Quoted By:
The two games have almost nothing in common besides featuring "monsters".
I think Monster Rancher has as much (if not more) intricacy as Pokemon going behind the scenes, except unlike Pokemon it doesn't disguise it with a piss-easy "story" mode.
It just kind of throws you into the world of hidden number crunching, and leaves you with vague or no explanation of the mechanics that you need to utilize. I loved it, but I can understand why it wasn't popular- a Pokemon equivalent of Monster Rancher would be starting you out directly in post-game in the Battle Frontier with a couple level 1 shitmons, with no story or handholding and Wonder Trade as your only source of new mons.
