Monster Rancher 1 and 2 have different settings and locations. Still, they all have one story in common: You are a rookie Monster Breeder that is hired by FIMBA(Monster Rancher 1) or IMa(Monster Rancher 2) to raise monsters and become a Master Breeder of monsters.
You usually have two choices of how to get your monsters: a choice of three starter monsters (Eg. Dino, Tiger, and Suezo in MR1; Arrowhead, Zuun, and Mochi in MR2) or using CDs to unlock other monsters. The remake solves the gimmick by providing music/game data that gives you some monsters and some (since modern items do not have access to CD disc drives).
Once you acquired your monster, you now have to do the following to get them ready to fight in battles, like doing jobs or drills to power up your monster or acquire money. Feed your monster to ensure they have the nutrients for training, jobs, and battles. You also make money from side things like jobs and expeditions, though the money you’ll be making will be through the game’s tournaments you’re participating.
Monster Rancher 1 and 2 usually use a Round Robin style tournament (though Monster Rancher 2 gives us Elimination). Winning the matches will usually provide you with money, sometimes a prize like Disc Chips, medicine, and even rare items like a Dragon’s Horn. The Official Tournaments will raise your monster rank, which helps you unlock new monsters, upgrade your ranch, and allow your monster to fight the next grade. Starting at E Rank, you must work your way up to S Rank, then win the Big Four Tournaments to beat the game (MR2 lets you have a new one called the Legend Cup, which immortalizes your monster in the Hall of Fame.) However, it’s not as easy as just doing jobs and going into tournaments. You have to manage everything about your new monster. You have to manage their diet, training routines, when to rest, and lifespan. That’s right, monsters can grow old and die due to many things like giving them too much medicine, forcing them to run ragged, or them getting hurt in tournaments. Luckily you can freeze old monsters and fuse them in the future to make stronger monsters for your progress. You also have Expeditions, which are minigames that allow you to use your monster to explore around a map to search for rare items and stuff to sell or help raise your monsters once acquired. Battles are unique as you manually move your monster between several distances (Far, Mid-Far, Med, and Close). Each range has access to an attack that your monster can use by spending energy known as “Will.” Some attacks will inflict something called Withering, which not only damages but reduces Will on the target. The fight lasts for 60 seconds, and the objective is to either KO your opponent or have more Life than your opponent. Just remember to ensure your monster isn’t KO’d with Low Will as that can badly injure your monster or, worse..kill them in the arena.

One of the most significant issues of the games is that there’s no explanation for the mechanics themselves. First-time players will not know side things like stress management, the lifespan of monsters, percentage, even knowing about the spoil/fear mechanic. Also, not knowing that some drugs and battles will cut lifespans short. Monster Rancher 2 is just as complex as some fans of the game made an advanced third-party viewer needed to better understand the hidden mechanics behind them. It can become annoying with expeditions as you may need 3-4 stats to boost for an expedition monster (Life, Pow, Skill, and Int) and that Int is the factor that can determine your monster’s success (and ensure they don’t get somehow lost in an open field.)
Another problem is the monster unlock mechanics to get some monsters. For starters, to get the Hengar monster in MR1, you have to go to Reno, dig through the ruins for four limbs, then you have to win an A-Rank invitational to win the Doll head to get the Hengar. Then you go back to Reno again when the expedition begins and have your monster (who has 500+ Int). Have it read the tablet to be used, or in Monster Rancher 2, to unlock the Beaclon, you need to feed a Worm 30 Jelly Cups, must be at least four years old in the game, the loyalty of 80 or more, and be C rank or lower and have low to none fatigue and stress.
This makes some monsters unavailable and hard to get when you accidentally unlock a mighty monster from a disc. Lastly, the entire game is more or less an IOS port, which means that Steam and Switch versions are the same and makes things harder to do as you don’t have button modules for controllers (or stuff not known.) This makes playing games a pain to do in some situations.