I had a similar experience. The low inventory cap combined with being able to find a wide variety of key items really burnt me out on the game quickly as, invariably, I’d end up needing to explore to find what items I needed to bring with me, which meant using up resources just to learn what’s around the corner, which often meant that I was better off finding a destination, then immediately loading a save rather than working backwards to get what I needed. That temptation to do a light version of save scumming (or just dying) really brought me out of the experience.

Another commenter recommended using a walkthrough and I think that’s a reasonable take (for me), in the form of “focus on the parts of games you like, and minimize the parts you don’t,” but my end goal has been “I have a friend who loves this game. Sometime I should invite them over and have them give me light guidance on what I should be doing”