Not only that, but the people developing these games often grew up with whatever they’re “cloning.” It’s all they know.
You guys need to watch the video before commenting. For real, this is a blatant copy of Link's Awakening. Games like Death's Door and Tunic are clearly heavily inspired by Zelda but they're doing their own thing, with their own visual style and mechanics - and I appreciate that, because it's clear now that we can have great games with this same style, other than Zelda. But this one is straight up copying Link's Awakening assets.
And I think copying that much of Link's Awakening will do more harm than good, even if Nintendo doesn't move a finger. Even if the game ends up being good, this complete lack of originality already decrease the devs credibility. And watching this preview, I am under the impression that other than the Zelda knock off elements, almost everything they tried or had to do on their own doesn't look good: the background is completely bare-bones, the design of enemies and gear (such as the shield) is pretty bad or over simplistic, apparently they're not very creative to name areas or characters ("old man", "ice world"), and there are some elements in the scenario that doesn't make sense, like that ball mini-game in the middle of a grass area.
Honestly, it doesn't sound like they're gonna be able to copy Link's Awakening quality.