The original creator has openly called it just things he liked in other games that he tossed together.

The Pokemon comparisons are just people jumping on the bandwagon because it has cute critters you can catch, but it absolutely is derivative of Ark in most ways. But I don't think that is inherently a bad thing either, because it clearly improved on the formula enough to have mass appeal in the base EA game instead of needing a dozen mods to even be close to fun like Ark is.

Its a guy who made a shit ton of money in crypto who wanted to make his own perfect game by copying all his favorites in a blender. It has created its own popular niche because of how juxtaposed it ended up being from that, but it was created with that imitation mindset.