How many times have you played through the game?

aoanla if you're struggling my suggestion would be to farm head flail from dullahammer and ether from ghosts. That way you can power up quite a bit before attempting the boss fight again. You could also take a look at lai's boss beating guide here on the forums to get a better understanding of how best to avoid Vepar's attacks.

and yet the dev decided to nerf the game. Now, you have even lower chance to beat the boss.

Come on now. There is chance that he used flame cannon. When flame cannon is nerf, he has even less chance to beat Vepar. That's is simple logic. I am talking about the possibilities, nerf is definitely not helping him to beat the boss. On the contrary, it might lower his chance to beat the boss.

I think part of the problem here is that I wasn't really feeling the boat section in general (and didn't really want to grind it, since I was feeling a bit frustrated - although some of that might have been down to spending 20 or 30 minutes trying to get the one technique you can find on the boat consistent, and failing). If the solution to beating bosses is always going to be "grind until it's easy enough for you"...

aoanla Nah, that's only one possible option if you don't feel like mastering the patterns of a boss. You can certainly beat every boss in the game without any grinding. Just takes some practice then ^^ The game opens up more after the ship and you'll have even more ways to progress. Hope you'll get there, cause I think it's a great game overall. Cheers!

aoanla I generally agree - a first boss shouldn't be all that hard to beat. I'm sorry Vepar has been giving you such a hard time and I can empathize: Back when I was playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the first time many years ago, I couldn't beat the first boss for an hour and put the game away. It was only years later that I picked it up again and recognized how much I was missing out on by stopping to play back then. Maybe it'll just take a little time and with a fresh approach you'll beat the boss. Good luck!

Twice and It will stay that way for a long time till the bugs are gone.

I played it once on PC and got the bad ending. I will complete the game and play more times if and when the Switch version gets 60 FPS.

I find her easiest to hit with the claymore because it has that overhead swing. That way you don't have to jump as high. Hold down the jump button until you're almost on top of your jump arc and then hit attack. You should be able to hit her face.