>>49342535I feel that back at "Pokémania" the so-called clones actually were pretty divergent in ideas and mechanics. The template to follow was "collecting-focused turn-based adventure game for handhelds".
Now all of the "Pokémon Killers" only get made by deliberately copying the Pokémon formula and mechanics, but tweaking in what the developers perceive as issues with Pokémon's current design (like difficulty, multiplayer, etc.)
If any of them become flavor-of-the-month note it's only because Pokémon is in a hiatus, why Yo-kai Watch became big in 2015 and every other entry struggled, and probably also why Pokémon hasn't stopped with the releases since 2016.