Some choices are odd, and difficult.. and you can tell when something is out of step with what gamers want or are used to, just by looking at the most popular mods. Among the many reasons to have the mod, a big one is addressing missteps or issues or gripes. Immediately you could find things like:
Hey, how about I always know where I am on the map? Seems like a good idea instead of an optional choice that forces me to choose the compass over some other tool.
Hmm, maybe getting hit for double damage is a bit… excessive? Let’s fix that.
Oh, the good ol’ extremely long walk of shame between your rest stop and the boss you’ve been trying to kill the past hour. That’s always a bag of endless torment. How about we just respawn at the start of the screen instead?
No easy mode or assist mode to allow you to modify difficulty.. hence the necessity of a cheat mode. Yes, you can always have a vision for your game, and obviously difficulty is the vision for this one.. but that isn’t jeopardized if you let a sliver of people to play the game at their own terms.
Many bosses and gauntlets reward you with nothing but progress/access.. and I recall at least one that doesn’t give you that bare kindness.
The heart quantity, healing and damage is a terrible trio of death. Having 5-6 hearts mixed with double-damage attacks means you’re always 3 hits away from death. Meanwhile your healing only heals 3 hearts max; so barely staves off the very common specter of death. Add on top of that the walk of shame thing, and the mechanics are in an unholy concert of frustration.