There's actually plenty of material to compare to, with a swath of Pal designs that are clearly original, in a similar style with similar inspirations. Then there are models with almost precisely the same silhouette and proportions as iconic Pokemon, which are frankly just worse designs for it, since the altered colors and markings clash with the original concept and result in a generally forgettable whole. They clearly had the skill and motivation to innovate more within their niche, but instead the game is half-full of what feel like hastily painted over placeholders.

Sure, nobody owns the artstyle. Nobody owns the idea of collecting animals. Not suggesting they do.

But you get enough things the same, lawyers will start sniffing around.

Tem Tem is pretty much Pokemon, far closer in gameplay than Palworld tbh, but they sensibly made it look different, didn't try to ride the coattails of a lawyer-happy multi-billion dollar corporation, so avoided all this drama and nonsense. Digimon and Yo-kai Watch, again, very games. Different enough marketing that they didn't get sued.

Sony don't own metal dinosaurs or post apocalyptic scenarios (although they make so many of the latter they might as well), but when Tencent did this:

... just what do you expect their lawyers to do? Not get paid?