Why would you want (or need) to grind points in the first stage. Stuff increases in price, and later stages drop way more money. Its easier to just clear it and continue on. As long as you don't try racing through the stages (since visibility on either side is limited) and use rapid fire + bombs (bombs are optional. I barely use them) to take out the enemy spawn points quick you should be at the next boss in no time. The 7 way blaster makes things vastly more simple while it lasts as it casts an almost unavoidable load of shots on screen, meaning you can take out most of the enemy spawners before they even become a problem.I won through all the fights with my man Jacky, save for Dural but I'll try the Brad cheese. The other thing keeping me completion isn't hard but the win a fight with every character thing just seems boring/grindy.
I can't do shmups. Couldn't do FZ an its ilk when they were new/new-ish an never will be able to! Out Run, Super Hang-On, an heck even Space Harrier which is also a shooter were all extremely free, first try completion gets whereas FZ took me over an hour. btw never try grinding 50k points in stage 1 cause apparently the longer ya stay in a stage the more apeshit the enemies get x.x
As for 6's combat, is easy to explain why its lesser compared to old games. There's less moves, and certain moves are way worse. The Tiger Drop is rubbish until Judge Eyes, which is a big deal for me. Many of Komaki's moves in 6 are straight up cut, almost every weapon is cut (none equippable either), tons of heat moves cut... after 5 and 0, they reduce Kiryu's moves list to something rather sad. Kiwami 2 adds more but still has several moves cut, not to mention how the lack of difficulty and overpowered nature of Kiryu (even before upgrades) lessens the fun of almost every boss in that game...
Judge Eyes is the only game to really get the new combat right, and that's around 60% because its not trying (and failing) to give you a lesser version of Kiryu right after two of the best games (combat/moves wise) in the entire series. Then they fixed the Tiger Drop, and gives you a ton more moves (and loads of brand new ones at that) on top. Its just a vastly more enjoyable experience. Game is still too damn easy on hard mode though.