Pokemon games always had a habit of trying to break to mold compared to their predecessors. Gen 5 was a soft reboot for Pokemon as a whole and moved away from Japan-inspired regions, Gen 6 gave players Mega Evolutions, and Gen 7 added both regional forms and Ultra Beasts, with modern games doing something similar but still changing the overall Pokemon formula - like Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Although many entries in the series were both unique and ground-breaking for different reasons, Pokemon Legends: Arceus arguably remains hard to top in this sense due to how much it shook up the core gameplay loop, and that's something sequels can keep doing with more dedicated regions, such as Alola.