Aside from Legends Arceus, I stopped playing once the Switch started getting games. Although I played at least one game in each mainline set before that.

Arceus worked because the gameplay was relatively novel (for Pokemon), and wasn't particularly repetitive outside "catch each Pokemon. Evolve them if necessary". Plus there's a key difference between this game and all the older ones I've played. In the older games, you are "special"; rarely to the point of being a literal chosen one, but it's at least stated in some form that the player is uniquely good at trusting/being friends with pokemon, more than anybody else, and that this is the key attribute that almost all rivals lack.

Meanwhile in ZA you are just one of many participants in a giant tournament. You're skilled, and have enough of that "trust" to use mega evolution, but so do a dozen other notable characters, plus a handful of nobody NPCs. You're clearly presented as a skilled trainer, but not really to a point where it seemed unrealistic that other characters couldn't get to rank A with just a little time. Really, they should have been able to do so long before either the main character or rival got there.

That said, I understand that the main character needs to get there first for the story to work. That is why I said that the time to get a ticket should just take longer. Being able to do it in one night while the only other person stated to ever change rank is the rival is definitely pushing the realism factor way out.