Completely doable if you know it inside out. Do this, do that, except even "exploration" is limited since most of the time she's on the floor as even taking a stroll pulls a ridiculous stamina burden on MC. So you ether waste time figuring things out or waste time on the internet reading guides or how to just cheat it... again, bad design.
You managed to sum it up perfectly. Just like you said, nobody is asking MC to be Kratos, but the default settings are simply ridiculous. A sandbox where you can't even sandbox because one wasted movement means you better start over.
If some folks like it the way it is and/or have it all figured out, that doesn't make it any less of a bad design. It's also OK if they want to be the dark souls of H games, but hey, I played DS and at least I was able to move there.