honestly Pokemon would've been better if they had ripped off more of Dragon Quest V
like, early Pokemon really just feels extremely stripped down in comparison, the only thing they expand on is more monsters and evolution -- incidentally evolution being a major theme in Dragon Quest V, and your great sabercub becoming a great sabercat after the timeskip
I guess to a certain extent the simplicity and limitations are part of the point of Pokemon. and technically under the hood the IVs and EVs in Gen 1 add more complexity to stats than there is in how stat increases are determined in Dragon Quest V (it's seemingly random, at least for the hero, since I reset after scripted battles at the start that are always identical and had different stat increases on the first level up). but that's not really apparent in actual play
anyway I guess I should try Dragon Quest Monsters games at some point then