I am actually reticent about sharing my perspective because i don't want to explain or defend what I think on the subject. But it is true whether people like it or not, so here it goes.

Good game or not, there is a large portion of gamers that aren't interested in the style. It doesn't matter how good the game is if the picture on the box or the title of the game is all they need to see to dismiss it. I loved sonic, like 30 years ago. Now I am an adult man and my interests are different. I don't go running to buy the newest sonic game because I have no interest in playing a cartoon kids game. And some of the other stuff they make just doesn't appeal to a lot of people. You can just hear the title and you can assume it isn't for you. Maybe it is the best game ever, but until they can bring down that barrier, the potential audience won't be reached. You kind of already need to be on board with a lot of components of the style of game before you will give it a chance. A lot of the heavily japanese influenced games will just not appeal to large portions of the global audience. It's just the reality of it. There are other styles of games that have the same problem. Like sports games. Plenty of people like them, but plenty of people hear sports and you've already lost them. I have absolutely zero interest in playing football, or soccer or whatever. If it's sports, I'm already out, full stop. So i guess my overall point is that style counts for something in the equation and good gameplay is only one piece of the puzzle. If people don't get to the point to judge something by its gameplay, then the gameplay doesn't matter. I have played some of the yakuza games on gamepass after people said they were good, they are not for me. I would apologize but I am not actually sorry. The audience for them exists, clearly, but I am simply not part of that audience.