>>715136171 (OP)I don't understand you point. This game came out 3 years before Sekiro, the average gamer wasn't nearly as comfortable parrying everything (as opposed to spacing / dodging).
You can see this in the Samurai guy's boss fight. I promise you anyone playing that for the first time post 2020 will find that boss a joke. Find discussion from 2016, people found him hard as fuck, because he was when they forced the player to "git gud" and learn to parry, but all modern games will have gotten the parry locked in after the first boss now.
Now note that parrying also reflects projectiles, heals you, and for some reason you can parry while shooting, it's an incredibly OP option, and easy to execute because its timing is universally tied to that light flashing. It's just that the game also forces you into plenty of bullet hell segments or other mechanics where the parry isn't useful.