What a humble and great post!
Honestly I'm shocked that some people would be so invested in Kanpeki. It feels like a dream. I'd like to give you a reply worth the time you've invested into the game.
I've read your post many times, gave it a few days to try and come up with a good reply, Here goes nothing!
The main inspirations for the combat (while not very apparent in the game) were FatalFrame and DarkSouls. I loved how every fight in Fatal frame felt like a struggle, you need to adapt to the third to first person perspective change, find the ghost, wait as long as possible to charge the Camera Obscura while keeping them in sight and far enough from you to avoid taking damage. And finally take picture. I really wanted to capture this feeling and recreate it into Kanpeki!
I find melee combat very rare in classic survival horrors games and even less interesting. In Silent Hill 3 for example you just mash the attack button and wait for the monster to die. It's not fun nor stressful. We really wanted to avoid that for Kanpeki's combat. That's why we've added the active reload mechanic, I think it works well and that we shouldn't change it too much.
Apart from that I agree that the combat doesn't feel good. And I think the sort of "parry" mechanic (Attack right before the enemy attacks you to inflict a devastating blow to the enemy) you've described could really work into making the combat more nuanced and interesting (As long as the window is short). Having enemies lunge at you could also make it harder and more interesting.
I think we should also rework the stagger system of the game, change it to "Hitting the enemy will stagger them every few seconds" to "Hitting the enemy enough times staggers them, grantting you the opportunity to deal an extra hit without fear of danger". It would make the stagger feel less random and more fair.
I also plan on removing the cooldown between Hoshi's attacks, making her feel more responsive.
Last change I've had in mind was to add a dodge mechanic, I think it could add more depth and allow for different playstyles, it would also make players feel less as if "they're trading hits with the enemies" which was exactly what I wanted to avoid lol.
One other problem I've identified with Kanpeki's combat is that kiling enemies does not reward you in any way. They don't drop anything, they come back when you heal ect... It makes the player try to avoid fights as much as possible which is not something we wanted. I've failed to come up with an easy to implement idea for that lol!
Anyways, these are just ideas I've had, not sure if any of them will go into the final game, I have yet to discuss this with the other team members!
PS : Have you any experience in game design, Unity or Blender? We're looking for motivated folks to work on the game's full release! Let me know if you are interested!
Hoping I gave you something interesting to think about
-Wilhelm! :)