In my opinion, if this were the case, the game would become more bland and simple-
In my experience it makes perfect sense to have 360° attacks, I’ll do my best to explain it my self:
Whenever an enemy attacks you have several options to defend yourself:
- You can Reposition by Dodging/Running (in different directions depending on the attack).
- You can Dodge with the invulnerability of dodging (in different directions depending on the attack).
- You can Block (if it’s a blockable attack).
- You can Perry (if it’s a perryable attack).
And regardless of the action you take, it’s preferable if you can then attack the enemy (or heal yourself if you need to).
Against the simplest attacks you can reposition yourself wherever you want and you can essentially use any of the options as you like.
But this would become boring, so more difficult attacks are added that close some of the options like:
- Unblockable attacks
- Unparriable attacks
- Fast attacks or attacks with a lot of range (which therefore cannot be dodged by running)
- Attacks with long active hitboxes (which cannot be dodged with dodge invicibility frames)
- Sweep attacks to the right (that cannot be dodged to the right)
- Sweep attacks to the left (that cannot be dodged to the left)
- lunges, and very long charges that cannot be dodged just by moving away from enemies (you need to move left or right or sometimes dodge into the attack)
- And 360° attacks (opposite to the lunges) that take away your ability to reposition around the enemy (if you don’t use the invincibility frames of the dodge or the perry or the block).
And obviously combinations of these that take away even more options.
This is your assumption, There is no “correct” or “incorrect” way to fight in this game, no one says you have to defeat enemies in the shortest time possible, or that you absolutely must not take damage, in fact there are also tank and ranged builds, if your favorite way to play is to stay close to enemies strafing their attacks, good for you but it is not the “correct way” to play the game and even if you find it more fun than other fighting styles it does not mean that other playersare looking for the same experience you are looking for.
360° attacks are still dodgable even with just the dodge’s invulnerability frames, so you can also dodge towards enemies, you don’t have to dodge backwards or back away, necessarily.
In NRFTW you can almost always counterattack enemies, Even attacks that are combinations of 360° attacks and Attacks with long active hitboxes, are punishable by using ranged attacks during the attack, or a rune with a dash immediately after they finish.
The rare cases where you can’t are attacks where enemies jump into the air and have invulnerability frames (for all these attacks they end with the enemies landing and so you can hit them right after), and the other exception are the transition phases of some bosses that make them very resistant to damage during the animation.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the enemies in this game don’t have separate AI. This means that when a group of enemies attacks you, they don’t all attack at the same time, but take turns. This makes the combat fair and very interesting. If you don’t like it, it’s your preference. This aspect of the game has been thought out and developed very well by the developers.