Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia and Koei Tecmo have announced Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher for the Nintendo Switch, with a launch date planned for later this year 2022.
The title is a collaboration between the Ultra Kaiju, which appear in the legendary Ultraman tokusatsu series, and the monster-breeding simulation title, Monster Rancher, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2022.
The game is an Ultra Kaiju breeding simulation game, that uses the Monster Rancher series as its base but instead of raising whatever Suezo is supposed to be, you’ll be raising your very own Ultra Kaiju, be it an Alien Baltan, Zetton, or Gomora.
You do this by selecting from a range of actions each week, including feeding them, assigning them training drills, and sending them on missions with rival kaiju. At the ranch where you raise your Ultra Kaiju, you will have the opportunity to observe the creature’s behavior up close in a way that original works do not allow.
In tournaments, your Kaiju will face off against rivals in battles where they will roar, grapple and shoot the same way they do in the movies.
Battles in the game are likewise based on the Monster Rancher combat system. The attacks available will depend on the distance between your Kaiju and its opponent. Use can set drills to raise your Kaiju’s stats and learn new moves through Errantry to help you dominate the arena.
If this isn’t enough you also have the option to fuse two Kaiju together. There are over 200 different monsters available in the game meaning there’s a lot of replayability for someone who wants to see them all.
The final part of this kaiju breeding game is the actual breeding part. So how do you find your kaiju a partner? Well, you use a feature called the Song Search function to play songs that will generate a new Ultra Kaiju. This involves scanning NFC-enabled devices or items such as transport ID cards with the Switch joy cons.
The game reads your ID card data using NFC and uses it to generate a Kaiju. Different data produces different Kaiju, so you will never know what you are going to get.
Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher will be available for Nintendo Switch later this year. For more information on the game, check out the official website.