'Manageably explosive' is the ideal here. Nier, much like Bayonetta 1/2 and the Wonderful 101 carries on that tradition. Sure you have weapons to swing and shoot, but mastery of dodge offset and a combo system really does something for you.
The pace matters too at one extreme you have Warriors games that give you the pleasure of killing 10,000 of something at once and at the other you have Dark Souls like experience where the combat focused on only a few enemies for an extended period of time. Games that throttle you between the two extremes are really ideal imo. Nier appears to have struck that balance.
One could hope GoW or even the next Ninja Gaiden gives you a similar feeling. Scalebound could be there too.
I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016
