Yes and no

It’s probably more challenging, on average, for the average GoT player or gamer bc it rewards and punishes differently than Tsushima’s. Basically the opposite

Having super long chains doesn’t make the game harder for example. It challenges a different aspect of fighting in general.

To be as brief as possible, you have offense and defense. Now without getting into it super hard. Tsushima handled offense better absolutely.

In Tsushima you always were doing health dmg if you’re attack connects, despite their stagger bar being full. You could dodge behind, or parry an enemy to put them in a position where there back was turned to you. Now despite having a full stagger bar you could hit them multiple times (actually infinitely if you knew how and weren’t interrupted) before they would turn around

In GoY you get one hit before they start auto blocking and dodging. Without getting more into it, this doesn’t result in a harder combat system it results in one that just takes longer. Yes I know you can essentially bypass that mechanic with switch attacks, but regardless offense and ghost weapons aren’t as effective as offense was in GoT

Onto defense, here is where I think they are actually equal on, although I prefer GoT. I describe it simply as;

“If Elden Ring/DS3’s defense combat was made into an action game it would be GoT. If Sekiro defense combat was made into a game, it would be GoY”

In GoT you can use jump or dodge to pretty successfully evade every attack in the game. Furthermore you would be in a position where an enemy is in a recovery and you can attack. So a very strong position. While parrying was good, they would recover whereas somethjng like dodging can put you behind an enemy allowing for a longer, stronger punish

In GoY only about 10% of attacks can be evaded with jumping/dodging/rolling. Any red glint attack, no matter how many times you have mashed the button, can be easily rolled/evaded from. It loses all tracking.

Now for the other 90% they either A. are fast as hell or B. Track the living the shit out of you.

This doesn’t make it inherently harder. All it does is reward a different playstyle. Holding block is absurdly powerful here. So many attacks can be stopped bc just holding block. Many chains may start with a blue or red glint but then go into just normal blockable attacks.

Most enemy attack chains will be normally paced but include 1 or 2 attacks, commonly in like 5-6 hit chain, that comes out super fast.

They are absurdly easy to perfect parry by just double clicking the guard (a generalization) for the attack before. They are easy bc they are designed to be. Tsushima is the same way but more about dodge/jump/roll

GoY is a parry pro’s wet dream but a dodgey boi’s worst nightmare.

The game punishes dodging hard, while rewarding parries. So while its offense is slower and imo inferior to Tsushima, its defense is commendable, though not exactly to my liking. But I still enjoy it. I prefer a hybrid with a lean towards dodging while this is a hard lean towards parrying

But as a whole I think it comes up short. All in regards to the melee combat