Yeah, it would still be a great game in a universe where Pokemon doesn’t exist. The devs are very open about using established game mechanics, and those are established for a reason.

The closest game to Palworld is probably Ark, being another open-world creature collector, survival crafter combination. However, on top of all the significant aesthetic and QOL changes, Palworld still has a much deeper colony management and creature interaction and optimization angle to still make it quite unique mechanically.