No shade but there are people who claim Toby has succeeded the mantle of Itoi and that UT/DR is a successor to Mother/Earthbound.

Nothing could be farther from correct.

I love Toby's games but they don't even try to touch on the same themes, they are their own thing separate from Earthbound despite trying to impersonate Earthbound's DNA. They are basically a dollhouse with "dude love and friendship" message as the core theme. Mother 3 blows it out of the water in this respect. It does all that and has so much more substantially to say about the world at the same time, and how that relates to our relationships and our lives, even Mother 2 to an extent. If Toby's goal was to succeed those games, he has missed a massive critical component. Love and friendship by itself didn't stop Giygas and Pokey. And their impact extended far beyond generic plot contrivances about love and meta videogame magic.

This is less of a problem specifically with Toby though and more with western indie RPG's in general. They are way too insulated and don't even try to shoot as high as their predecessors. FF7, Persona, even cRPGs like Fallout and Arcanum had big things to say about the world and could say a lot with very little. Omori, UT, even Homestuck's "games" are all little microcosm relationship simulators that you could sum up as "Don't be a dick, also go to therapy" yet take a giant story to say this. Their creators don't seem to understand you can say all that and also something more substantial at the same time.