You’re definitely not wrong me friend, I did find the first game hard in terms of it’s combat so had to find a video where there was casual end game armour in a random chest you could find so I did that and only then did the game become fun for me. Single player gaming should he however you want to play. And because it’s single player I can guarantee a mod/workaround to the save issue will be made

I didn’t find too awful, I’m a save scummer and it did force me into better gaming practices and grinding from then schnapps