There's a considerable drop off in difficulty once you're comfortable with the general combat mechanics and have a few key skills. There's a point where the difficulty becomes managing an enemy type or number of enemies with the terrain you're fighting them on.
Agreed, I found it difficult to get back in the grove after the Alpha. In fact, I thought they made the game more difficult. After some getting used to it, It felt easy again. Honestly, once you lean how to deal with multiple enemies and properly using R1 to recover your samurai spirit/stamina/whatever its called, the game becomes much easier.
Like in the Alpha, I tried going with a Scout set item build, for maximum stamina recovery. I found like only 2 Scout items. Also, the addition of the dual katanas, rifles, and cannons really increased my personal enjoyment.
Question, does the game have a elemental weakness system in it? I've wondered when I fought Tachibana if his Lightning Dog was weak against another one of the Spirits. I beat him using the Shark because I played most of the Alpha with that thing. Felt wrong not using him.
After beating him I used the puppy for a little bit, beat Twilight version of the Cave, and have closed the book on the Beta. Excited for the full release. Hopefully Mark of the Strong and Mark of the Conqueror unlock something useful in the final game.
I don't know what's going on, but I'm not enjoying this nearly as much as the Alpha. Can't put my finger on a reason, but I'm forcing myself to play this just to get the DLC, not having fun at all, unlike the Alpha.
I don't think I'll be buying this one, unfortunately.
I felt like this for a bit, It felt better once I got the DLC and started just to play it for fun. The drive to get the DLC made it annoying. Once I got it, and that wasn't hanging over my head, I started to enjoy it more because I wasn't focusing on that. Instead I was focusing on farming levels, getting used to the controls again, finding all the little shrine dudes etc etc.
Started off feeling weird about it, ended up loving it again.