Considering most of them are copied from Dragon Quest

Or the other way around. I'm not sure who's copying who. But it ain't the first time.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ec_-omLWoAAfhaF?format=jpg&name=large

you remember in sword and shield when you had to run from pokemon in that shitty open world? well now you have a bat, and its pay back time

It's alright. Little bit of an identity crisis... But as a pokémon clone, it's pretty good. I picked it up today and I can already tell you I have put more hours into it than I put into Scarlet and Sun combined.

Initially I was into it, but then at about level 20 I realized it wasn't going anywhere. After a few levels, it's literally the same thing over and over again, but you upgrade the equipment. Nothing really makes a huge difference after you get them farming basic materials.

There's NO plot after you complete the tutorial. What it says about taking down the bad guys in the description? It's all in your head. You kill plenty of them. You make zero difference to the world that lasts more than a hour.

The only thing Pokemon-esque about it is the monster designs and that you catch them in spherical objects.

Everything else about it lends itself more to the survival crafting genre.

Gameplay I think is quite enjoyable from the bit I've played. It feels a lot more sandboxy than Pokemon would have ever allowed in their games because they care a lot about story narratives that everyone now finds super boring.