I mean... Pokemon is just a ripoff of Dragon Quest V. So if anything, it's perfectly fine to ripoff a ripoff.
Besides, Nintendo has only patented the mechanic of catching monsters in balls. The rest can be copied without problem. Just look at Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times. A straight up Animal Crossing ripoff, right down to the artstyle, mechanics, and animalease. AKA, the stuff that isn't copyrightable, but is patentable, but Nintendo didn't patent.
That being said, hopefully they don't go the Palworld route of monster design, and instead make actual original monsters. Because Palworld was clearly just stealing Pokemon designs. If you gave me a quiz to guess whether it's a Palworld creature or a Gen 7/8 Pokemon, chances are, I wouldn't be able to tell which is which.
Meanwhile I can easily distingush between Digimon, Monster Rancher, Dragon Quest, and Shin Megami Tensai creatures, all of which have had games that are more or less Pokemon ripoffs.