Really dissapointing how the series is fleeing its roots so entirely...
No, they add in so you can train a bunch of monsters at once making it tedious to do every action multiple times and it lessens your attachment to any one monster. I found my self just kind of working them into the ground for whichever one was doing best at the moment it didn’t matter; they were all just stupid animals this time.
The earlier slightly more serious MR1 and MR2 were far better more focused games, they were general more entertaining, and I know for a fact I cared a lot more about the monsters on there than I did about anything in MR4.
What they need to do is go back to the roots and rebuild the game from the ground up as a Monster Raising Simulation like it started, then work out a great combat system, something better than the really annoying one they have now. I’d actually go for, entirely go for, a combat system were it was just suggestions and the fighting of your monster was based off of a tactical skill or combat experience, something to make it seem less like when it fights you take its mind over.
MR4 is just disappointing, its not as fun as the others, and it’s a lot harder to get attached to your monsters, and it’s far more annoying to deal with the day to day running of your ranch.