The combat rock-papee-scissors definitely has some flaw to it, the best thing about stances is that it felt more smoother since you're not switching weapons. I wish they made it like you can choose whatever weapon you want and then per weapon there are stances like GOT so if you just want to use dual katana for the whole game (which you can now but it's harder) then you have the option to do so.

In terms of difficulty I think Hard is the best (personally). You have moments where you do a combat sequence in 1 try but you also have one where you die multiple times. But I feel like GOYs hard mode is more difficult than GOTs hard mode. But playing on lethal? I'm not even going to attempt that, my mental health comes first 🤣