I don't want to go on about this, but I agree with everything everybody said THAT ACTUALLY PLAYED THE GAME!
Also, puzzles = non-necessary secrets to the game's plotline. Anything you CAN do, but is non-necessary to finishing the game, yet will net you necessary gain. I guess my interpretation of puzzles is more along the lines of exploration/discovery of secrets than the strictly Myst interpretive version of puzzles.
Oh yes, I don't know if anyone noticed, but (spoiler ahead) you can roll off the ledge in front of skellies throwing bombs at you, right by the bonfire you are at, Surf Dude, and grab the ring the black knight is guarding before dying to him. You will respawn at the bonfire with his ring, which may help you a bit before getting to the next area.
As far as Havel (big guy), yeah, backstab is the best way about it, though you can also kick him off the stairs repeatedly to kill him.
I do not know how they're going to port the controls to PC, but I have high hopes for this game.
And yeah, since it is the only dungeon crawl in effectively the last 11 years, best game in the past 11...
I'm not even going to argue, this is my favorite genre, bar none, and I may have joined the PC gaming community just a few years too late to appreciate any of the good early ones.
Regardless, this gives me flashbacks to Lands of Lore II, perhaps my favorite game of all time. And the Taurus demon is easy, use the falling attack from the ledge overhead to damage him, run past him, let him chase, roll behind him, crawl back up tower, and jump off and hack at him again.
Those are my main tips.
And yeah, grab a walkthrough. My general way of playing was to take each area solo, then go BACK through it, comparing and contrasting five different walkthroughs and a strategy guide, to make sure I combed the entire game first time through. I still missed about five items semi-options I could have completed, which leads me to believe this is an entirely amazing game, as not one strategy guide has discovered EVERYTHING about this game yet...
And yes, most of the game is told through you implication.
As with any good game, the plot makes you go on strictly on the "WTF?" value of the beginning, and the plot unravels as you go. Though the Japanese, subtle bastards, told this one entirely through symbolism, ala Silent Hill 2. Good game!
I do not like too much narrative, as it imposes on my imagination, and eventually starts corroding my creative vision of how the game relates to me. It almost "intrudes" on my gameplay experience. Sometimes, an unfolding experience is best...