Monster Rancher EVO

Monster Rancher EVO (Monster Farm 5: Circus Caravan in Japan) is a PlayStation 2 game in the Monster Rancher series.

Monster Rancher EVO delves more into the RPG genre than previous installments in the series. Gamers play the role of Julio, a circus performer who aspires to be a world class monster breeder. Players must meet with the circus ringleader on a weekly basis to plan out the next week's course of action: schedule in circus performances, adventuring and training for their monsters.

Although the series has taken a new direction, Monster Rancher EVO features many of the themes of past games. Monster generation (using CD/DVDs, an in-game item, or with other monsters) is done with a female shaman named Nayuta who also plays the role of heroine. Rather than using a shrine to unlock your disks, Nayuta awakens them using a magical monster rebirth dance. She can reseal them in disc stones as well, which replaces the freeze function from older games. While this does not affect monster health it does affect loyalty; over-use can lead to monsters rebelling in the middle of a show.

There is a Monster Market where players can pick up disc stones for free, in case they lack a large collection of their own disks.

Monsters can be combined like previous games, but the parent monsters are not consumed, and are put back in Julio's inventory afterwards. Many monster species make a return, with a few new additions as well, for a total of 25 main breeds. Monsters put on shows using training gadgets, and if the audience enjoys the show, they will throw money at the stage.

Exploration, similar to that of Monster Rancher 4, involves the character going out into the field with his or her monster(s), and defeating stray monsters and a chapter boss to gain anima points, used to gain new monster skills or perform 'union attacks'.

Source: Wikipedia, "Monster Rancher EVO," available under the CC-BY-SA License.