I loved that game, I'm glad they are coming out with a sequel but I outgrew Pokemon as the newer generations came and I am probably not as interested in the sequel, might try it out for the nostalgia factor.
Pokemon Snap is truly a testament to Nintendo's creativity in coming up with innovative gameplay, it leveraged their new 3D system in a cool way back then.
And to top that off, there was an arcade version of the game (or possibly just the normal game in arcade stand, not sure anymore). We had one in the local Blockbuster, so kids could do a quick run while their parents were looking for a movie.
Crucially you cannot stop the cart you're on, it trudges forward at a mostly static pace through the level. This means you have to run through zones a couple times to learn the timings for certain pokemon to appear. At some point you unlock apples (lures) and rocks (activators) which you can use to influence the movements that pokemon make through those zones.
It culminates in things like seeing a Magikarp early on in a river rapids level, lining up your shot perfectly to hit it with a stone so it flies into a waterfall, that allows it to evolve and you'll want to get your camera pointed up for the dramatic moment it bursts back out through the waterfall. You get extra points for things like the pokemon being centered in the shot, them facing the camera, making specific movements, rare happenings (like evolutions, or using moves), etc.
So I'd say so, yeah. It lacks the grandiose appeal that Mario 64 had at the time but I'd say it beats out Tetris no matter what way you look at it.
Back in the day you could take your cartridge to a blockbuster and print out your in game photos too (or something like that). That was the coolest thing in existence.
The new one looks like a pretty faithful sequel, even, pointlessly, drawing on some of the canon from the first game. I think it will great.
Never played Pokémon Snap, but if the gameplay resembles even a little the photography side-game of Beyond Good and Evil, or Subnautica, I'd probably find it fun to an extent. And beating Tetris gameplay, for me, is a pretty low bar. About the only thing I liked about it was the memorable music - as a kid, I never had patience to become good at it. The racing game on the same "100-in-1" handheld, now, that was another thing :).
The focus of the game is taking photos of Pokemon, but it's more involved than just that. It's really a puzzle game - where you need to work out what to do to get certain Pokemon to come out, or get them to do certain things to get better photos. (Getting Pikachu to surf is a stand out moment).
You can make any game sound pointless by describing it with only surface level detail like this - "Tetris is stupid, you just move squares to the bottom of the screen until they disappear", "Mario is stupid, you just jump up and down while moving to the right" and so on.