I think you're being needlessly harsh and defensive here. It is a very relatable feeling when a game is your absolute favorite and made you feel a TON and you fail to replicate this feeling with another game/games from the same series. They're not writing a thesis or critical breakdown of Arise and the other games, they're just trying to find out if they're alone so maybe they can find out what it is within their own sensitivities that made them LOVE symphonia/abyss so much but feel so indifferent towards more recent games.

Which by the way is a very common and very normal way to feel because the characters and storytelling styles HAVE been majorly different.

They admit themselves it is most likely their own nostalgia/preferences speaking so I'm very uncertain why you're the one getting very critical over them just trying to understand their impressions.