Yeah it's all personal preference I guess. In Ghost of Tsushima Legends I play as Hunter a lot, which is the archer class, so I feel it's pretty analogous to Horizon, and the supernatural enemies in Legends are definitely a lot more diverse than the enemies in just single player, so have more in common with Horizon in terms of dealing with AOE attacks, etc.
I haven't played Returnal so can't comment on that, but I have played God of War (was really disappointed by the combat in that game, it felt really bad after Ghost of Tsushima) and TLOU2 (which I rate as the best game ever made… but certainly not because of the combat). I'm finding it very hard to enjoy third person combat in other games after Ghost of Tsushima TBH.
Yes! combat in ghost of Tsushima is really good because it's very stylish and pleasurable.
I personally love the combat in most Sony first party games.
TLoU2 for me has the best combat ever made in regards to third person shooter games because of the overall experience (enemy IA, hit reactions, gunplay feel, animations and sound design and even level design of the encounters)
About Forbidden West, I think the mid/longe range combat against the machines is fantastic, with so many options and some incredible hit reactions, visual effects and amazing amount of machines with different approaches but the close combat, specially against humans, even if they tryed to revamp still is not so fun, specially playing on very hard.
I know that maybe is to ask to much the game has this fantastic combat against machines and want a more deep and stilish close combat to, but man, i think that if in the third game, they could concentrate in create a melee/close combat against humans and even some machines with the same style and pleasure of the ranged combat, they could have a almost perfect game in his hands.
I don't know, include a lock on, some kind of parry, dodge, side step, maybe learn techniques from some tribes, like using hammers of the oseram, etc .
