Third play through attempt it finally made sense to me amd I was able to complete it without too much trouble. I applied a mod that prevented me from losing my geo because the anxiety of losing all my money cos I'm bad actually made it hard to want to play. With this mod applied i had no real qualms stomping around the world and dying all the time which made it significantly more enjoyable for me, the idea of being punished for exploring and being bad felt counter to what i was supposed to be doing.
Good game with great art and personality. All the voices of the bugs are now part of my personality. Only content left to do is grimm troupe and path of pain (no I'll never do pantheons not even with a gun to my head) but after 40 hours I'm a bit fatigued.
Next up... Crosscode 
GG!
I think it's supposed to be, like, egging you on to keep exploring a path rather than giving up because it was hard? I don't think it was really necessary either.
Shaw!
I didn't think grimm troupe was all that good. Path of pain is... well it is exactly what it is. I think one of the easier pantheons is pretty fun to show how far you've come, but doing all of them is for people who like boss challenges a lot more than I do.