It's kind of incredible how a really small detail ruins this game completely. So it's a character action game. You have light/heavy attack combos. You can air juggle foes. You have a dodge with a perfect dodge mechanic. You have a block with a perfect block mechanic. You have a bunch of bars to build up for spells and assists. Enemies have elemental weakness that cause a stagger mechanic of sorts. It's fairly complex and fleshed out. There's everything you need for a good action game.
But it feels BAD to play and it's because of exactly one thing. All your moves have a TON of animation lock. You cannot ask me to juggle between large groups of enemies and perfect dodge/block their attacks when you have this much animation lock on literally everything you do. This makes no sense to me. There is absolutely no way this issue wasn't raised during playtests. Why would you design it this way? After the first level I unlocked a rapier that the description says is faster but less damaging than the starting sword. You would think this would have shorter attacks with less animation lock but no it's still just as bad.