I am not too good at Mystara and nowhere near clearing it, and the same goes for Final Fight and such. That being said, I don't find Mystara's enemies brain dead or lacking in variety at all. They certainly kill me a lot, but even if they stopped doing so with practice, I don't think I would find a lack of difficulty to be all that detracting from the games joyful sliding and slashing action. Older brawlers on the other hand, I don't really care about the difficulty, whether it's too easy or too hard, because I just inherently don't find the combat anywhere near as fun.
This is why I just can't get into KoR for the life of me. On paper, I find the parry system interesting, particularly the concept that you can theoretically escape any situation and parry anything, no matter how dire or grim. But by the time I hit stage 3, I'm almost invariably bored of it and seldom give it another credit. I just can't stand having to
go through an entire game wacking dudes with the same 1-2 sword slaps. Or the slow walk speeds. Sure, different enemies require different tactics and spacing and such to kill optimally, but the lack of options (again, not to say there aren't any, but there are certainly less then there would be in a game with a more diverse and developed move set) to approach situations in creative and varied ways just makes it a drag for me.
If I were to make my own KoR, I would probably give it a faster move speed, a dash, an air dash, a dive kick, and 1 or 2 more specials to play with, with the game then balanced around all this.
Then I would enjoy it.
Anyway I do tend to agree with Hagane that the older, more richly developed movesets of older brawlers eclipse their more "pure" and simple predecessors, at least for me. I understand that there can be depth and variety even when you're playing spacing games with just 1 punch, the problem is I simply don't find it all that fun or interesting.
To me, the genre that excels in "purity" are shmups. Because even with the simplest controls and mechanics, you have the potential for infinite complexity in the patterns. I would say overall that shmups have more fun "defense" (due to the joy of dodging) but have to work much harder to make "offense" fun and deep (since mostly shooting amounts to standing in front of something and holding a button), while melee combat based games have less fun "defense"/dodging due to the simpler nature of dodging telegraphed melee attacks (more of a
"simple" reaction then a "choice" reaction, which is what shmups thrive on), but more more interesting and engaging offensive options (combos, crowd control, rushdown, sense of impact on blows, etc.). However, you don't get the most out of that offense unless you have an at least marginally developed move set to give you OPTIONS. They don't thrive on simplicity the same way shmups do IMO.
But that's just my opinion~
Might try hard and super in future, maybe. 
This was way back in 2003 or so... I'd have the good sense to not rush things now, I hope, but I was hell-bent on getting that clear file after the difficulty made EGM's reviewers wail in despair. The game was also on "Intervention," this hardcore gamer guy was going friggin nuts after killing Hiruko. 
, the combat with regular enemies is flashy, but honestly dumbed down. AvP is a great game, but from mid game to the near end there is too much focus on guns, trivializing the melee combat. The whole game should have been like stage 3 imo (4 if we count the bonus).
