As a fan of this game with S ranks from the base game, I replayed this game with the new stance characters and acquired the same S ranks. I have to say I love the new mechanical complexity of stance switching that makes pressing buttons feel much better as well as allowing for more nuanced approaches for each boss. I do wonder if the character balance is broken given how easy it is to burst down boss phases with the super stance but it is a reward in and of itself. Now, I cannot imagine playing this game anymore without this character.

I will reiterate though that I am a coming from XBox and that the update it was not ported to it was a shame whereas Playstation did. Economics aside, a big gripe with this update is that a button remapping feature is missing where the preset layouts are somewhat inadequate to my preferences. I ended up with the analog sticks for the new stance buttons even if I do accidentally trigger analog clicks and can make the sticks break faster. Strangely, the new stance character does not benefit much mechanically in the melee phase where switching stances does nothing which is probably beyond what the base character can even do. Lastly, I still cannot skip walking segments when replaying the game.

Still a great update and gives this game more nuance and depth.