Now that the game has ramped up I can say that I think the core 1 on 1 gameplay is worse than Soulsborne. The enemy patterns are less choreographed which is good, but the emphasis on parrying enemies that can't be consistently parried and block at random is bad to me. If I hit you while you're off guard you shouldn't be able to just interrupt and suddenly start blocking and immediately counterattack, especially since I can't do that either.
They did this to offset the fact that there's no stamina meter, but I don't think the tradeoff is even. So in non open-world stealth situations where you need to fight straight up 1 on 1, the game is inconsistent and frustrating IMO. The upgrades make it better but you lose experience every death so you need to be on top of things just to get the upgrades you need to beat certain enemies like the shinobi hunter.