So far I would say the closest game to this is is Blackguards. I So far I prefer it to blackguards, though that's no surprise as I really disliked blackguards for it's randomness, bad mechanics and unpolished feel.
Which is actually not that far away from Blackguards
In Blackguard for example you often did not have the time pressure. The result: Many missions you optimized by kiting the enemy around, just running back and fourth, exploiting that your character had one field more range or something similar.
You seem to be the only one so far keep referencing Blackguards, but from what I've read and seen of the game so far there are very few real comparisons here and that referencing Blackguards is actually a whopping red herring. [By the way, I don't remember using kiting in Blackguards at all, let alone exploiting it, but I only ever played on normal difficulty, but that's a side-track point]. However, Blackguards is such a recurring reference for you that it would be nice if you actually said why you feel it is comparable as I'm not sure if comparing the two is being 'genuine' to any Blackguards fan.
From what I've seen, the only real comparison is that you travel on a world map rather then navigate the world on-foot. In blackguards your destination could be a number of areas, from combat screens to NPC homes to town squares, but it seems like Druidstone is always either your start point or a combat screen? To which the only other comparison is that the combat screen is then contained within it's own individual chess-board and takes place in a turn-based system.
I wouldn't describe Blackgards destinations as missions, more often than not you're just encountering a monster, the same as you would in any RPG, to which you are free to deal with that monster however your build prefers, in as many turns as you like. In Druidstone
all scenarios are essentially puzzles with a specific objective beyond 'kill all enemies' are they not? While Blackguards may spice things up with the
occassional combat scenario which is a
bit puzzly, in Druidstone it's
always puzzly, yes?
And when Blackguards is
occasionally puzzly, it is doing so because one of it's unique selling points was the concept of "manipulation of the environment", ie: you could set a table on fire and the skeleton would stand on the fire while attacking you, providing extra damage, something that was entirely optional and just 'cool'. I'm not seeing any environmental aspects to Druidstone with regards to the puzzles, to which the example of respawns makes evident: In the
rare times Blackguards had respawns in a scenario you could close-up the holes that generated the respawns, Druidstone seems to have no similar option and more than that uses respawns in
every (?) encounter regardless of creature type or sense of realism.
Even the words used in describing the scenarios is different, in Blackguards you complete quests, whereas in Druidstone you complete missions hence: in Blackguards you can never re-do a scenario once completed whereas in Druidstone you can re-do scenarios as much as you like?
Blackguards has a massive character creation and build system [you call "very bloated" which I find to be a very unfair and inaccurate description] combined with a level-up system which put the focus of player-interest in the development of their characters, whereas Druidstone has no character creation and a very basic level-upping system.
The stroy of Blackguards took up quite a lot of screen time, either in dialogues, cut-scenes or following up on leads, where as Druidstone is much more just looking for an excuse to do another puzzle-mission, no?
And from your first quote, Blackguards has randomness (dice, to-hit etc) where as Druidstone doesn't (deterministic), again an important difference in 'RPGness' design. I also just disagree that Backguards is either unpolished or has bad mechanics, it always stuck me as a very polished game with both interesting and unique mechanics, but you're referring to Druidstone as polished when other people are saying a lot of the unpleasant elements of it's puzzle scenarios come from unpolished AI design and the like; AKA cheap tricks, and Blackguards never needed to use cheap tricks.
Have I missed something which really makes them actually comparable, either in genre or gameplay that no-one's communicated yet?
[I've also posted this in the Druidstone news thread so people know where your other quotes come from]