So the combat in Sekiro is almost nothing like Souls. You don't have a stamina limit, per se. You just have a stagger meter and health, so you're free to spam attacks whenever the opportunity arises. The catch? You have to block, dodge, and counter way more frequently and aggressively this time around. Don't be surprised if you're chaining successive blocks and counters, cause the game totally expects you to. Enemies also have "perilous attacks", which are unblockable, but can occasionally be interrupted.

Also, I think this game brought back character tendency from Demon's Souls, albeit in a rather bizarre fashion.

I played Sekiro for 4-5 hours and put it down. There's so much going on that I still don't understand and I just lost patience. They talk about things and just expect you to know what they're talking about. I've played through the 6 trainings so many times. When I do well, I don't understand why because I'm not doing anything differently than when I did poorly. It just feels like luck. I'll pull something off, then when I try it again it doesn't work. And those japanese symbols that flash on the screen for 1 second aren't there long enough for me to study them, so I can't ever recognize them, let alone react accordingly. Another game that requires a college course to comprehend. I'm too old for this.

And those japanese symbols that flash on the screen for 1 second aren't there long enough for me to study them, so I can't ever recognize them, let alone react accordingly.

Pretty sure it's always the same symbol ("ki" for danger), so you gotta figure out how to react by trial and error. The trick is sneak up to bosses instead so you can half their HP before the fight begins. The red eye guy early on is super weak to fire and a piece of cake with the flamethrower when you can manage a sneak attack.

I'm a few mini bosses in. Got stuck after the second one because I didn't know you could throw porcelain shards from around corners to lure enemies into a stealth kill. Going a lot more smoothly now.