Gothic

[Ghieri]

But this is a signal that a game is not made to fight something primarly.

If - if - that is what they were going for it is still not good design. The controls are not horrible once you get used to them, but they are badly designed. You probably also realize how badly designed the keyboard you use to type is - it is extremely unergonomic and nonsensical, and yet none of us (usually) has a problem typing with it even despite its bad design. However, the fact will always remain that it is not the fastest and not the most comfortable system for this type of concept and no amount of practice will be able to compensate for that. If the combat is difficult for other reasons than the enemies deal a lot of damage or it ties into the story (your character isn't suited for combat), then it's bad design. Instead of fooling yourself by saying it's good design because it artificially places the player at a disadvantage and therefore it is more hardcore and less mainstream, just examine the facts. There are plenty of great games with horrible controls (some of my favorites).

I agree, If a game has horrible controls to compensate for difficulty, that's lazy game design.