It's a simple premise with an actually complex execution. It's not a simple process at all to create and train your monsters. First, you have to go to the shrine and grow the little fellow. At the shrine, you pick combinations of letters and characters, which are used to build your monster. Unfortunately, in the early portions of the game, there's no way to know what combinations make the best monster. And sometimes, you'll create a little beast that's too powerful for you at the time, and you'll have to start over. Thankfully, as you progress through Monster Rancher 2, you'll earn tips on how to pick the best letters and words for monster building.

Once you have a monster in tow, you need to work on raising it on your ranch. The ranch is integral to the proper care and feeding of your monster as you need certain equipment at times in order to teach your monster special moves. No special gear equals no special training for your monster. The problem here is you just don't know what you need, so the early part of the game leaves you doing only the most basic of training for your beast.

While you're at the ranch, you'll put your monster through various simplistic training exercises to help him build skills. Again, the game starts out very ambiguously, you're never sure exactly what you should be teaching your monster, or how to get him to succeed at his training tasks. As always, time is your friend, as you'll learn more about the training system the more you play. But prepare to be frustrated at first. Along with training, you'll be able to set up sparring matches in which you duke it out with other monsters, and here's where you'll become incredibly frustrated as the combat system is just plain bizarre.

The combat system consist of hitting the buttons at just the right moment and distance from your enemy. Your monster's attacks vary by distance, which makes it really hard to figure out just what he's going to do when you hit the button. If you're lucky, you'll get off a good shot or two, but for the first several hours of play, you're just going to get stomped by everything in sight. The combat system is just so strange that you'll find yourself flinging your GBA quite frequently.

Throughout the game, you can explore, train, or fight, that's really all there is to it. At seemingly random times, other monster ranchers will appear and issue challenges or just offer up friendly sparring matches to help you try and boost your rankings. These chance encounters are a nice break from the "train monster, feed monster, spar monster" routine of the game.

Graphics
I would have to say that Monster Rancher Advance 2 is one of the nicest games I've seen in a long time for the Game Boy Advance. Bright backgrounds, detailed 2D characters and fun little animations go a long way towards increasing the playability of Monster Rancher Advance 2.

Sound
As with the graphics, Monster Rancher 2 shines over many other GBA titles. The sounds are straight out of most anime shows; with plenty of silly or peppy tunes instead of the "bleep bloop" type music you get in other titles.

Replayability
Once you learn the monster creation system, you can create a wide variety of monsters, which ensures you'll keep playing Monster Rancher Advance 2 for a good long time.

In the end, I'd say Monster Rancher Advance 2 did a good job of getting me interested in the "monster training" types of titles. However, it still needs some work on the combat system, and a hint system for early on the game would be greatly appreciated. After I had played Monster Rancher Advance 2 for a bit, I handed it off to some younger folks in my family, aged 14, 12, and 10, and strangely enough, they absolutely hated it, which is odd since this is a title you would think was targeted for kids. The kids found it far too complex and too slow for their liking, and each of them lasted at best a half hour with it before putting in a different game. I, on the other hand, having adult patience, was able to actually enjoy Monster Rancher Advance 2. Is it my favorite GBA game ? Heavens no, but it's still worth a purchase if you like these types of games, or are looking to give the genre a look.

See screens for Monster Rancher Advance 2 at Tecmo's web site