He gets a slap on the wrist and a golden parachute

No, I was not talking about the parry mechanic by itself, I was talking about how it overshadowed the other mechanics because of how strong it was.

But see, that’s the issue that I’m talking about. You say the game felt as a mix of rhythm game and pattern memorization. There’s no mention of the RPG mechanics there, because the parrying overshadowed it.

I wouldn’t say it was fine in E33. It was too strong compared to other mechanics, to the point you can pratically ignore making your characters stronger as long as you can parry perfectly.