I think it’s just a game cashing in on people who haven’t played Nintendo games. For these people the gameplay loop is something new.
I have seen a few locations that are just straight up dark souls/elden ring locations, made just different enough to get past laws.
A consideration is it will make game devs argue to be able to patent (I’m not a lawyer parasite idk the right word) game mechanics more harshly. You know capitalists would love to be able to sue the pants off any other game that competes with them in the same genre by saying “your health bar/ sword looks too similar to ours, pay up”
Shining Force! A TTRPG from 1992. The music and character design are really about a decade ahead of everything else that was available then. If you level one of your characters up to lv 10, you can “evolve” them into a different sprite that lets them wield better gear. This was my comfort game growing up, and was remastered for GBA in 2004. If you like it, don’t play the prequel, only the sequel.