As much as I like NS
There is a reason for why its not more popular
>Exploration basically stops around the lion guy
>Boss design peaks at lady eternal
>Entire combat system is designed around Unbound, which you get very late
>Several inputs with overlapping results, resulting in awkward system where you basically use the entire controller and everything is awkwardly mapped, where HK is a 3 button game
Its a fairly competent and fun game, but lets not fool ourselves

>>713716510
The benefit of turning it into a action game is that you get to ramp a lot faster, so you get to filter more people that don't like the gameplay type.
HK will remain the gold standard so long subpar or mediocre gameplay tries to chase it, instead of out polishing it and possibly using fewer buttons.

This is also the type of game where you have a anti QOL going for it, where bosses are designed in reverse to make you play wrong against a similar pattern in phase 2 or 3.
Which is interesting, but its not good. The fact its this playable after that means its a great game, but its not capable of chasing after HK.