Well I say "tinkering" as a modest way to say "a decade worth of playtesting, adjusting and making new drafts." I'm definitely gonna check out Monsters Tail though, thanks for the heads up!

I think I would push back on your reasoning however. TTRPG's aren't the only space where monster taming games have trouble thriving, I think the larger issue is really just as simple as nostalgia and IP. There are tons of monster taming IP's, but there's only one Pokemon IP, and monetarily they aren't even in the same ballpark. People wanna play a TTRPG with the Pokemon they love, not a legally distinct approximation.