I've played my fair share of first - person dungeon crawlers, so
grinding doesn't bother me at all - this is a staple in RPGs in general for me and considering I've been playing them most of my life, I have no problem with this - but having this level of punishment only because I haven't been able to save - a system that doesn't necessarily have to do anything with my inability to fight or lack of power in my characters - gives this sense of «see how far you can go and start
over again if you die» like
old arcade games would do.