TL;DR: No resolution options but you have borderless full screen. Works great on Steam Deck, but you'll want to swap 'A' and 'B' buttons in the controller configuration menu for the game before you boot. Maybe wait for a sale.

I saw a streamer play this game and wanted to play it for myself from how much fun I saw from the game. Before this remastered re-release happened, I was already looking at playing Monster Rancher 2 on original hardware, however from my experience collecting old video games, Playstation 1 games are one of the 3 main pillars of pain to collect for when you're on a budget as a vast amount of Playstation 1's library is incredibly expensive. Luckily this re-release package deal for not only Monster Rancher 2 exists, but it also includes the first Monster Rancher as well as their respective manuals, but on Koei Tecmo's website...

For the most part I played Monster Rancher 2, so a lot of my review will be based around it. First off, if you want to change your resolution, you must go through the launcher which allows you to select which Monster Rancher game you want to play, however the resolution options are the worst I've ever seen. You have a full screen option and only a 854x480 resolution choice (for context, the menu shows a drop down menu for changing the resolution but can't be selected to be changed). That's already egregious, but what's worse is that the startup settings window is stylized as a Windows 2000 application (whether that is good or bad is up to you) and simply shows bare minimum effort was put into this small portion of the game, and although there are no other resolution options, at least when you select for the game to be played in full scree, it is borderless full screen so that's good. These are my gripes with this version of the game and they end here at simply "start up settings menu sucks and is bare bones."

I went ahead and also played this version of Monster Rancher 2 on Steam Deck (while also comparing it to the PC version) and I believe MR 1&2 DX is completely Steam Deck compatible. No display issues, no sound quality issues, nothing of real note other than the control scheme for the buttons which they use on PC as well. I recommend swapping A and B around if you're using a Xbox controller or a Switch controller for this game because it seems those inputs are hard coded to be in those positions. Simply swapping them makes playing MR2 a lot more organic. Other than a minor control scheme change, everything plays great! MR 1&2 DX should get a Steam Deck Verified icon at some point in the future unless I've missed something catastrophic that prevents it from getting verified.

I want to note one this before finishing this review, and it's the weird icons that are to the left and right sides of the screens while playing either one of the MR games, and doing some bare minimum research, I found that there were mobile ports of the first two Monster Rancher games. I have no idea if the Monster Rancher games used in this re-release are those same mobile ports as those mobile ports are, to my knowledge, Japan exclusives and I cannot find any footage, discussions, or even any screenshots that are floating around the net. I'm not saying that the games used were from mobile builds of the same games, but I want to bring attention that these icons are far too familiar (and also functional) to many other mobile ported games that have on screen press-able buttons. However if anyone has more information about this, please let me know as I'd like to know more whether or not if my assumption is correct or not.

TL;DR: No resolution options but you have borderless full screen. Works great on Steam Deck, but you'll want to swap 'A' and 'B' buttons in the controller configuration menu for the game before you boot. Maybe wait for a sale. I saw a streamer play this game and wanted to play it for myself from how much fun I saw from the game. Before this remastered re-release happened, I was already looking at playing Monster Rancher 2 on original hardware, however from my experience collecting old video games, Playstation 1 games are one of the 3 main pillars of pain to collect for when you're on a budget as a vast amount of Playstation 1's library is incredibly expensive. Luckily this re-release package deal for not only Monster Rancher 2 exists, but it also includes the first Monster Rancher as well as their respective manuals, but on Koei Tecmo's website... For the most part I played Monster Rancher 2, so a lot of my review will be based around it. First off, if you want to change your resolution, you must go through the launcher which allows you to select which Monster Rancher game you want to play, however the resolution options are the worst I've ever seen. You have a full screen option and only a 854x480 resolution choice (for context, the menu shows a drop down menu for changing the resolution but can't be selected to be changed). That's already egregious, but what's worse is that the startup settings window is stylized as a Windows 2000 application (whether that is good or bad is up to you) and simply shows bare minimum effort was put into this small portion of the game, and although there are no other resolution options, at least when you select for the game to be played in full scree, it is borderless full screen so that's good. These are my gripes with this version of the game and they end here at simply "start up settings menu sucks and is bare bones." I went ahead and also played this version of Monster Rancher 2 on Steam Deck (while also comparing it to the PC version) and I believe MR 1&2 DX is completely Steam Deck compatible. No display issues, no sound quality issues, nothing of real note other than the control scheme for the buttons which they use on PC as well. I recommend swapping A and B around if you're using a Xbox controller or a Switch controller for this game because it seems those inputs are hard coded to be in those positions. Simply swapping them makes playing MR2 a lot more organic. Other than a minor control scheme change, everything plays great! MR 1&2 DX should get a Steam Deck Verified icon at some point in the future unless I've missed something catastrophic that prevents it from getting verified. I want to note one this before finishing this review, and it's the weird icons that are to the left and right sides of the screens while playing either one of the MR games, and doing some bare minimum research, I found that there were mobile ports of the first two Monster Rancher games. I have no idea if the Monster Rancher games used in this re-release are those same mobile ports as those mobile ports are, to my knowledge, Japan exclusives and I cannot find any footage, discussions, or even any screenshots that are floating around the net. I'm not saying that the games used were from mobile builds of the same games, but I want to bring attention that these icons are far too familiar (and also functional) to many other mobile ported games that have on screen press-able buttons. However if anyone has more information about this, please let me know as I'd like to know more whether or not if my assumption is correct or not.