Ah, I think I didn't make the purpose of the guard clear enough, since it's the main reason the combat is slow. I explained it in the description, but if you guard right before the attack, you'll perform a parry which damages the enemy and won't lose any gray bar. The window is very tight, but I modeled it after Sekiro so that once you learn the attack patterns, parrying will be almost broken since you'll be doing so much damage back. (I think I ended up making the same mistake as Sekiro by not making it clear how important parry is haha)
Anyway, thanks for the comment! I'm glad you enjoyed it.