The Ryu chapters are kinda boring. And it's not even that its through repeated chapters either. His kit is just uninteresting, especially at the start when nothing is unlocked and you just got off playing yakumo with all his stuff. The dragon sword itself doesn't really compare to any one of yak's weapons either. no BR jump move, no BR R2 move. Maybe theres more to how gleam works that im missing
Funnily enough this reminds of playing NG1, where that game solves this by having you change your weapon every hour or so. dragon sword gets old.