Three modes, and you are not locked in
Story, Normal and Hard. You can change between them at any point in a playthrough, and switching does not reduce the rewards you get. Story Mode softens parry timing and enemy damage for players who are here for the narrative — and because rewards are unaffected, taking it is not a compromise on what you unlock.
Dying costs nothing meaningful
There is no significant death penalty. In a genre built on losing your currency at a corpse, this is the design decision most worth knowing up front, because it makes experimentation free. If you are unsure whether you can parry a boss’s second-phase opener, the cost of finding out is a loading screen.
What this means in practice
Play more aggressively than the genre trains you to. FP only comes from parries, so a cautious player is a starved one — and the usual reason to be cautious has been removed.