I feel like im missing something with the combat.

I've finally picked up the game, im at chapter 14 and mostly enjoying it but im running into the issue where it feel like im just brute forcing everything and not actually playing "right".

For reference im a Character Action Game Vet, I play DMC on Dante Must Die mode.

My issue is that the defensive options in the game seem to...suck. your character moves slower than the enemies, the dodge takes you nowhere and the block has a lot of start-up frames and cant start until whatever action you did previously fully finishes.

To make matters worse, party characters seems to be made of paper, Aerith dies in two hits, i have cloud running 2 HP ups and a championship belt and he can maybe survivor 4 hits.

On the Evil House fight I had to use 26 phoenix downs because that thing would 1 shot Aerith whenever I used her to heal or do damage as it was flying around.

What am I missing or is this just how the game is?