Monster Rancher is one of the only franchises where I can see an argument for each individual entry being the best or worst in the series. Outside of the first game, which is a little undercooked and feels more like a true virtual pet simulator a la Tamagotchi albeit with a few extra bells and whistles, 2-4, Advance 2, and DS all do things competently and just different enough to feel the gulf in what is missing from each entry that is present in a specific other one.

3 is probably the most maverick of any of them - to start, the visual style is so far removed from the others. 1 and 2 had a traditional fantasy look, with the creatures looking like they would fit in as random encounters in a mid tier JRPG pretty easily. The tone is fairly boyish with some gross out humor and titillating designs on some of the monsters present. 3 is a lot more cartoony, but in a cuter, cel-shaded way endemic to the early PS2 and Gamecube eras - think Magic Pengel, Wind Waker, and like every anime tie-in game of that generation. The cel-shaded look REALLY works for this game; I think it has the best visual design of any of them, and introduces a ton of new monsters like the Suzurin, Lesiones, Gitan, Baku, Ogyo, Raiden, Momos, Octopees and Psirollers that eclipse a lot of the more uninspired breeds ditched after 2.

It's kind of sad how 4 moves towards the hyperrealistic, where each creature has noticeable scales, fur, feathers, and realistic eyes. A lot of these designs introduced in 3 simply don't work in 4, making some of the monsters straight up scary (the psirollers are horrifying in 4), and others like the Momo and Octopees clearly couldn't work at all so they were removed entirely. When I think Monster Rancher, though, I think of these designs - the pixies are a lot more fey and elfin than the sexed up iterations previously, and I don' t know why the hell 4 went back to the truly heinous and terrifying human-shaped Jells when the silly cute blob ones here are so obviously superior. The designs perfectly translated to the really sweet pixel art style of Advance 2, too (with the added bonus of some 4 breeds like Garu). There's a lot of fun easter egg designs, like several that directly reference Naruto? Some of the special monsters are truly bananas to look at - a Hare that looks like a housewife with a ladle and fork for ears, a Zuum with a tracksuit and sneakers on... And several CDs and DVDs have special little gimmicks and references based on what you put in, which is really clever and probably a ton of work to implement.

Instead of each species having seveal sub-breeds that are like mixes with other monsters as is typical in the series, monsters are instead divided into several sub-breeds based on the region in which they come from, which represent a few different biomes and climates: jungle, forest, sea, mountains, desert. This means the amount of each monster is evenly distributed throughout each species as opposed to some having, like, 10 different variations while others just have 2 or so. It also means a lot of them are FAR less generic and dialed in than they can be in 2 or 4 - instead of every Zan subtype just being a black, hard to see bug, you have some genuinely creative takes on what, say, a Tiger might look like if it grew up in the desert versus the tropics. Even though 4 has some of my favorite designs in the series and the mixed-species look can be really compelling, I do think this is overall a much better way to execute the idea of species with several breeds. There's also a way to change the breed of your monster by feeding it food endemic to the biome you're training it in during its first growth spurt, which is a pretty awesome way to pad out your encyclopedia and speed up the process of attaining monsters if you don't have a humongous CD and DVD collection.

Gameplay wise, there are several changes from 2 - most notably, perhaps, is the lack of Errantries, which are little month long adventures you can send your monster on that eventually evolve into really cool maze RPG-ish puzzle sections you go on along with your monster. The errantries are probably the most popular aspect of 2, and they are sorely missed here, instead being replaced with "Ran Ran Adventures" where you have a limited amount of energy dependent on how much money you spend for the adventure. You do this once a season (so 4 times a year). In a Ran Ran Adventure, you control your monster as it explores the training grounds you're currently located in (of which there are 5, one for each biome) and search specific areas to find new training modules, train your abilities, find items that allow you to get new moves or use on your monster, and build stats. You can also get unlucky and find leeches that drain your stats or monsters that ambush you. If you lose to these monsters, your adventure ends immediately.

The novelty of Ran Ran Adventures quickly wear out and become a pretty annoying element overall. The RNG is pretty horrible - it's super, super hard to find items to get new moves, and you may not even find one for the entire duration of one of your monster's life. You also can only hold one at a time, so you can't save them for future monsters. The same RNG woes apply to the training modules, so it takes a long, long time to get all of the modules (there are three hidden ones in each area), which greatly cripples your ability to train. The facilities you're able to acquire and purchase in 4 feels like a much better and more expedient way to progress your ranch than Ran Ran Adventures.

Another super noticeable change is in the balancing - speed and accuracy have been combined into one stat, meaning your ability to dodge as well as your ability to hit are dependent on your monster's speed here. This severely skews the game to speed builds, making it almost necessary that you specialize in speed for every single monster. This does make battles a lot more braindead than they are in the other games, where many different builds are viable, and the RNG related to hitting feels pretty cruel here, so if you have low speed you could go a whole battle and never hit your opponent a single time. I find this to be the biggest strike against 3 overall - most battles you'll find yourself spamming the same move over and over again, especially given how incredibly difficult it is to get new moves.

Like most Monster Rancher games, though, the game starts to open up a lot more the farther you get, and by your second monster, what you're able to do increases exponentially. Passing on your previous monster's heart to a new one immediately jumpstarts their stats from birth and trains up their moves, and if you're passing it to a monster of the same species, you get to inherit their moves too, which is SUPER beneficial.

I do think Monster Rancher 4 ekes out 3 as the superior Monster Rancher and the best in the series if only because of 4's story, more balanced gameplay, dungeoncrawling, and the ability to train multiple monsters at once, but even in 4 some of 3's charm is sorely missed - this is clearly the peak of the art direction and 4's attempt to rebrand into something a little edgier has mixed results, and the lack of training montages and diverse environments is a definite downgrade. Also, only one of the games here has Momos and Octopees!!

Monster Rancher 3 is a halcyon vision of what virtual pet games could be, and maybe one of the most innovative entries in the subgenre of all time - it's a shame how hard it is to emulate, because there's so many secrets hidden in this weird little game. I will always feel a deep attachment for the Jell I raised as a kid, and after replaying, I carved out a special place in my heart for my Oltan and Blizzarin too.