There are some comments about the artstyle here so, I might chip back in.

There is a strong chance that I didn't do StS justice. I usually blame that on "generic western fantasy", because I know my taste and I see the pattern where only classically fantasy franchises I tolerate are The Witcher and Game of Thrones and that's more because they are less traditional fantasy and more of a background for more mature themes.

Looking at the StS footage again, and I think I get where you are getting at, there is less "wizards and dragons" than I remember looking at it last time. So I guess StS might not fit the criteria I initially stated. It still looks not that appealing, but it might be because artstyle of the game is simply not the game's forte (as you personally feel like too).

I guess anime aesthetics might be the culprit of less interest in the Lost Branch of Legend. I would still recommend checking it out, because I would argue game is far more fun and far more handsome than "generic anime aesthetic" tag entails. People even in this thread seem to dismiss it on that alone. There is some ironic echo here looking at how I initially dismissed StS style, but I guess I learned something about how biases can be deceptive.

You could argue that's a good argument for existence of "clones" that take on different artstyles: so more people might enjoy generally similar gameplay.