Nope. This battle system is THE best designed system i've seen from Square....you can tell they've been doing their homework on the triumphs/failures of the previous few games.
Let me just explain how well-designed and self-aware this game's battle system clearly was, based on design choices alone, because i'm sort of in love with this shit:
RPG mechanics:
The balance between action game offense and RPG defense is extremely deliberate in one major distinction --
if an attack is coming your way there is little you can do to AVOID damage. This is the key difference between combat systems that are more action-oriented vs more "traditional" RPG combat systems where damage is more or less unavoidable. This is
very important, because it's the difference between the player's INPUT being the biggest aspect in the flow of battle (action games) vs. the spread of STATS between characters and enemies being the biggest influence (RPG games).
And you can tell this was deliberate in FF7R because of one very noticeable design choice -- the complete lack of I-frames on dodging/blocking options. And THIS is significant for 2 main reasons -- one, It forces the expectation on the player that you're going to take damage at some point no matter what you do (an integral part of RPGs because this is basically the entire gear aspect), and two, it places a ceiling on damage mitigation in a way that keeps incoming damage from your AI-controlled characters within fair and respectable levels.
You're going to take damage. The most effective (and reliable) method of avoiding damage is generally to just defend. Thus, your teammates taking damage out of your control will
never be egregiously bad because they can only ever do so much worse than you. Unlike in FF15, where the AI choosing not to avoid a simple attack is literally the difference between you having to revive them or not. The reason the game was designed like that is because Noctis (the main character) technically NEVER has to take damage from ANY attack, and the game was balanced around this.
Action mechanics:
As far as action mechanics go, the most the game REALLY asks of you is to choose between
committing to attacking or defending.....
that's basically it. See, because dodge rolling has no i-frames, the ability to cancel into dodge doesn't allow you to engage enemies and avoid damage at the same time like most ACTION games would (see FFXV or Kingdom Hearts). So outside of the telegraphed moves you actually CAN avoid with positioning/out manuvering opponents, over-extending to attack will generally result in you getting damaged.
But that's not to say that you can't AVOID damage in this game, because.....:
Strategy-based components and flexibility:
....The real genius of FF7R to me is that the concept of "avoiding damage" (an integral part of action games) was actually removed from the "ACTION" parts of the game and instead given to the RPG mechanics in the ATB system. Specifically speaking, the most efficient way to avoid damage from enemy/boss moves in FF7 is to interrupt them...and that generally can only be done with ATB options, which feature basically all of the typical RPG elements of the game.
It reminds me of the Kingdom Hearts 1 "Tech" system, where you could stun/negate enemy attack animations using specific magics, and the game would reward you with a larger opening than if you had just dodged or blocked it. And I call this "genius" because doing this in a game where you ALWAYS have access to your teammates/their movesets allows you to execute some very nice strategies, as long as you are successful in managing ATB usage (which literally just equates to "You aren't taking so much damage that you are unnecessarily using ATB on healing instead of attacking").
The game gives you skillful options during this risk/reward ATB phase in the form of character abilities to take more control of the flow of the game. Cloud literally has a stance that completely removes mobility and blocking and replaces it with more attacks. Barrett literally just gives you free ATB for playing safe, Tifa's burst potential becomes explosive the longer you're able to keep her in the heat of combat while she builds up her stacking mechanic. Aerith's moveset is all about positioning and strategy -- she has long attack animations, delayed-effect specials, she puts enhancing runes on the ground, ect. (It's no coincidence she joins the party with Ice materia, the only magic in the game that requires the enemy to stay still after being hit.....just like her charged Triangle move.)
This game was
excellently fucking designed. Kudos to the KH2 battle director.....if only they hired him for KH3 -_-;
Now, as for your post
@PanzerAzel....
the main problem you seem to have is that you seem to be expecting FF7R to try to be more of an action game than it actually is. But the biggest thing Easy mode does is trivialize the "action" portion of the game where you build ATB and balance survival.....and in Classic you don't need to interact with it at all, essentially turning the game into Turn Based FF7 again.
Honestly, the Action-RPG this game reminds me most of is Phantasy Star Online (Ep.I, II, & IV, not PSO2 or PSU), a game with a very deliberate blend between action elements and traditional RPG elements.
