just played through the demo. there's still some mechanics i don't understand but i get most of it? hopefully it'll be easier to grasp in the full game with more detailed tutorials
i love the poise mechanic. it's always tough to balance a game like this where the player character has four million moves. having to play cautious to break their poise before i went wild was really fun. it felt a lot like DMC DT mechanics only i didn't have to read a gameFAQs guide to know what was going on.
the vernal moves were really interesting but tricky to implement freely. the hitbox on the basic sword is sooooo tiny that i usually had to put extra effort in to make it hit. once you get it connected you can go nuts though. it's really fun putting together all the different systems. felt like every button was a whole game by itself.
the boss was tough but really fun. i opted to play without potions so it took a lot of tries. it's great finding little optimizations like being able to parry and counter in the middle of her 3 hit combo. i did notice it was tough to do much when she was in the air; you can parry everything she does but i didn't seem to get rewarded for it? not sure if that's intentional or maybe i missed something.
overall this looks super promising already and i'm looking forward to the full game.