Ryza is great!! I only played the first one though so take all of this with a grain of salt.

The combat is not at all like Genshin or BOTW. It's "real time" but actually turn based. Characters will have basic attacks/skills/items, think Pokemon style combat, but each time they use one it starts a real-time cooldown before they can attack again.

The combat is actually quite simple IMO and not too engaging. But that's good, because what it's meant to be is a stat check for the items you make.

Speaking of which, the main gemaplay loop isn't like your average RPG. You go out and gather resources, then you make items with them, then you go defeat enemies with those items to get their drops or unlock areas with better resources, rinse and repeat. But the most fun part of that loop, and the one you'll spend the most time on, is the crafting aspect.

You know how in the anime Ryza uses the cauldron? That'll be 70% of your time spent in the game. The anime doesn't showcase it but the synthesis system is really complex, and very fun when you get into it. Though I personally prefer Atelier Sophie's over Atelier Ryza's haha.

If you're worried about leveling mechanics, grind, etc. - there are levels but they're largely irrelevant.

So it becomes a video, to add the time dimension making it 4D?

Even weirder is how some people(looking at you NCD) just focused on "haha dumb discord leaker" while conveniently ignoring the actual contents of the leaks.

Surprised it's not more tbh. As a PC gamer, can someone explain what benefits are there to buying physical games? The only one I can think of is saving storage space on your console, but the disadvantages paying extra for shipping/waiting for shipping outweigh that for me. Or is it just people who collect physical games or buy them as presents?

• In case you haven't heard about it yet, VLC is both a media player and a video re-encoder in one app. Basically essential for Macs.
• Homebrew is a terminal utility that allows you to download many apps that otherwise have difficult setup processes.
• Speaking of things that can be installed through homebrew, Wineskin Winery is a tool that allows you to run Windows apps on a Mac. Very very janky at times and requires hours of googling and digging through stuff sometimes, but runs amazingly once you do that.
• Ryujinx is a Nintendo Switch emulator available on Mac. Not too good for games like BoTW or ToTK, but runs basic visual novels just fine. Oh and if you don't have a Switch already be willing to do some sailing on the high seas.

• Few things are as dangerous and nasty as selfishness in the guise of 'for the sake of someone else'...
• I think I know what you mean. The determination to work for the good of others can be a dreadful and loathsome weapon. They're blinded by self-righteousness, and have no regards for their surroundings. They don't care what happens to others. They justify themselves for pressing forward pursuing their justice, crushing everything in their way...

From Library of Ruina. The song "And Then Is Heard No More" from the OST touches on similar themes, go look up the lyrics if you're intrigued

I agree with you on Demon Slayer having a lot of these moments, but Mugen Train specifically is the worst example you could give. They're meant to be hints that it's happening inside Rengoku's dream.

Check out stuff by studio orange, they make insanely good 3D animation. I can vouch for Land of the Lustrous personally, but heard good things about Trigun Stampede and Beastars as well.

Kill La Kill

Idk, I feel like Mako's monologues are exactly the type of thing OP was complaining about

I respectfully disagree. Downvotes add a way of gauging the percent of people who support/don't support a comment. Let's say I'm asking for advice about which product to buy. With an upvotes-only system the upvote count is biased towards the earliest comment, whereas with an up/down vote system, the ratio helps you detect comments with heavy bias or blatantly wrong facts. So an upvote/downvote system makes it easier to tell the credibility of a comment, basically allowing you to indirectly gauge the opinion of the community rather than the one person who commented.