I was playing on normal difficulty, I tend to do that for my first playthrough on most games. Melee was actually super strong on my Goblin, he absolutely tore through enemies if he was super effective against them. I actually didn't know that about the formation, would all the monsters get exp from it or is it just locked to the 4 in the party when the battle ends?
Nah, locked to the four members in the party. It's still useful, cause the whole idea is that you swap between monsters when one of them dies, gets disabled or runs out of mp, pretty much essential if you play on higher difficulties. I'm glad you were able to actually play through it anyway, despite not knowing!
Yeah, goblin is pretty strong, he has the highest attack in the game. One of my favourites as well.