Finally catching up on gameplay of this that isn't the scorpion robot and this looks..pretty ass, as far as something you actually have to interact with. What even is the point of the real time combat? Defensively, the only choice you have is to dodge (it's not like you can contest an offensive or press the attack, given that this is not an action game and your moves do not cause hitstun), and all the thing does is lunge at you and spray danger zones on the ground like you're fighting an MMO boss. And offensively, you have a square button mash that builds meter for your "real" moves that you pause time and remove yourself from the action for anyway. You're just so passive and irrelevant for most of the actual gameplay.
It's the same old "spam attack" but everything takes a thousand times longer and you no longer have the luxury of skipping through text boxes to make it go faster.
It's not like I expected the new FFVII to have engaging decision making mid-combat given that the original was easy and barely did, but I was really hoping for a less directly lateral move. combat shouldn't be filler in a game where it makes up so much of the runtime, and now the game even has filler to the filler (the real time gameplay that serves no purpose but to fill a bar that enables you to do something relevant)
Edit: I had this exact take months ago and already totally forgot about it
They need to show more gameplay so I can be smug more