aren't defense/sp.def and HP kind of redundant stats?
basically one makes you take less damage by actually reducing the amount of damage, and the other makes you take less damage by increasing the amount of damage you can take
but both more or less serve the same function

a mon with high HP and mid defenses vs. a mon with mid HP and high defenses are functionally the same exact thing with different numbers
feels like there could have been potential to have the battle system work in a way that would offer a bit more variety in defensive archetypes

like in a lot of RPGs, an armor/defense stat reduces incoming attack damage by a flat amount rather than a multiplicative scaling factor - so defense is good at shrugging off chip damage or multi-hit strikes, but having more HP is better for tanking big single hits
idk, just feels like one of many missed opportunities