It's just another lazy day on the ranch. A robotic dragon is reading a book while a red fuzz-ball works out with a sandbag and a fairy throws rocks at a target. They're getting ready for the upcoming tournaments, tests of might and skill against other monsters raised on other ranches, and for adventures into deep caves looking for mysteries from a bygone age. To get there they will need you, their friend and trainer, to guide and teach them how to be stronger, faster, and better.

Monster Rancher 4 takes the tried and true mechanics of the older Monster Rancher games, gives them a face lift, then drops a thin RPG veneer over the top. The core of the game is still the same; you have monsters and you assign them training to increase certain stats then enter them into tournaments for fame and prizes. There have been a few changes, however, as you can both train and enter a tournament in the same week now. Training is done through the week, ending with free time when you can feed your monster, give him items, or give him positive or negative feedback. On the weekend you can choose to go to town, go on an adventure, or enter a tournament. Winning tournaments is not just a source of money and fame, will raise your monster's rank so that he can enter special tournaments that will increase his grade and let him fight in tougher tournaments with higher payout.

I have the power!!!!!

Adventure mode has you exploring different randomly generated areas with a team of monsters. The higher rank these monsters are, the more energy they add to your meter, this is important because your energy burns down and there are consequences if you get to zero while still away from home. However, adventuring pays off in several ways, the most important being that the way for your monster to learn new skills and moves is through raising their adventure level. Each monster can have 9 active combat moves at any time, three each of short ranged, mid ranged, and long-ranged, on a set of three rotating plates you have access to using the shoulder buttons in combat.

Nice Kitty! Want some shrooms?

Due to weaknesses in the enemy AI, even a novice Monster Rancher will have no problem gaining win after easy win in tournaments until they get to about rank B. Only then do tactics seem to really make any sort of difference, until then enemy monsters seem to be confused and don't attack very often. Add in a counter mechanic where hitting the right button while the monster is attacking lets you turn the attack back on them and you have combat that spells boredom for the majority of the game. The monsters in Adventure mode are even duller, as they typically only have one or two ranges of attack, allowing you to stay in the range they lack and pick them off without any danger.

The Monster Rancher series has always been more about the raising of your monsters than the actual battles between them, and to that end there's some good variety. You can choose to raise up to 5 monsters at a time. While this sounds like a recipe for the micro-management blues, there are some nice tweaks that make it smoother for the player. Each monster has a schedule that can be filled out up to 8 weeks in advance, and you can set it to repeat if you have a good schedule going and don't want to fool with it. The monsters also have a large variety of stats, and not just battle oriented ones. Focus can determine how well you monster does at his training, and Bond indicates how much the monster trusts you and is willing to obey you in combat. Both of these can be tweaked with the punishment and reward system. You can directly give your monster negative feedback when he hasn't been doing as well as he should, or praise him when he's done a good job. Each monster also has a set of likes and dislikes which can be used for behavior modification as well. A cute little monster may feel more focused if you give her a rose, but a butch monster will be angry with you for the same gift and lose focus. It's a balancing act, and the visual feedback you get from your monsters is fairly rewarding.

Don't scratch too hard at that layer of RPG surrounding the whole game or it might come right off. There is a storyline outside the series of tournaments for Monster Rancher 4, but with no user input and no deviation it just comes across as a reason to get you from point A to point B and show you some pretty girls while doing so. The monsters are as pretty as the girls you meet, as Monster Rancher 4 drops the cel-shaded visuals from 3 and returns to a more realistic approach. The various training devices sitting around also look great, but the arenas you fight in and the areas you explore through in Adventure mode do not live up to the PS2's standards in graphics, with very low polycount and somewhat blurry textures. Unfortunately there's little audio in the game. It completely lacks voice acting, and the music is completely forgettable.

Monster Rancher 4 does what a sequel should do. It adds to the features of the previous games in a way that both changes and improves gameplay. It represents a graphical step up, at least for monster quality. The increase in activities brings some mainstream appeal to the game, but not enough to make it a universal recommendation. Unfortunately the weaknesses in enemy AI detract from what could be an excellent game and instead make combat a boring proposition. Monster Rancher 4 still shines despite it's flaws and delivers a one-of-a-kind experience.