I thought so too and that was my first boss and when in finally took him down I thought to myself "that was way Way WAY too hard for a Zelda game". Thats when a hint in the game finally made sense so I restored to test and yea, it was relatively easy if you do the right things.

Similarly with other combat I thought it was way harder than other Zeldas. When I was near finishing the game I went online and checked "how to fight a lynel" (the hardest enemy imo). Watching that opened up some ideas and combat got much easier and more exciting. I kind of wish I had looked it up earlier. I was literally at Hyrule Castle on my way to complete the game when I looked.

I thoroughly enjoyed the game but my previous Zelda experience also limited my thinking about what's possible. I feel like I missed a large part of the game play because of that

"normal Zelda's" being the other 3D ones?

Breath of the Wild has far more in common with the original Legend of Zelda than with the more recent games.

Some may consider that this game approaches the difficulty of the NES/SNES Zelda titles a return to form. Though, I suppose that those are not really 'Normal' Zelda games anymore.