The bonfire mechanic (meditation spots), enemies respawn every time you rest (meditate), XP that is lost when you die. Hack and slash combat that rewards good dodge and parry timings.

It's more of a Soulslite because there's basically a checkpoint for the perk points that is permanent after you get it. There are also difficulty settings in the game that adjust the damage that you receive and the parry window.

This is out of the topic of the Souls element of the game, but I love the realistic combat modifier in NG+ where the battles are much more realistic where you and the enemies will die after getting one or two hits. It's similar to the Lethal difficulty on Ghost of Tsushima. Made the game much more enjoyable and made you really feel like you're playing a Kurosawa movie.