Thanks. The setting is completely separate, but they share some themes while branching out to do different things with them. I see them as the opposite of each other.
Does the horizontal on-ground recoil feel slow or did the tutorial fail? It's a bit gimmicky but it adds to shooting direction decision making and works around mech animation restrictions. There's also a variant of it with holding down direction, but that's not tutorialized yet.
Missing a parry can be really bad, though that's mostly the case when you are playing aggressively. I'll do some more testing with the bosses - optimally the snake boss gets constantly harassed, but the acrobatics involved are insane. Theoretically taunting could cover for that in two ways. Gameplay can actually be far from methodical, as high momentum and aggression is viable without any limits - this is why the style meter works this way.
How's your demo btw? I hoped to see it this DD.