A battle system similar to the Monster Rancher series is well, where you can move the monster back and forward in a straight line to cover distance which some moves can only be perform at certain distances and the camera zooms in and out depending how far or close the two opposing monsters are.

*) Freezing and Merging Monsters. You can either left your monster die and give them a funeral or you can freeze them in storage (up to 10 monsters at max) when your Assistant tells you your Monster's life is nearing the end (you never know how much longer they got as their lifespan will increase or decrease depending on how well you care for it, but there's an "Age" counter for how old is it) and recommends freezing them. Also merging two monsters together to form a new monster (the new monster will take on the form of the "main" first monster parent and well take about 10% of their stats to add on to their stats and its coloring and skills are from their "sub" second monster parent).
*) An "Age System" where a monster has a pre-set lifespan that can increase or decrease depending on what you feed it, how well you care for it, how much it's gotten sick or not, how many times it losses battles, etc...
*) A "Stamina System" for exploring dungeons that comes from their monster's stats, all of them tally together, and it depletes as you explore and perform actions when exploring and battling enemy monsters.

Basically most of the features from Monster Rancher 2 and 4 as those two are among the best of the best Monster Rancher games in the series.

Sorry for asking about this, but I was thinking how cool it would be to have a Monster Rancher-like game made with the RPG Maker series.

So anyone know if it's possible with the Plugins that are out there at the moment?

It's definitely possible. A few years ago I made a basic Monster Rancher clone in RPGM VX Ace by utilizing lot of events.
It was missing the tournament though and I limited it to 4 monsters (you could definitely do more).

There are calendar systems, which you would definetely want to look at, as for everything else variables and eventing will be your best (and worst) friend.
You'll find RPGM MV is more flexible than you think, you just need to work with it a bit. Best of luck!

I see. I guess I will be looking around for tutorials to give me a rough idea how to make it.

Honestly my favorite RPG Maker is XP because the mapping system was the absolute best in that compare to most RPG Makers which I'm so confused why they never went back to it. Well I hope I can make good Parallel Maps as I've never made any before.

Regardless I will look into it and ask more questions seeing as I can make a game like this. Not for a long time as I have a more "traditional" RPG to make that's more of a testing grounds for me to use MV, but I want to make a good and proper RPG when I do.

I will ask more questions later for help regarding this. Thank you very much for answering!

I agree, XP was an excellent Maker, sadly a bit outdated now.
I also wish they would go back to it but as you pointed out we can do Parallel Maps to make up for this.

That's a good place to start a more traditional RPG would be a good way to get more familiar with MV also.
No problem, good luck with both games and your Parallel Maps!

Yup. I have a friend who is currently using the RPG Maker XP to this day on his RPG project which I've helped out a bit with spritework and finding some scripts for his game. We even manage to find someone who still works on making RMXP scripts nowadays.

Not much, but it's pretty good. Though I wish to point out to his maps being... well his earlier maps he filled the entire screen (an amateur mistake I did as well first time) with tiles and later cut it down to make them actually rooms.

It's called "The Outsider Who Loved Gensokyo" if you're curious.

I will look up tutorials to make my own Parallel Maps, which should be fun. Most maps look gorgeous if done right. Plus no limit to layers too... seriously miss the XP Map system with the Weather effects on top of it too, if they added it to MV I would regard MV as the best maker out there... I do have Paint.NET and GIMPS 2 to try to make them. Can't afford Photoshop sadly.

Thanks for the encouragement. Let me know if there's any good tutorials I can look into to make a Monster Raising Simulator for MV in the future.

Also I look forward to any RPGs you're developing yourself my friend.