Black Myth: Wukong

It’s more forgiving than a souls (as you don’t need to regain your souls, and can respec freely) but in terms of learning enemy patterns and execution it’s certainly very similar.

That's mighty impressive going! I finished the First Chapter and had to take a bit of a break afterwards last night, but I will dive back in today. I am not really sure if I will be able to progress much further if bosses get too much harder but so far I am able to defeat most bosses within 4 - 10 attempts I think.

Just spent 20 minutes on the Blacksmith and he’s down now too.

Scorpionlord is hard as nails, took me a good few attempts. Apparently you can make the fight easier by not fighting him directly at his shack but I'm stubborn.

So, I killed Scorpionlord about 40 mins after Yellow Loong last night.
Today I finished up the ch. 4 secret area and main boss, and then worked through all of ch.5 and the secret area. Saved at the first incense of chapter 6.

Annoyingly, I travel home for a week tomorrow and I don’t think it’s going to play well on the Portal so I won’t be able to finish it up until I come back.

That is a shame. The game does get harder and then, once you’re levelled up some, gets easier in general traversal with the exception of some individual bosses.
Is it the pattern recognition you’re struggling with, or reflexes to dodge attacks?

Remember you can respec the sparks at any time. I found most success by focusing early on the light attack martial art tree (all except the last one - I generally don’t want to be out of stamina, and I didn’t bother with any of the mobile spin stuff), maxing health, and adding enough points in the smash stance and charge tree to get 3 focus points unlocked. Once you’re there, add some into the stamina management tree on martial arts page (reducing stamina use in dodging, specifically) and get to maxing out the Immobilize skill.

I haven’t learnt the correct timing of the counterflow mechanic, and I’ve never immobilised an enemy as they attack to maximise that, so you don’t need all the skill timings. Learn the timing of the 4 light attack combo. It’s important to know when each moves finishes so that you can dodge out of them as needed, and once you have the spark set a dodge doesn’t break the combo so you can always attack-attack-attack-dodge-attack and still get the full benefit. Once you have focus points ready changing the 4th light attack for a heavy will get you a bit more damage, and return health (again, a spark to set in the charge tree, I think).
That is the bread and butter of my game, and has got me through 95% of it. You’ll get more abilities but this is the groundwork for all of it, everything else is just flavour. I haven’t used Pillar or Thrust stances at all but I’m sure they’ll help in places.

I really only use heavy attacks on bosses when they're either immobilised or fighting my clones (Pluck of Many). For general rank-and-file level enemies they can work as the 4th hit of the combo but I don’t do charged attacks unless it's an opening move, as you have time to charge, approach and unleash before they aggro you.

Mana is a problem until mid-game. You can’t unlock the ability to add sparks to mana until you have 30 points in the Martial Arts page, and then each level takes 2 sparks so it’s costly. That’s why immpobilise is important. Once it’s levelled up you get a lot out of it and itös relatively cheap to cast.

Yeah, I think as I come from slightly less intense games (AC series etc) where a heavy strike is not quite so punishing to you if it goes wrong, I need to get my mindset a bit more in line with these types of games. It's quite a challenge changing years/decades of gaming muscle memory!

Finished this today. Well, completed the story yesterday and the “secret” ending today.
Frustratingly, you need essentially a full ng+ play through for the platinum, so probably another week until I’m actually done.