It's definitely and deliberately structured differently. The hyenas are weaker than the boars, but also lighter on their feet. As a consequence, the battles, and the hypno, are designed to hit weaker, but also much faster. Fights in CS1 were this long, dragged out thing. Whereas in GT, they go by pretty fast, and the hypno, while a little longer in some ways, is designed to really only happen once per battle, if it happens at all. Even the attack animations are edited to come in faster.
The consequence of all of this is that it's a little more light and airy: you can go from group to group, sometimes three at a time if you're feeling risky, without recharging in the early game. But because it moves so fast, you also REALLY have to know what you're doing with items and health management, because there isn't as much margin for error. It'd still call it far from punishing (I'm assuming you know about the heal ability outside of battle), and not so much save scumming most of the time as just proper resource management. Once you get the one-two-three punch of Hard Knocks, recharge and basic attack honed a lot of it is actually pretty easy. But again, fast means that everything tends to be resolved quickly, whether in your favor, or not.
I should also clarify that using items in battle is in no way "cheating," the system is very much built with the assumption that you'll be using full heals to buy yourself time in certain situations. Is winning possible without doing so? Sure, but that WILL take a lot of save scumming, as the balance wasn't designed with that in mind.