Sounds like you have very similar tastes to me. That game was so entertaining.
Another one I jsut remembered is Jade Cocoon for the PS1, most people cast it off as a Pokemon ripoff. It has the same core idea of capturing wild animals and using them to fight, but it had far better graphics than Pokemon (obviously) and its best feature allowed you to literally combine two of your monsters to make a brand new one. Not only did the new monster mix types and attacks, it even mixed their appearances, so you could make some awesome looking monsters.