I am making my way through Yakuza series right now and while playing 5 I realized that I am not that invested into the game’s combat, so I turned it to easy and that just streamlined the combat so much for me. I would recommend to maybe try Yakuza 0 on normal at first and then just switch it to easy if you feel like the gameplay might be dragging on.
You do seem to be simplifying what a game is, though. Boiling it down to what is “intended”. If easy difficulty was created and put into the game by the developer, is it not intended?