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My Introduction to the game

I heard about this game from Iron Pineapple's Souls-like game you've never heard about, and has kept this game on my radar since. I had my doubts as many reviewers had negative thoughts on the combat and how stilted it felt. But I pushed to pass this and had a pretty well gaming experience.
There are a few things you need to know which the game explains once, and you're left with your own devices. Any attacks you land can be cancelled the moment it connects with the enemy, which opens up combo opportunity and makes even the Mammoth style (the slowest style in the game) lightning fast. Any attacks that land can be cancelled, ANY (From experience anyways, there might be some that could not be).
Second, don't play this game like a dark souls game, as dodging here is not a perfect evasive tool, but rather use it to extend your combos by chasing the enemy, performing directional dodge attacks, or giving yourself space to breathe. What matters is landing your first hit on the enemy, and knowing when to back off during your combo string. Most enemies could be stunned and locked to death if they know what you are doing.
Third, night mode. Pseudo could just take off his skin at the tent by waking up at night. That is important as night mode allows you to open up paths (pass thorn bushes and thorn guardians) for daytime Pseudo. There are also items only available in night mode, which a handy steam guide: "Secrets" by Magnus , helped me a lot to 100% the game.

Critique

Let me be honest, the story in this game is there just so to justify fighting people. It's not deep, and the epilogue is jarring and sudden with no build-up I felt that Pseudo and the boy should have had a heart-to-heart conversation after beating up the big bad. The characters, however, are interesting. Pseudo, the boy, Npcs, and the bosses felt like individual people. Nothing to complain about here.
Autosaves, are good and also a bad implementation. It's good as it means I could reload my last save so I could experiment and try some risky ideas out before having to fully commit, or reset my progress when I found my performance undesirable so I can grind out perfection. It's bad because I was soft-locked in the town due to weird interactions with the pact artifact, and the Eo cutscene didn't trigger forcing me to start a new save. And also I couldn't have a save file before a boss I like to refight. Just nitpicks and glitches.
But you play this game for the combat, and the combat feels just right. You could cancel your moves into another move, a variety of special attacks which spice up your combat, and the super meter when you want to kill something. The upgrade stat "Endurance" is... negligible, but that's probably because my play style is hyper-aggression so my guard meter is always low. There is also the issue of having to fight multiple enemies at once, but most enemies usually hang back while you focus on the big guy, or you can always attempt to blitz an enemy down with combos or your super. Some gank fights I did find annoying, but you have enough healing cylinders that you could survive it with no problem.
Also, why do we fight the final 3 bosses multiple times before we fight them for real at the end? I get the secret shadow fights ("hard mode" of the bosses), but they just appear during day time as a roadblock with no explanation, and that kind of feels like the developers are just reusing bosses to pad out playtime. Why???
Then there is the ritual... the dice game before some fights... which you can just always skip. The debuff isn't worth it, the Corwids don't abide by that rule, and most of the time the enemy has better tools and dice than you. It's a cool idea, but not that strong.
While I am rambling here, the map of Zenozoik is great. Shortcuts back to the previous area surprise me with how interconnected everything is, the uniquely beautiful environment design and enemy placement are not annoying and well thought out, exploration and secrets areas that reward you with upgrade materials or even a new special attack, map designed with the player's tool kit in mind: jumping and combat, and environment being around the height of Pseudo so you could peer over terrain to see where you are. It's a small map tightly packed with content.
Music is... tribal? I guess that's the best way to describe it. It really suit this game's setting. "23. Pseudo returns" might be the best track as it gets you pumped up and the situation it plays during the game.

Conclusion

I liked this game, enough to recommend it to other people. It's not that difficult, but you must master the combat to be able to dominate the game. A game will always have flaws, but a good game does so much good that you ignore the flaws. Clash: Artifacts of Chaos does that successfully. I rank this a Yakuza 5 out of a Dark Souls: Prepare to Die.