I didn’t struggle that much with nameless or Simon because the complete hell that every other preceding boss had put me through up to that point had forced to me to eventually learn how to beat the game with a motivity build, no specter, and little dodging (I never got link dodge or rising dodge).
Swampy and archbishop totally ruined me with that approach. I only learned to use a grinder with swampy. Set him on fire in second phase. Up to then I’d been trying to Sekiro everything, and be a parry god, which this game just punishes with its weak parrying — too unpredictable and tight of windows, weird timing on everything.
By the end game I did all bosses the same way. Learn to perfect parry and precisely punish their first phase, and then use a grinder and puppet string to absolutely nuke and stagger their second phase so hard in a couple key opportunities that they get wrecked. You need a combination of ultra panicky and ultra aggressive in the second phase, stay well out and then just suddenly lay into them with massive full stamina long combos when you do go in. Then get out use a ton of heals and keep moving till you get another chance.
They clearly designed the bosses so that every single one plays this way, with a controlled and tight mastery of the first phase and then a wild and bonkers scramble in the second. But I think they way overdid it, there are too many bosses in a row that either force you to do exactly this approach or else resort to some cheese strategy, which I didn’t want to do.
By the end of the game I was like I get it, this is how you need to play to win, but it took too long to learn that and it had too little variety. So I just beat the crap out of nameless in like four tries because his first phase is so easy to parry and then his second phase I staggered and fataled the bejesus out of him by using puppet string to start a long combo with acid grind.
Overall I give the game an 8.5 out of 10 because I love the aesthetic and story (surprised me) and they do so many things right, like perfect shortcut placement and bonfire (lol) placement that cuts down on the frustration of endless brutal boss fights.