I would describe it as a platformer visual novel college dropout simulator. It has a weak plot with not too much creativity, although there's a little bit of humor here and there. As for the gameplay, you mostly just hang out with friends, talk to people, do stupid stuff and advance the storyline. There's no dying/losing at all in the game, you can forget up as much as you want but it only hurts the ending. There are 4 'core' characters, which is the cat, the fox, the bear and the dinosaur. You either vibe with one of them or you don't vibe at all. They all have their own little storyline and you can choose to hang out with them, talk to them etc. It definitely has a lot of love and care put into it, but apart from that it's not really a contest winner.
I've played undertale for about an hour, and that's the most I could manage before the gameplay got extremely boring and repetitive and I lost interest in the game. As for NITW, i've been playing it for about 5 hours and it hasn't gotten boring. I guess the motivation to continue playing is furthering my relationship with the various characters. My weakness in this game was the parents relationship, because I have a very stuffty parent situation IRL and seeing Mae's parents be so chill and go through their phases of midlife crCIA is kinda tear jerky
I'd put it into the Undertale/Earthbound/Adventure Time/Regular Show/Cave Story/Phoenix Wright category of emotion-evoking entertainment, but gameplay-wise it's bad rats level. Buy it if you're sensitive to cute things.