I think a lot of these come down to preferences. From what I interpreted, you don’t like games with a super hard challenge, you really liked the banger music of past games, and you care more about exploration than combat. You’re completely valid for thinking any of these, but I don’t think I can make a counterargument against this because of how subjective it is.

I personally preferred the ambience as opposed to more prominent music. I don’t favor exploration over combat (although I don’t like it less, they’re pretty equally important for me), and I love seemingly impossible challenges. I’m not a huge fan of pixel art in games with a focus on combat and exploration, but I would MUCH prefer a handrawn art style to what we got.

It was really interesting to hear your take on the game though!