Re: Is this a copyright troll or something?

I can see that being a possibility, but the big question I have is "Wouldn't the ESA have tried to take down the entire website or at least the ROMs for all of the games owned by those companies?" I find it strange that these takedowns seem to only be targeting specific series or other games that share specific names while other franchises that are still popular and active (most notably the Kirby franchise) or even spinoffs of popular franchises like Luigi's Mansion or Shadow the Hedgehog are still up, not to mention the Nintendo-related takedowns don't match up with how they've gone after other ROM sites. With EmuParadise, LoveROMS and LoveRETRO, and ROM Universe, they straight-up *sued* them, so maybe it's just me, but these takedowns only targeting specific series (or games that happen to share a name with them) is not characteristic of them at all.

It's probably an automated tool, likely using "AI" to assist it.

The ESA represents those corporations. They could have simply asked their members "hey, we got this new automated DMCA takedown tool that uses AI to find infringing content online. Want us to use it to protect your copyright?" and since AI is the new buzzword, the CEOs and shareholders went "yeah, that sounds awesome, go ahead".