Thoughts regarding this update.
Apparently now you start the game dealing much less damage and having less hp and mp, plus you also get damaged a lot more. This is obviously related to the fact that now you can increases 4 primary stats in order to become stronger (I don't think this was happening on previous versions).
To beat the 1st boss, I noticed I needed to grind quite a bit, increasing my attack damage and defense plus hp in order to get through it. I sincerely hope this isn't going to be streamline throughout the game as it'll probably end up being very boring...
After the 1st boss, people reported here that it's infuriating to do anything on the lower levels, even so to find a save point. This is to be intentional apparently, since you can grab a power up for your attacks, which multiply the damage by 4, making the enemies on lower levels incredibly easy. From this point on you can easilly find the only 2 save points available there.
A suggestion is to first take the right route, as you can get the power faster from there, but it'll require you to know a couple of tricks (which I believe you can easilly find out, if you still haven't). You should then go to the save point on that same route and save the game. From there on you can easilly grind everything.
About the enemies, I don't find them to be recicled as so far the only ones that are being reused are those flying things. However I'd say that some animations are recicled? Some new positions with several transitions (such as an animation on being grabed) would be nice, but I guess that's not going to happen on this game.