After a certain point the Pokemon started being made with the level of creativity and identity you can expect from AI generated garbage, so I don't blame you for forgetting them.
Honestly I don't even think gen 1 Pokémon are anymore creative than the others. I was still a kid when the concept was new so they felt fresh, but pretty much every Pokémon I can think of is based on an existing archetype of some sort. Plant/Animal, inanimate object brought to life, spirits, dinosaurs, etc. Then you sprinkle on some regional flavor and there you go, you got a Pokémon.
"Identity" isn't something that belongs to the object, it's something that is assigned to the object by an observer.
This is why, in retrospective, I've really fallen out of love with Pokémon. I could have spent that time learning about real-world animals and plants, since it's so arguable, whether Pokémon are even cooler to begin with.
I still love Pokémon, I just try not to let my nostalgia for the old games get in the way of enjoying the new ones. I try to judge everything on its own merit.
But yeah I agree, really animals are way more complex and interesting than anything you'd find in a game.