I heard that the parry is going to be reworked, at least in terms of sound and appearance, so that parrying feels better, more like in Elden Ring or Sekiro, but I don’t think it will work that way.
Aside from the fact that it’s a core mechanic in Sekiro that most players can’t ignore, it’s definitely a high-risk, high-reward mechanic like in all from soft games.
At the moment, the parry in nRftW is obviously closer to Elden Ring or Dark Souls than to Sekiro, but in my opinion, it’s not a high-risk, high-reward mechanic. It’s difficult to parry, but the only guaranteed reward is focus. However, at the beginning, you might not even have the runes you want to use, and later on, you can easily get focus without parrying.
In from soft games, the parry might look defensive, but it’s actually a very powerful aggressive tool. If three enemies attack you at once in Dark Souls, you can parry one, The extended frame mechanic might automatically parry even more enemies, giving you a better chance of getting in the follow-up attack, which not only deals massive damage, but also keeps you safe in the attack animation, which gives you time to consider how to proceed and also gives you the opportunity to position yourself better afterwards, for example.
In nRftW, if you parry an enemy and then try to attack them, all other enemies will immediately attack you. They’ll shoot at you, throw bombs, or try to run you down. but your not safe. So, of course, it’s much more likely that you’ll have to trade Damage after a successful parry, or you’ll even be interrupted in your attack or even pushed out of a rune attack. And that just doesn’t feel like a high reward.
I suspect Moon Studios doesn’t actually want to copy the parry mechanics one-to-one, but if they want to create a feeling as strong as from soft parries do, they should, in my opinion. But i dont know.
Sorry… I know it’s too long and in bad English.