Are these two games actually decent RPGs, or are they more so

Pretty much the latter.

The term RPG has changed over the past few decades. Off the top of my head I'm not even sure I could name off an RPG that has come out within the last 10 years. Most games are just third person action games with RPG elements.

No idea about Horizon but Nier Automata's RPG elements are effectively a coat of paint. It's a lot more about platinum combat than the numbers game

>>381045067
Bravely Default

>>381045067
Pillars? Tyranny? Wasteland 2? Divinity?

>>381044896
Nier:A is more metroidvania than anything.

It's shallow as it gets, you get level ups and skill tree points in Horizon and higher damage and Health points in Automata.

>>381044896
Automata is a basic action game with some RPG elements kind of like the original, but far more polished. Horizon seems more like a generic open world game but I haven't played it so I can't say for sure.

>>381045067
The west definitely likes to blend genres (A lot of the time for the worst but that's another story.)

But I can spot an RPG made by grorious nippon in a second flat. They definitely still make their more traditional RPGs on top of any modern genre blending or newer gameplay.

>>381045067
Persona 5 is less than a year old anon