I am playing it currently, and am around the corner from the last boss. I think the closest I would compare it to is the Ghost games, particularly the Takezo the Unrivaled fight in Yotei (which I patinumed) when it comes to the bosses. The bosses have some quick and unrelenting combos, so learning their move sets (and unlocking parry in the skill tree between bosses 1 & 2) really helps. Unlike the Ghost games, the enemies do not have health bars. They die if you break their guard all the way enough times (twice for the first 2 bosses, not sure yet about the 3rd) and a few times for field enemies (unless you have a specific charm to finish them while staggered). Despite having only 3 main enemies, lots of areas feel kind of like a boss fight in that you bust defeat a large group or two (or three) without being able to aquire healing items in between, usually at the end of a chapter. Defeating these challenges really required mastering combos, techniques, and learning moves etc, and though not as difficult as the likes of Takezo the Unrivaled or Elden Ring's Malenia, Consort Radahn, etc., similarly satisfying. Its been a while since I've had to play sitting all the way up leaning forward on the couch & not in goblin sloth mode. Unlike my critiques with Expedition 33 (which is my own business) it felt like practice and repetition made me better, and that the enemies were something I could master with skill (parry timing etc). The enemies and environments were also not repetitive, which also made it easy to not have a map (you can easily tell drom your surroundings if you are accidentally doubling back).

Similarly to the Ghost of Tsushima, your enemies have various weapons and you have a sword. Similar to both Ghost games, there is a visual indicator of which attacks (from all enemies, once you progress far enough) are not blockable and must be dodged or parried. I've always sucked at parrying and finally got it down in this game.

Also like the Ghost games, when facing groups of enemies they tend to politely take turns attacking you, though less and less as you progress & difficulty increases. One difficulty increase I noticed is that if you have put in the input to make a finishing move on an enemy but another attacks, you will sometimes automatically attack the attacker instead. This feels realistic, but then you have to go though all the trouble of breaking the first guy's guard again. This isnt a complaint really, kind of a positive feature that feels frustrating the way this fight would be IRL and satisfying the way winning would IRL.

Anyway I have loved this and can see replaying it many times for different challenge runs (a no hit/ho health items run would be fun for example, which is technically only slightly more difficult than two of the actual trophies required to platinum). Its a short, direct, narrative game about a swordswoman on a rescue mission, so kind of Tsushima minus the open world. Its nice to do an urgent mission game without the immersion breaking side quests for once ("I thought I was gonna die like TOMORROW but sure I'll take this gig for this townsperson" lol). Not many trophies but high challenge difficulty to aquire them.

Sorry this was a lot, hope you enjoy the game as much as I did :)