I've figured out I can control the game with the numpad, but my gamepad is much more comfortable.
That said, everything in this game feels like sludge. The fight duels especially feel like 90% of the animation frames went missing. Does anyone know any work arounds?

That's actually the way the game is programmed. That being said, you want to keep an eye on the red gauge next to your life gauge. That's your fatigue meter and the higher it gets, the slower and more lethargic your attacks can get, which in this game you want to do some dodging of enemy attacks to lower your fatigue enough to where you can continue slashing.

You figured it out? Can you elaborate?

I can't find the buttons to slash/stab and I pressed all of them.
Enter opens inventory, arrows allow walking but other than that... I don't know.

Thanks in advance.

Yeah I couldn't tell you. The numpad is just to get greater control over the 8 directions, but I found that when I plugged in my gamepad, that worked as well. When I first got into one of the fights, I thought everything was standing still at first and that the game wasn't working right, but looks like the attack and dodge buttons have to be entered in conjunction with a left or right direction.

The action buttons are R-Shift and Return. In battle, holding R-Shift then pressing a directional key (whether cursor or on the numpad) slashes or stabs with your sword. Holding Return while pressing the right or left cursor key (or 4 or 6 on the numpad) dodges left or right.

Outside of battle, R-Shift acts as the fire button (such as to shoot fireballs). Return takes you to your inventory. You can then select the item you want to use and press Return again.

L-Shift may work in these cases too, but I always use the one on the right side of the keyboard.

Thank you!

Battle animations are almost non-existant for me.. I just bought it on sale, had some fond memories on NES with this. But it simply isnt playable in this state for me. Gonna have to refund if theres no fix.

This is absolutely essential to know to play the game! They should update the support materials to include it.

At first, I thought that the game was not working. It works fine. The keyboard and mouse won't work, but this game works using my Xbox 360 controller with no problems at all.

Just bought and tried this today. I own a laptop, so no numpad here. I can't get this character to slash, stab or shoot fireballs with either shift key, nor control or alt keys. Enter/Return simply gives me the inventory. Any ideas?