Fatigue and Stress Walkthrough - Monster Rancher 1

Fatigue and Stress are hidden values in the Ps1 Monster Rancher series that you have to keep track of. Neither of these values are displayed anywhere in the game and the only reason we know anything about them is from people diving into the game's code and figuring things out (or by reading a strategy guide).

You're told in vague terms about your monster's fatigue each week by Holly, she will say things like your monster is "tired" or "very tired" if their fatigue is high or things like your monster is "very well" or "well" if they have almost no fatigue. Stress is a lot more hidden than fatigue and the only time you're ever notified that your monster is stressed is when it becomes so bad that your monster becomes stressed out. If Holly tells you that your monster is tired or stressed it means you're pushing it too hard.

Every time your monster is sent on Training, Work, Expeditions or to Tournaments your Fatigue stat will increase. As far as I know your Stress stat only increases when you do Work, Training and Expeditions. Depending on which of these activities you participate in determines how much Stress and Fatigue you generate. Below is a list of each activity and the amount of Stress/Fatigue your monster will accumulate from doing it.

Light Work: +3 Stress and +18 Fatigue
Hard Work: +8 Stress and +33 Fatigue
Training: + 16 Stress and + 68 Fatigue total (+4 Stress and +17 Fatigue each week)
Expedition: +10 Stress and +70 Fatigue

Now, let's talk about some methods we can do to lower our Fatigue and Stress levels. The most obvious of all these methods is to give your monster some Rest for a week. Resting your monster essentially gives it the week off to recouperate - the only downside to resting is you spend a week doing nothing that could be spent raising stats.

Monster Rancher 1 also has a few passive ways for you to recover your Stress and Fatigue levels; the Fire Stone and Calm Stone are items you can hold that will give you some recovery each month. Additionally the 2nd Stable Upgrade will give you some Stress recovery each week too. Below are most of the available methods to recover your monster's Fatigue and Stress levels.

Rest: -8 Stress and -55 Fatigue
Meat: -10 Stress (and +1 Week Lifespan)
Mint Leaf: -50 Stress
Taffy: -50 Fatigue
Mango: -10 Fatigue

(Passives)

2nd Stable Upgrade: -2 Stress each week
Calm Stone: -5 Stress on Week 1
Fire Stone: -5 Fatigue on Week 1

Participating in Tournaments will also recover some of your monster's stress but will give your monster some Fatigue in return. Depending on how well your monster performs determines how much Stress is recovered and how much Fatigue is earned. One thing to keep in mind about Tournaments too is that they will reduce your monster's Lifespan.

Since Tournaments reduce your Lifespan it's encouraged that you do not participate in them to lower your Stress. The only reasons you'll want to do Tournaments is to earn money or rewards and to advance your Breeder Rank.

Tournament 1st Place: -60 Stress and +30 Fatigue (-2 Week Lifespan)
Tournament 2nd - 3rd Place: -50 Stress and +40 Fatigue (-4 Week Lifespan)
Tournament 4th - 8th Place: -40 Stress and +50 Fatigue (-8 Week Lifespan)
Tournament Injured: -30 Stress and +50 Fatigue (-16 Week Lifespan)

With all of that information out of the way you may now be wondering, what happens if I stress my monster out too much or exhaust him? The worst case scenario is that your monster dies. If you stress your monster out too much then he'll run away and he can be gone for weeks at a time resulting in a lot of lost time that you could be training him. A monster that is too tired will under perform on tasks, act like a brat and perform very poorly in battle.

Additionally, leaving your monster stressed out or too tired will reduce his Lifespan. The only website online I can find with the Formula for how much Stress and Fatigue will reduce a Lifespan is Legend Cup. From my understanding of the Formula - every 10 points of Stress and 20 points of Fatigue gives you 1 point towards the reduction of Lifespan Index. So long as you keep this total under 3 points you won't reduce your monster's Lifespan by any amount.

Below is a picture of the Lifespan Index from Legend Cup's website; below that is my translation of it.

Lifespan Index 1 - 3: 0 Weeks Lost
Lifespan Index 4 - 5: 1 Weeks Lost
Lifespan Index 6 - 7: 2 Weeks Lost
Lifespan Index 8 - 9: 3 Weeks Lost
Lifespan Index 10 - 11: 4 Weeks Lost
Lifespan Index 12 - 13: 5 Weeks Lost
Lifespan Index 14 - 15: 6 Weeks Lost

From my understanding of this information, so long as you keep your total below 3 you won't lose any of your monster's Lifespan. As previously stated, every 10 points of Stress counts as 1 LI and every 20 points of Fatigue counts as 1 LI. This means if you have 40 Fatigue and 10 Stress you're at 3 LI; or if you have 60 Fatigue you're at 3 LI.

What I don't know is how often this counter "ticks". Meaning, say you have a Lifespan Index of 5 which means you're losing 1 Week of your monster's Lifespan - does this calculate every week? Once a month? I can't seem to find that information online and I don't know how I could accurately test it since all of the information is hidden.

To dumb this down further, you'll want to keep these things in mind while you're playing Monster Rancher 1...

If Holly tells you that your monster is tired that means you're over 60 Fatigue and you're currently reducing your monster's overall Lifespan. Either Rest your monster or feed him Mango/Taffy to reduce his Fatigue.

If Holly tells you that your monster is stressed out that means you're over 60 Stress and you're losing at least 2 weeks of his overall Lifespan. You should buy items to reduce his Stress immediately.

Since Monster Rancher is built around a set time frame during which you need to make your monster as powerful as possible - you need to take advantage of every single week to the fullest extent. For this reason my biggest piece of advice to you would be not to be stubborn when it comes to cheesing things like using Save States on an Emulator or resetting your game if you accidentally let your monster get stressed out or tired.