Yeah, the novelty is basically that it's Pokemon with the rose-tinted glasses off. But I'd argue that's not really what carries it and neither is gameplay that works surprisingly well for something they glued together from Pokemon, Breath of the Wild, and any survival action game.

What carries it is that Pocketpair have kept improving the game despite legal interference and without succumbing to the temptation of charging more money.

There's no pre-launch DLC. There's no out-of-early-access price hike. The 1.0 release had so much new stuff in it that it could've been sold as an expansion pack in the pre-DLC days and they just pushed it as a free update because they felt the game wasn't done yet. Even the crossover content is free.

This is a game where the developer actually seems to care about delivering a good product. And I think you can feel it in the quality of the game.