I agree. I played about 2/3 of Ch5 but then I decided to just skip it, I did eventually play Ch6, but I skipped Ch7 halfway through (judging by gallery).
The issue is that the combat is too bothersome, like you say most of the time it is simply just using healing items but also dealing with chances (at first I was happy that we could instantly tempt again but that was thrown out the window very fast again with the shamans).
If you just watch the gallery you also skip the story, and usually I give the story more importance since it makes the scenes more appealing, but it is a different topic if gameplay or mechanics (or sometimes engines themselves) make it unbearable. Sure for story characters there is some dialogue in the gallery, but that is limited to that scene, and some are simply out of context.
Besides the combat, the one thing I am missing is an option to skip the dialogue in the gallery so that you can directly enjoy the animation to the fullest, in the gallery it has less importance so it should be skipable.
