Started another run of Monster Sanctuary - one of my all time favorites. It’s a mix of Metroidvania and monster tamer and both parts work really well. Monster combat is teams of 3v3 and is pretty deep with individual skill trees for each monster and tons of synergies. Metroidvania elements also work really well - there is defo quite a bit openness to which area to explore first and there are also some optional and post game areas to find.

They also included some cool features for replayability - randomizer, permadeath for monsters, and a “bravery mode” giving you 1 random monster per area only for a cool challenge to come up with a build. I have over 10 playthroughs of it :D

There is also online pvp - not sure if the scene is still active, but there was an interesting tournament scene.