Souls games are a whole different beast from this type of game. It doesn't really prepare you for managing cooldowns and doing complex attack strings. They train you to be careful and win without taking big risks, which sounds like the strategy you executed. From what I can tell almost half of that fight is cutscenes, which isn't ideal.

I will agree with you that the gameplay seems boring though. They could have done more. I'm told that it gets better when you unlock more moves and mechanics.