>>35519655but then Monster Rancher's fusion system was more concrete. In the first game everything fused with everything, sans a few secret bonus monsters. Then as the series went on some monsters didn't have as full a range of fusions, but a lot of the staple types stayed pretty much universally compatible: Suezo, Tiger, Dino/Zuum, Hare, Pixie, Golem, etc... Unlike other collectable monster games it wasn't about having a big party, you had one monster active at a time (until MR4 opened that up some) and what was nice was that you really did build something of a bond with your one partner, even it was largely a sense of investment more than emotion.
The battle system was a tad clunky but that almost lent to the charm of it. i.e. you always had the option of trying to give direct commands in battle or to let the AI try and handle it, and in the spirit of the game I always let my monster fight on AI, trusting that if I raised it right it could hold its own, and it usually worked. There was also something really tense about the tournaments because it rarely really came down to just being able to power thru a whole roster, a lot of fights came down to who had more HP% when the clock ran out, and so being a dodgy prick, or just a damage sponge could totally ruin you if you tried to rely on KOs alone.
