After playing this game for quite a while, I just noticed it has an offline mode. The nice thing about it, is that you can put your PS5 in sleep mode, and continue where you left off, which you cannot do in online mode of course.
I did a melee weapon only run (by choice), and only used firing weapons if I needed to destroy those things in the sky. Made it to level 6 with one continue, and one bought continue. It's a good challenge if you want to try it, and if you get a few melee bonuses, it helps quite a bit.
The bat is infinite in use, but the sword only has a limited number of uses.
Holding the R2 key down with the bat, the character will continue to swing automatically, but with the s