I got as far as the witch's castle before I started getting constant game overs. After that, I decided to cheapify it by giving myself 999 HP because I was dying in one hit from everything. Seriously, those things hit way too damn hard. 
Well, it seems a bit too emu geared, as your AI companions are more often than not obstacles.
It helps a lot to range and evade. Also, telling your AI companies to not engage (aka keep away at bottom of the screen) helps a lot.
Spiky Tiger involved some luck.. you need to actually spend for Neko's Chocolates (or pray the eye monster drops a Chocolate or two) and Cup of Wishes and try to hit from long range with your main character.
One of things that you may notice is that your evade is crap.. but that's because they seem to have removed/disabled the evade bonus for equipping any piece of equipment on your bod.
We have EVEN MORE themes now, but some old ones are gone...