I am going to go out on a limb and assume unfamiliarity with the mechanics made things harder for you than they should have been.
Undoubtedly. At the time, though, it didn't seem worth the effort to check for options that could help. Nothing in particular about the other gameplay elements at the start of the demo was that appealing, so I didn't give the combat another shot.
For the fight in question, entering a largish area I sent 2 party member off to the right to fight a few bats, and the rest started left for another weak-ish opponent or two, when a bear came in from the front, so 2 (maybe just 1) of the left group went straight and had a tough time until the 1 (possibly 2) on the left was done and could join in attacking the bear. When that hectic fight (even with pause) was done, I realized I hadn't checked on the two that went right for awhile, and (wondering if they were still alive) found them standing around doing nothing, with barely any damage. Obviously it was my fault for not paying attention to everyone, or checking if there were any notifications or automatic settings for when a character was done doing what he was told to do, but at the time, even if there were such settings it seemed like there would still be too much babysitting required.
