Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, I see what you mean. Unfortunately I caught a bug after submission that doubled the player's knockback distance.
Additionally, the decision to ramp up the enemies per level was to try and make sure most players got to a point where they could chain attacks together (the most satisfying part of the game, imo).
That being said I think these things in unison made the game too frustrating too quickly.
I'll likely publish an update with a smoother difficulty curve after the jam concludes!