I bought this game on a friend's advice the other day and sat down tonight to play it. Five hours later I'm hooked. I have intentionally not read much of this thread to avoid spoilers, but early on they were looking for comparisons, and that is easy:
This is Maximo meets RPG stat-management. And Maximo was the 3D version of Ghosts and Goblins. The "difficulty" isn't that the game cheats you, it is that it is unforgiving. Do things right, or die and go do it again until you get it right.
They seriously do need an actual "pause" on it, though. I really shouldn't be having to worry about getting attacked while on a pee break