In Bayonetta you get destroyed too, is essential to dominate the Witch Time and that needs perfect timing dodging.

But if you enjoy FPS games, then Japanese games is lacking a lot. Its good to enjoy games from all over the world.

I loved the combat in Witcher 3. Though I did feel the controls were pretty crap initially, it didn't take long to get used to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XERcNiClSkM

Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning had a really good combat system imo. It utilized the use of combos which was interesting. It could've been better but that is my favorite western rpg combat system.

Feels like a lot of straw man, to me. There's plenty of variety in Western melee: over the top God of War, rhythmic Arkham/Mordor, realistic boxing/mma, grounded period fare like Mount & Blade, etc. Comparing the combat in what are primarily rpg's to games that are basically hack n slash with a few numbers dashed on top seems pretty silly, to say nothing of calling them samey when the whole musou genre exists. I'll grant that a lot of the tightest melee combat calls Japan home, but let's not equate speed and flash to quality.

Of course it's purely opinion. Any determination of whether something is "better" or "worse" requires, at the very least, a subjective definition of good and bad, and is therefore opinion. I'm simply saying that the games referenced in the OP cannot be beaten by simple button mashing, that's all.

I like Western styled games. A lot, actually. I also like Eastern style games. I played the Nier demo and it wasn't bad. I just kept thinking it felt like a stripped down Bayonetta. I was excited for it but now, I'm less excited.

It's cool if you think it's awesome but I doubt fans of Western style combat need sympathy. If anything, I feel sorry for you. You can't appreciate a game "as is" which means there's less for you to enjoy.

It's still a day one purchase for me. I'm a sucker for sexy character models. Hopefully it gets deeper as the game progresses.

I like my Western games as they are. Not everything has to be hack n' slash and not everything has to be Japanese designed/themed either.

I like my hack n' slash and strategic combat where they currently are.

It's probably because of the level design.

Games like this put so much focus on it's combat and enemy design that the level design is rarely ever intruicate, detailed, or interesting enough to match it. That's why games like Dark Souls and Zelda grab so many more people. Games like this design most spaces like big arenas to facilitate combat - while Zelda, Dark Souls, God of War, etc design those spaces like a unified world that lends as much to the narrative as the dialog does.

In other words, if you like exploring interesting places, that game likely won't do anything for you.

I didn't find the combat in the Nier demo to be spectacular. Good, of course. But God of War has better combat.