Project Octopath Demo, meh

[Peh]

So, after playing the demo and doing plenty of battles I cannot agree with OP's criticism.
I go for breaks and while they are in that state you charge up and use abilities for the most effiecent dmg output. Enemies have also a counter on how many hits they break. While having a lot of charging available you can use it to faster reduce the counter to get the break and fully charge the ability. For enemies which break on first hit, you use attacks which attack all enemies at once. Charging these one will also get rid of them very fast.
Also, this is pretty early in the game, so I expect more difficult battles.
I got the boss on my 2nd try because I forgot to heal for his charge attack. With 3 fully charged ability moves on break, he was down.

 

Also, you don't waste your charge on normal attacks if you can use an ability instead.