Hmm I played it and improved immensely in a short period of time by learning how to counter the spear users, last thing I did was fight a horse riding boss (didn’t defeat him), then I forgot about the game lol
Exactly the phase i went through, I dropped it for a while then picked it up again and I fucking spent 200 hours within this single month. It's my 10th playthrough already
Once you reach later sword wielding bosses (Genichiro and up) and adapt to the deflect combat style, the combat becomes so damn smooth, and so so damn rhythmic and so damn fast, it becomes ridiculously replayable.
It has imho the best From, arguably of all time, combat mechanics once fully understood and utilized.