simply because i hard the combat is very based on parries, my experience with parrying in other games (souls included) has never been great to say the least

As someone who never managed to parry in souls games, and found the mechanic to be boring and not fun, I had the same doubts about this game. And I can tell you, Sekiro is very fun and the parry mechanic is well done. It does not require you to learn the exact timings of all enemy attacks by heart. I've played through the game several times and I'm still just nervously tapping the parry button when an enemy looks like he's about to attack me. The game is quite forgiving, you do not need to play perfectly to win.

The beginning of the game is the hardest and most frustrating part. It's a bit like learning to ride a bike, the learning part is boring, but once you've done it you can start having fun.