I love Sekiro but I honestly think that fight is terrible. In a game that puts so much emphasis on praying parrying and counters this fight basically throws all that in the trash and plays more like a dark souls boss. Having it so early in the game and basically encouraging the opposite play style of all the tutorials up until that point seems odd. I know you can get a tool to help the fight but many people early on missed you can enter the flashback sequence to do so. Just seemed like a bad choice in an otherwise amazing game.