I certainly wonder how you ended up finding this game...that idea of "raise your stats with other characters" reminds me of stuff like Danganronpa and Persona (which you mentioned) with a mix of Higurashi's plot...

In case it doesn't make sense to you to say that:

! [Higurashi Spoiler] The story basically plays on repeated time loops

That said, it does seem to give very "cliche anime" vibes, and if I wasn't even able to stick to Star Rail after the first few days, I'm definitely not sticking my head into this with the premise (let alone the progress wiping deaths)....so good job on being able to endure that for this post 😂