Tecmo's Monster Menagerie

TOKYO - Tecmo held a press conference last weekend in Japan where it proudly announced plans for the sequel to its popular title Monster Farm (called Monster Rancher in the US).

Monster Farm 2 will be released on February 25 for 5,800 yen (about US$51), and in addition to the press, a few lucky gamers were invited to witness the announcement.

In Monster Farm 2, much like the predecessor, players create monsters from music CDs, train them, and then battle against someone else's monsters. This time there are more than 300 monsters in the game. Each has its own characteristics, which affect how you train them. Some monsters are "evil" (and act evil), while others are "good." That is also taken into account when your monster battles against others.

The ranch where you train your monsters is now fully polygonal (instead of represented by hand-drawn sprite-based animations).

This game is compatible with Sony's new PocketStation. In the previous game, monsters could be trained through part-time jobs where they could also earn money. But in MF2, monsters can only be trained through training activities such as running, meditation, and swimming. So how do you earn money besides winning tournaments? Using the PocketStation. You download your monster to the PocketStation and play some easy (actually, a bit cheesy) minigames when you're on the road. Then upload your results to the game. You get money depending on how well you do.

Tecmo has prepared some nice incentive programs for the title. First of all, if you reserve your copy of the game now, you'll get a Special Monster CD, which enables you to create an exclusive monster. Second, this game will be endorsed by popular singer Ami Suzuki. Her brand-new song, "Nothing Without You," will be featured in TV commercials for the game. She also performed this song at the conference. If you put Ami's music CD in the game, you'll get another exclusive monster. And there's more - if you breed those two monsters, you'll get another exclusive monster.

Tecmo is planning to hold a second Monster Koshien, a nationwide Monster Farm tournament, and organize a Monster Farm Fan Club. The game is also being adapted into an anime TV show called Monster Farm: Enbanseki no Himitu, which begins airing this April. You can tell Tecmo is hoping that this game will reach the big time. It is expecting shipments of more than a million units.